Day 51 - Thirsty Dahlia

After mowing and working in my yard this afternoon (including watering all my flowers), I spent some time taking pictures.  The water on the flowers was fun to capture.  I really loved this one as the water is about to drop off the pedals.  I actually sat there for about 3 minutes trying to get it to drop so I could take a picture of it falling - I was kicking the pot with my foot - but it wouldn't fall for me.  

Day 50 - Branch

Another last minute photo today - but turned out kind of interesting anyhow.  It's a faux branch that is actually bendable and a bit spongy.  I have it sitting on my kitchen floor to try and take advantage of the lighting there.  The warm brown in the background are my cupboards.  I still had to use my flash but also needed a diffuser as it was too much light, so a kitchen towel over the flash turned out to work pretty well.  I guess even if all my photos are not gallery-worthy, I'm learning some great techniques along the way.

Day 49 - Shade

Beaded shade from a candle I have.... I PROMISE to be more creative tomorrow!

Day 48 - Mirror Mirror

So unfortunately I moved right from weeks of wine studying into a very busy work project as we move into our next month of production cutover. That said, I've been less than creative in my photos the last few days. This one didn't turn out too bad - it's actually the frame of the mirror in my half bath. Ray thinks it looks like puppy's.... I'm not so sure.

Day 47 - Iron Shadows

Tired tonight - not a great specimen of photography.  But I do like how the shadows play against the wall.

Day 46 - I'm Not Breaking My Nails

OK, bad quote from one of my favorite movies (Grease 2 - yes 2 is WAY better than the original...).  If you haven't seen it - it's really a must.  Anyhow - Paulette refuses to put her fingers in the bowling ball holes because she doesn't want to break her nails!

Day 45 - Dreaming

After a nice long Memorial Day weekend, I'm really starting to look forward to my upcoming vacation - a trip to wine country to participate in my first half marathon!  The half marathon takes us from Napa to Sonoma and starts off our 7 day vacation.  For the rest of the trip we will be doing as much wine tasting, touring and eating as we can!

Day 44 - Sprinkler

OK, so I have to fess up - I did not get a picture taken on day 44 (Sunday).  We were busy finishing lawn work and getting ready to have friends over for a cookout and I fell asleep by the fire before I could get a picture taken.  So, I still feel the need to post a "Day 44" so I decided to use what I had been doing on Sunday instead of taking pictures!  This is the watering of the latest addition to my front year - the perennials.  The front is now finished with the exception of the stone boarder with will come later this summer.  Because I feel bad about missing a day - I'll include a photo of the finished product as well!

Day 43 - Iron and Glass

Another Saturday full of yard work and not a lot of thought into a photo for today.  I ended up using a wrought iron candle holder that was back lit by one of my living room lamps.  The combination of the iron and glass along with the reflections by the lamp gave the photos as interesting aspect.

Day 42 - Menu

Out for an evening of fun to celebrate my good friends' Todd and Mark's birthday's!  We had a great time and I even got a few fun photos in of a long empty table with menu's and place settings.  I love the bokeh in this photo!

Day 41 - Wooden Tulips

Relaxing after work and errands and I almost forgot to get a picture in today!  So household items again - tonight some wooden tulips.  With the black background and come additional light I thought it had an interesting dimension. 

Day 40 - Tea Time

Another night of searching around the house for a subject took me to my built-in china cabinets.  I tried a number of different shots of different dishes but this one stuck me as the most interesting.  I liked the gold edge on the handle.

Day 39 - Hosta-la-Vista

Beautiful summer-like night and I was scouring the outdoors for something to photograph. The neighbors hosta's caught my eye - don't ask me why - these are one of my least favorite plants, especially this particular color.  But with close up lens it turned out quite nice.  I like the melty feel of most of the surrounding photo and how the white gives the picture some dimension.

Day 38 - Dusk

Tonight was the big night - the wine test! Not sure how I did - but you only need 55% to pass - so I have that going for me! I wasn't sure what I wanted to take a picture of, but I had my camera in the car when I went to my test. When I came out, it was still dusk and the sky was a very cool pink as the sun was setting. This picture is taken looking West down Wells Street in downtown Milwaukee. I didn't have my tripod, but there seemed to be enough light to keep the blur factor down. Overall I like it, although I think the sky was a bit more vivid in person.

Day 37 - Stem

Seeing as I have been studying for my wine test all weekend (its tomorrow - ready or not!), I thought wine an appropriate subject for tonight's photo.  I took a number of different perspectives, but thought this one was unique - you don't see a lot of photos of the stem of a wine glass.  And with the window in the background, I thought it had an interesting feel.

Day 36 - Grillin'

Saturday night grill out with family and friends - brats and burgers - yum!  Spent most of the day studying for my wine test on Monday, and also working.  So a nice dinner break was in order.  Although sunny, not all that warm - especially with the wind.  So all 17 of us ended up inside for dinner - wozers!

Day 35 - Lovely Day

Finally Friday, and Lovely Day for a Guinness.  Not much else to say today - long day ending a long week.

Day 34 - Closing Time

Dinner at Il Mito but still needed a picture.  The lime green chairs were striking under the lights, especially with the chrome.  The light was a bit dim, but the effect turned out well.  Great end to my pumpkin ravioli dinner!

