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!