Sunday, August 22, 2010

Perfect Light

I take a lot of flower photos.


I think it's in my blood, flowers, I mean.


I come from a family of green-thumbs and while my personal ability to grow flowers is, shall we say, a bit lacking, I have found my knack for sharing the joys of flowers to be in my ability to capture them with a camera.


Or, at least I think so.


It all started when my Aunt Lou.


She's one of those green-thumbs who also happened to own a Flower Shop I was raised in, handed me my camera and sent me out to photograph her irises, daffodils, and tulips (no bulb flowers in this set of summer-time photos though).


For a while, I seemed to be inspired to take flower photos whenever I return to her mountain cabin.


Now, I do it anywhere and everywhere... even expanding into fruits and seeds as subjects.


I will cause the vehicle to stop and even make U-turns whenever I see a bright bit of color along the road.


It's gotten to the point where the boys even find flowers and point them out for me to photograph.


Of course, on our recent trip, I found "a few" flowers to capture, but one day in-particular, I found a flowerbed I'd been eye-balling in this amazing light of the nearly-setting sun.


Take a look at these photos!


The flowers just seem to glow!


One other thing about all these flower photos.


When I just took "casual" photos (and I do mean casual for me, but probably not for most people, I've always been a bit of a camera-hound) of "normal" things, I never thought to take flower photos. However. My Great Aunt Adeline and her brother (my Grandad) both took photos of things I found, well, weird.


They took, or shall I say, they TAKE, photos of flowers and food.


Now, here I am, doing the very same thing.


This shutterbug thing too must be in my blood.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Play, Play, Play!

Brother/Uncle's for morning swim.


Mom/Grandma's for afternoon BBQ.


Friend's for evening meal, playtime, and sleep-over.


Raid friend's sewing room for obsessive scrap sewing (these blocks are cut 3.5", the record holder (in this group) has 24 or 25 different pieces of fabrics.


Come to think of it, this may also be my record for the most blocks pieced in one sitting!

Crazy?

I think so!

But, oh-so-much-fun!!!

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

Drive Time

We departed (shockingly) as scheduled by 6 am and were immediately blessed with an amazing sunrise. While I’ve witnessed many gorgeous sunsets in Rio Rancho, this was the first sunrise I’d seen… and it was impressive enough to make me contemplate getting up early just for the occasion.


At the Arizona/New Mexico border, I saw the most stero-typical oriental tourist… one shot from the driver’s seat captured her:


Gorgeous blue skies on the high-plains:


More blue clear skies in the mountains:


The blue skies stayed with us all the way down to The Valley of The Sun:


I also think of this mountain as being covered by “Marching Cacti Soldiers”.


I just love the desert-scapes as seen on The Beeline Highway.


We stopped by the house Tom and I owned in Mesa. I was delighted to see only two changes to the front yard landscaping AND to see how well the yard has come in (when we left it had only been planted about two years.)


Can you see why I so love to drive in Arizona? It is SO BEAUTIFUL!!! I love me home-state!