Day 33 - Dumpling

Long day, raining outside, Chinese for dinner, studying and working before bed - very little creativity.  Tried my close-up lens on dinner - Singapore Rice Noodles and steamed veggie dumplings.  The rice noodles looked less than appetizing in the photos - so I went with the somewhat bland (looking) dumplings.  They were tasty though.

Day 32 - Stoned

Moving into month two... I have started a list of places, things or ideas that I want to photograph and on my list was an interesting stone bridge on my way to the grocery store (hey - you take em where you can find em).  I had some very traditional pics of the bridge, but I really like the close-up of some of the stones.

Day 31 - Focused Fern

So I am about a month into my project and I'm still enjoying it.  I do feel like I gravitate to certain types of photos but perhaps that is my growing style.  I had a little time before wine class again tonight, and I had to head home to water my new plants (see Day 28, 29 and 30 posts) so I looked to my existing backyard for a subject.  Besides my new plantings, I have a lot of random plants intermixed with weeds - but this little fern caught my eye with its textured leaves.  I was using my close-up lens in this shot and I liked the focus areas in this picture - it was quite dynamic.

Day 30 - Bonus Post

As a bonus, I thought I would show the progress from this weekends yard work!  We are exhausted, but very happy with the results!

Before...

During...

During...

After...

Vegetable Garden...

There is still much more to come in the front yard... perennials, some bulbs, mulch and and edging... but the horrid bushes are now gone!  Hopefully it will be 99% complete by Memorial Day weekend!

Day 30 - Herbs

Spent today completing phase one of my front yard project, but did have enough time to get a few of my vegetables for my new garden planted as well.  I decided to only plant the peppers as its still a bit cool at night - so my herbs will need to hang out in my garage for another week or so before they go into the ground.  

Day 29 - Roots

Man (or woman) + SUV + large rope vs. shrub roots... large rope loses (aka breaks).  Another trip to hardware store for large chain.  Man (or woman) + SUV + large chain vs. shrub roots... woman (or man) wins!!!  Took a few hours... pesky roots... and 3 trips to the dump with yard waste - but it was worth it.  Now I have 2 large piles of semi-wet mud on either side of my front porch (it rained last night).  Good times...

Day 28 - Chop Chop

So you may be wondering why this photo is called "Chop Chop".  Sure, its clearly a branch of some sort cut off a tree or bush.  I liked the look of the "spokes" coming off the main branch. But, back to the title, this little guy was just one of many that I could have photographed. You see today I started a weekend project of ripping out the six hideous bushes in my front yard to plant new flower beds.  Below is one of the two piles of the destruction.  If you're thinking "wow, Julie, nice work" you're giving the wrong person credit as Ray really did the heavy lifting (while I mowed the lawn).  Tomorrow the real fun begins when we pull the roots out with my truck!

Day 27 - Splish Splash

Thought I would try some action - or stopping action, as the case may be - shots today.  I again attempted to try out the flash my neighbor lent me but it blew the whole picture out, so I ended up using my built-in flash along with some overhead light in my kitchen.  Water is fun to work with - I'll be looking for more opportunities down the road!

Day 26 - Disguise

We had some very cool sky's tonight and I was out trying to get some shots of the new tree buds with the sky in the background, but there was just not enough light and all my shots were blurry.  So I moved over to try some mushrooms in my yard (errrrr) that were lit by the street light.  That didn't work either, so I took a shot or two of a sad little tree in my front yard - and I quickly realized that the street light in the background could almost look like the moon behind the tree.  This was my favorite "disguise" of the street light behind the tree as the moon.

Day 25 - Bokeh Flowers

Now that I have my new close-up lens I've become a bit of a bokeh (the out of focus areas of a photo produced by a shallow depth of field) freak!  I couldn't pick just one tonight - so you get two!  I was eyeing up a yard on the corner of an intersection on my way home - they had a beautiful magnolia tree as well as tons of tulips.  With some very limited trespassing (I had to step one foot on their lawn) I was able to get some cool shots!

Day 24 - Orange Rust

Today I took my camera with me to work so that I could get some pictures after work, but before wine class - so you don't have to suffer with another random object I found around my house! There are these old water towers that are on the Harley Davidson Museum grounds and I drive past them every day on the way home from work. They have a great texture and I have been wanting to stop and get some pictures - so today I did! I loved the contrast of the shapes as well as the rust, rivets and bold orange color.

Day 23 - Munchkins

Today was our photo shoot with both kids - and my last day visiting
:-( Beckett slept the whole time, which was to our benefit, and Elise was a very good big sister! We ended up with some great shots of the two of them as well as some fun pictures of Elise by herself. These are two of my favorites!

Day 22 - Precious

Today we had a fun photo shoot for Beckett's newborn pictures. We probably took about 500 pictures in the process - but heck why not? He slept the whole time, but that was probably good, because a moving baby can make pictures a bit difficult. These are just two of my favorites!

Day 21 - Play Land

Cute kid alert.... we had some fun in the mall after dinner tonight. Jump land had a weekday special for $5 as long as you wanted to play - so Elise and I played hard! This pic was taken on auto mode and had some red eye issues - but Amy and I teamed up and she corrected it! We both loved the look on her face here. This was taken after she would slide head first down that side and then crawl back over and do it again!

So clearly I didn't take this, as I am in it - but these were SO much fun I had to post one!  The camera work here is courtesy of Amy!  Elise was laughing so hard she wouldn't let me stop.  I was sweating my butt off when we were done!