Signs of spring

As I was leaving for Church this morning I noticed one little crocus peeking up the snow on the ground. So I decided to go out this afternoon and capture a few signs of spring I could see. By the time I got out the snow around the little crocus had melted.





I am not sure what this ground cover is called but it is starting to perk up and turn back to green.




Even the tree out front there are small buds starting to pop out.


Sadly the back of the house has no signs of spring yet, things are still pretty brown and dead but I know in the coming weeks there will be more signs of spring to be seen.





All but the first one was taken with my Macro lens. I am excited to use this lens whenthe flowers start to bloom. I might even break out the tripod to get them a little sharper.

More Macro fun

It is cold and wet here so I didn't venture to far with my 100mm macro lens but I did take a few outside and then headed back in to get a few more shots of the beaded fruit...



This is not a Macro but taken with the lens. I wanted to try ot get a silhouette.






This is the edge of a pinecone that also has glass beads and golg paint on it.

My new Macro Lens

As I mentioned earlier on 2 Peas I have a bad case of GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome)

Well as part of that I ordered the 100mm Macro leans and I am in love with it. I really had nothing interesting to shoot with it and of course I didn’t dig my tripod out so they are not as sharp as the could be but here is some of what I shot today. These are all sooc, and I just shrunk them down for the web, no cropping or PP since I simply didn’t have time. I can’t wait till there is some more interesting things to shoot with it. Not to mention what I can get using a tripod and shutter release.

What do you think CC always welcome. (You can click on images to see it larger)

Beaded Fruit



Smurf figureine


Froggy eyes




Seed pod from the evil weed outback







Oh and some of you might remember the shots I posted of the handmade Kaleidoscope I have
and were trying to figure out what it would look like looking through it. Well I tried to take a shot of it but it did not work out as well as I had hoped but here it is…

Work on the camera case begins

I have been finding it hard to get motivated to take pictures again. I have been doing a lot fo reatial therapy lately. Ordered 2 lenses, bought some sheets to use as backdrops, got some plexiglass, and someother misc things.. I have also started to work some on my Pelican case redesign.

So I have a few stickers to start working on my camera case. I bought the spray paint tonight (But need to wait till it warms up some so I can go outside to work on it) I also have gathered up a few stickers that will be a start for the case. Here is what I have gathered so far. (please ignore the poor focus and such...)

POTD Off topic

So I will admit I am feeling a little blue today so I really didn't get creative with my shot for today. Last night I discovered my kitty cat, Joey, was bleeding from the nose. As far as we know there was no trauma but he then started to walk funny, and needless to say I did not get any sleep last night because I was so worried about him and I kept getting up to check on him. See how pitifull my baby looks.



He is 15 so I realize there is a chance we might have to put him down if it is something serious but so far the vet has not been able to figure out why he is bleeding. They have ruled out any type of infection from bloodwork and no tumors from the head xray they did but he is there over night for observation. Even the dog has been looking all over the house for him to "play" with. I just want him to come home and be okay and look like he did in this picture from the summer. (he is an indoor kitty but when we are out doing yard work he likes to sit under the deck and watch and he is like a dog and will come inside when he is called)



On a happier not I got a new monitor for my computer and it is nice and sharp, I just need to calibrate it still. My grandmother wanted a newer monitor for her computer so I gave her my 19 inch and bought myself a 22 inch widescreen.

POTD Aperture - Pens

I want to thankall the peas that so kindly offered to find and send me a sticker for my case. Let me know if anyone that wanted to didn't get my address. I Peamailed or emailed everyone, I think.... I am excited to see how this adventure turns out..

Today I only had a few minutes between work and class to take a picture. I was in my hobby room and saw my markers in their holder and decided that looked like a colorful and cheerfull picture for a chilly gloomy day. I really am looking forward to longer daylight hours just so I can get some natural light and outdoor shots.

POTD Aperture - Tweety

Okay so user Gypsy Girl came up with a great idea for the outside of my camera case. She suggested having all the POTD peas send me a sticker of some sort from their state for me to use on the outside. So if anyone wants to send me something to use on my case let me know and I will get my address to you. I think it would be an awesome way to make my case more personal. I promise to post pictures when I get the outside done. My friend that gave it to me is anxious to see what I do with it too.

To answer a few other questions about my case.. It is very heavy when full but has wheels and is actually the largest carry-on size not that I see myself dragging that on a plane. I use it mainly for when I travel by car and need to take a lot with me, or if I head out on a location shot and want to take a lot of stuff with me and I will leave it in my car and run back to grab stuff I need. It also works out great if I need to get a higher vantage point because I can stand on it.

For today's picture I just decided to shoot my Tweety bank that sits on a shelf in my hobby room. When I was a little kiddo my grandfather always used to call me his tweety bird and after he passed away I started to collect Tweety things.

An update for my camera case

So there were a few questions about the weed picture I posted yesterday. I have no idea what kind it is but it grows SUPER fast and when it is genn it has huge prickly leaves. The root has this ball on the end that is the size of a basketball which is why I have only gotten around to digging one out.
Here is a picture of most of the plant



and one more close up



On another subject. I got a pelican camera case a few months ago from afriend of mine working in Iraq that decided it was too small for all his gear so I said I would be happy to give it a new home since he was upgrading.



AS you can see it came with foam in it which worked for a while but I saved up and bought the inserts as you can see here.




Now all I have to do is give the outside a face lift because desert tan really is not very expressive. I use the case mainly for storage of things when not in use so it cam be kept in one place but ion the occasions I wheel it with me I would like it to have a bit more flair. I think I will try spray paining it with Krylon paint for plastic and some bumper stickers....

Weeds

So I was playing with my aperture settings again and decided to take a picture of this seed pod on a giant weed growing in the backyard. This was my favorite one. Kinda boring, boy do I want spring to get here.

POTD APERTURE

A few answers to questions about my purse. Yes it is all different colors of leather and the brand is Lucky Brand, and I picked it up at Marshall's.

For my take ion the theme aperature I tried to take a picture of a wind shime in my back yard but the wind kept blowing and they all came out a little fuzzy but hopefully you can see I was trying to use a different aperture setting.

these were all shot with my 50mm lens ISO 100

This is at 1.8 1/4000



This is at 3.5 1/1000




This is at 9.0 1/125

POTD Diagonal

So with all the focus on horizontal and vertical this week I was feeling kind of bad for the diagonal lines out there. SO I decided to take a picture of my purse because I love the pattern on it.

POTD Kaleidoscope

This week's theme has been a challenge for me. I saw my Kaleidoscope sitting on the table by the window and decide to try to get a couple of shots of it for the POTD theme. This was made for me by a friend year's ago and I have always really liked it.