Last one - yay!

Ruth's challenge of The End/Final for yesterday, our last day, had me kind of flumoxed. I took a shot of my book with the bookmark near the end, but meh, took a shot of a stack of files about to be picked up by a client, again meh, so like Ruth, I wound up in the garden. I took a wet, wilted peony (sp?) slumped down on the ground, but I liked this shot a little better:

Something Blue

Second to last challenge! Patti gave us what should have been an easy one today - "blue". It was just too gloomy all day for anything indoors, but I managed to find these little blue flowers in a planter in our front yard.

fresh and ...

Sitting here watching Hellboy 2, b-o-r-i-n-g, figured I'd get my 2 photos of the day posted while I waste my life away. Ruth's challenge yesterday was "fresh" and today's purchases fit the bill nicely:



My challenge for today was simply to take a B&W photo. I usually convert my color photos to B&W but today I took them in B&W to begin with, just to see if it would make a difference. I don't find it does. This is just a sad little bundle of twigs by the sidewalk, waiting for garbage day.

The heat is on

I had an idea for my photo for my challenge today, which was "heat". I wanted sweat on a glass. I tried it with water first and liked the effect. Later I did it with my drink-of-the-day, Cranberry Sangria with Sourpuss Raspberry (slurp!). Problem with the evening drink was that I couldn't leave it sitting there long enough to get really sweaty - I had to drink it!

Anyhoo, I liked 3 of my shots and couldn't chose so I revisted Ruth's challenge from yesterday and combined the 3. :)

Dipstick?

Ruth's challenge for yesterday was diptych or something to that effect, which I just called dipstick because I couldn't remember it for the life of me. Anyway, the idea is to put two similarly themed photos together to present as one. I think...

Ugh, this is not going very well

I can't say I'm enjoying these photo challenges that much, but mainly because I'm my own worst enemy and I want to better myself and be happy with what I get. Yesterday's and today's photos? Bland, dull, meh.

for yesterday's challenge of backlit and/or silhouette, I'm posting 2 because I couldn't pick which one was slightly less dull than the other:





And today's challenge of red & white, found this while at the public pool with Alex' class this morning. It was either this or the Cdn flag. Yay.

Well, it's not like there's an abundance of that around here...

Ruth's challenge for yesterday was "manly" or "masculine" or something to that effect. I used my wide angle lens to take this shot of my brother in his tiny living room. The beer was for effect - his idea - because he's not much of a drinker!

One subject, Two challenges

The day got away from me yesterday and I didn't make it to my photo of the day. So today, I had to do both my challenge from yesterday of "curve" and Patti's challenge of "water. I used our bird bath for both - the curves of the bowl and the reflecting pool of water. Exciting, eh? ;)

That'll do

Ruth's challenge for today was an (ahem) color challenge: white.
Not much inspiration for me on this gloomy, vile day. As we were saying goodbye to sis and Breanna, mother pointed out one of her planters as a potential subject. Thanks mom, that'll do!

Making do

Patti's challenge for today: a row of colorful things. I went out walking with a specific house in mind, but when I got there I found the flowers I intended as my subject had started dying and were not very impressive. So I kept my eyes peeled the whole way home but didn't see anything interesting at all. This is the one thing that fit the challenge, though I don't find this "colorful" in the least. Alas, another failure for me! :)

Prepare to drool!

My challenge for the girls for today was FOOD, basically I wanted photos to make us all salivate. Conveniently enough, we were meeting for sushi so guess what we may all end up with? :)

It was a lovely lunch, as usual, preceeded by a stop at SC for a few odds and ends. Must say there isn't too much that inspires me there lately, I think I've truly reached the saturation point with scrapbook products. I've got to start making a dent in this ridiculous stash of mine so I think I should just stay away from the store for a while.

On the way home we stopped at Rockaberry's so I could pick up the keylime pie Mimi has been asking for lately. Brought it home and had a piece and then Patti stayed for a nice walk. Yay. A gorgeous day, wish they were all like this one.

So with 2 yummy treats today, I wound up with a tie for my photo of the day:

Moi, soaking up some sun before the deluge

Ruth challenged us to a self portrait today. My hair wasn't done, I didn't feel like putting on makeup, but after failing to get a shot for Patti's challenge yesterday, I couldn't skip another day! So I took a couple of quick ones this aft and this one is passable. I know it's not properly lit, but the blown out brightness camouflages my bad skin so I like it that way. :)

Crazy Lady With Camera

I'm sure that's what the drivers and cyclists along Riverside thought this afternoon. I felt very self conscious taking pictures of strangers, I hope no one minded. My challenge to the girls for today was to take a motion shot with either the subject blurred and the background in focus, or vice versa. I'd been wanting to try the panning technique for a while now so I thought I'd give myself a kick in the pants and get it done.

For my first attempt, I'm happy with result. I managed to get pretty decent focus of the moving thing. Thanks lady, whoever you are, for making this shot special and thus my favorite:



It was a tough choice though because I also like how this one turned out. I'd call it "The Passing Lane":

Small is beautiful

Here's my shot for Ruth's "small" challenge for today. There is a tiny little tomato just popping out at the bottom of this bunch. So this is kind of small within small since none of the tomatoes are very big yet. Kind of the Cindy-Lou Hoo of tomatoes. :)

Signs, signs, everywhere signs...

Patti's challenge for today was a photo of a sign with no writing. I believe they're called pictograms, but not sure. Anyhoo, I did a quick trip around the block at lunch time and got this shot:

Unexpected Girliness

My challenge for today's photo was something girly, frilly & feminine. I thought of this jewelery holder that my mother ordered for herself from a catalogue a little while ago. When it arrived, I assumed she had ordered it for me but no, it was for herself. I was so surprised because she has nothing else remotely like this in her room. I love that she broke out of her box and ordered something pretty for herself so spontaneously. Here it is:

Morning Routine

"Routine" was Ruth's photo challenge for today. I had a couple of thoughts - my glass of wine, a shot of my TV - but decided on my morning routine of shreddies and reading the paper. So here it is:

Creepy Crawlies

Patti's challenge for today was a bug. I found one in the pool and took tons of shots of it but all were kind of blurry and dull. Just as I was coming in after saying goodbye to Patti (thanks for the walk babe!), I spotted this gross guy on Mimi's car. I like the far away shot better because of the "object in the mirror", but I figured I'd show you the zoom so you'll believe there was actually a bug in the picture. Wouldn't want to be disqualified again... ;)

How many more days of this?

Here's my shot of the day, for my challenge to take a reflection shot. As opposed to reflexion. What can I say, I still have some french school ghosts left in me...



By the time I went out today the weather had turned crappy AGAIN and there wasn't a whole lot of reflection anywhere to be found. I thought this was pretty at least. I have a whole body of water in my backyard and it wasn't reflecting a darn thing. It's at all of 65 degrees by the way, so it'll be a while before I'm inviting people over to swim.

Inspiration let me down today

Ruth's challenge for today was "looking up". Hmmmm... well, I looked up all around my yard, couldn't find anything remotely interesting. Dull, dull, dull. I'll try again tomorrow to see if I can better this one:



This is a shot of our roof, which is slated to be replaced this summer.