Bowing Down

Three Years

Tomorrow will mark the third anniversary of sharing my life with a pug named Grace.  In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I bought her first leash and collar in a brilliant bright green. 

She has certainly been a challenge at times - but so very worth it.  I really can’t imagine my life without her flat nose getting into everything that smells like food.  People tell me that pug stands for “part pig/part slug.”  I’d have to agree.  What they don’t tell you is how much you will grow to love the little creature that sheds on all your furniture and who puts absolutely everything she can find on the floor into her mouth. 

Despite her flaws, she has taught me much about life, a few lessons about God, and a ton about photography (hey, you try to properly expose that black face with that light tan colored body!) 

She’s my girl and I love her.  Happy St. Paddy’s Day / Anniversary, Miss Grace.

A Midwinter Night’s Dream

I must be in a really “reflective” mood right now.  I seem to always end up at the water’s edge, right as the sun is setting, tree branches bouncing around on the surface of the water, with an image looking like something out of a movie.

And I keep wondering…haven’t I seen this all before in a dream?

Icy Hot

True, this ‘icy hot’ won’t loosen any tense muscles but, if you stare long enough, it does help unwind the mind. 

Witch’s Fingers

Some trees invite you to come sit in their branches.  Others become home for the nests of birds and squirrels.  Some provide shade when the summer sun is beating down.  Others color the landscape with their beautiful autumn leaves.

But some…

Some seem almost scary with their branches long and gnarled like a witch’s fingers, stretching down to scratch against your bedroom window and sending you shivering in fright beneath the covers… 

Mesmerized

There’s something about the reflection of items off a body of water that just mesmerizes me.  I managed to add several new images to my collection this past weekend - some with deep blue tints, some with a steel liquid grey cast, some with the sun setting across them, some with trees reflected downward…all of them lovely to sit and gaze upon. 

One of my favorites was this one.  There’s just something about the pattern of the brown tree limbs swirled onto the surface of the blue lake water that draws my eyes in and leaves my mind skimming across the silkiness of the water’s surface.

 

The Edge

This weekend got up into the 40’s so much of the snow and ice from earlier in the week began to melt.  I spent a few hours on Friday and Saturday at a local park, just happy to be out in the sun again. 

This was one of my favorite abstract images both because of the lines and the colors.  I hope you like it, too.

Peggy

Mother nature…she can be a bit of a hard ass.

Meet “Peggy.”

She lost her entire right foot somehow. 

A fight?  Disease?  A trap? 

I have no idea…

But tonight, as the other geese all squirmed in my presence, Peggy and I got better acquainted.  By the end of the afternoon we were BFF.  Tomorrow, I’m going back to this same lake to take her some bread crumbs and dried cereal.

Mother nature might be a hard ass but, lucky for Peggy, I’m not.   

Two By Two

I took my new Canon 70-200mm f/4 L lens for a spin today, trying to see what all it could do. I think I’m going to need a 300mm or 400mm telephoto if I’m going to get really serious about taking bird images in the wild but, considering this lens is lightweight enough that I can handhold it in good light, I’m really not complaining. Besides, look at the pattern of the tree reflection on the water that this baby created.

Be still my beating heart…

The Good and The Bad

The Bad:

I think I might have frostbite on a couple of my fingertips.

The Good:

I got some great photos…