Day 62 - Window/Selina

This is not a great picture, but just you wait!  I have grand plans for this window - I can't wait to share the final project.

(F4, 1/60 second, ISO 400, 28mm)

Day 62: Window/Heather

This is the third time I have taken pictures of these windows at the Academy, which is over by Ft. Vancouver. The first time was last summer; the second time was last month when we used window as a backup for birds. The ivy has grown a lot since then!

This is the first time I have taken pictures in the rain, which is something I definitely don't want to get in the habit of doing. But since it rains here a lot, I may have to look into getting rain gear for my camera. I was surprised that it didn't really have any effect on my pictures when compared to those taken in the sun.

f4.5, Exp. 1/40, 70mm

Day 61: Door Knob/Heather

I was having dinner in one of the more eclectic parts of town tonight and was hoping to find a cool door knob over there. Sadly, that was not the case. I think I only found a couple of places with actual door knobs and they were pretty standard. So I came home to my boring ol' door knobs and played with different levels of light, the different settings on my camera and shooting at different angles to see what I could come up with. I actually kind of like this one.

f4.5, Exp. 1/30, 70mm

Day 61 - Doorknobs/Selina

Living in an older house has some benefits, including these cool knobs.  I really wanted to get a better shot than this, but apparently my creativity is waning.  The kids love that this knobs have skeleton keys, not that they are allowed to play with them, but they still think they are pretty cool.  

(F 5.6, 1/40 second, ISO 1600, 50mm)

Day 60: Gadgets/Heather

I tend to collect things. I love to collect little things to make my life easier in the kitchen as I love to cook and bake. So for this challenge, all I had to do was go into the kitchen and open a couple of drawers. The hard part was narrowing down what to use in the photo. I started off with a couple of things and just kept adding to it until I ended up with this:

f4.5, Exp. 1/15, 46mm

Day 59 - Blackberries/Selina

Victoria and I headed out early this afternoon to pick some blackberries.  When Jeff and I came back from Seattle this past week, I picked up a box of nectarines that I wanted to make jam out of and I thought it sounded really good to do one batch of nectarine-blackberry.  That's my job tomorrow, but today we had to pick them.  I got some great shots and loved this one because it showed so many different shades of the blackberries as they ripen.  Can't wait to try the jam!

(F 5.6, 1/60 second, ISO 100, 55mm)

Day 60 - Gadgets

Morgan remembered that there was a DVD player downstairs that he and Victoria had been wanting to take apart; ironically enough he dug it out today to work on.  I completely forgot about this challenge until later in the evening and tried to get some good photos of the all the inner gadgets, but didn't have much success.  Strangely enough, Heather and I both have a thing for kitchen gadgets, so I went the much lazier route and just opened the drawer.

(F 5, 1/60 second, ISO 400, 41mm)

Day 59: Blackberries/Heather

This morning I attended the annual Swan Island Dahlia Festival in Canby. They feature a bazillion different varieties and while I have always heard about this, this was the first time I have gone. I took 474 pictures. On my way home, I stopped by Mt. Tabor Park where one of my Meetup groups was playing Capture the Flag so I could take pictures of them. After a while, I noticed my battery was getting low. Luckily for me, there were some wild blackberries at the park. (Not so lucky for the players who kept running into them trying to get to one of the flags!)

f4.5, Exp. 1/40, 70mm

Day 58: Sweet Treats/Heather

The reason we had "sweet treats" on the calendar for today is because I was supposed to go to an event called "Getting Our Just Desserts," which ended up being cancelled. Instead, I went to a potluck and an outdoor screening of 'The Blind Side." Here are the Red Velvet cupcakes I picked up on my way to the event. They were quite tasty!

f6.3, Exp. 1/160, 70mm

Day 58 - Sweet Treats/Selina

This was not one of my better shots - I didn't have best lighting for this one, but it works.  Jeff was thrilled that I made up this plate of treats and gave it to him when I was done!

(F 5.6, 1/60 second, ISO 400, 53mm)

Day 57: Hinges/Heather

I have a lot of boring hinges in my house so I decided to go outside and shoot pictures of one the hinges on the back gate. It's not really that interesting, but it was fun to play with shooting it at different angles.

f5.6, Exp. 1/125, 31mm

Day 57 - Hinges/Selina

I was really hoping to find a super cool hinge to work with today.  The kids were give free passes to Silverwood for reading 600 minutes above and beyond the required reading for school and I promised them that the best time to take them was during my vacation this week.  We had a wonderful day at Silverwood and I lucked out in finding great hinges today.  Here's a close up of the hinge I took at the "train station" at Silverwood on some trunks. 

(F 5.6, 1/80 second, ISO 100, 55mm)

Day 56: Lines/Heather

My thought for today was "lines" was probably more about technique than actual lines. But I decided I didn't want to try and perfect a technique and thought it would be fun to take pictures of either a crosswalk or the lines in the middle of the street.

I was getting ready to go out to take my pictures and could not get Sammy to come in the house. As I went out to chase him in, I saw some really cool "lines" out of the corner of my eye: the spokes on my bike tires. (This also made me happy because it's a bazillion degrees out and I didn't have to go out in the heat to get my picture!)

f4.2, Exp. 1/640, 35mm

Day 56 - Lines/Selina

Lines...so many options, but I am still recovering for our mini-vacation and didn't want to leave the house.  So, when I took Morgan to youth group, I saw all the parking lot lines and figured that would work.  

(F 5.6, 1/250 second, ISO 400, 55mm)

Day 55: Stairs/Heather

Stairs are actually one of my favorite things to shoot. A few weeks ago, I went to see "Guys and Dolls" at Laurelhurst Park in Portland and I knew I wanted to use the stairs there when the time came.

I drove over to the park after work and was a bit disappointed with the lighting. I was actually torn between two pictures for this post-the one I didn't choose is just the top part of the stairs and I like the way the light is coming through the trees better on that one. I chose this one because it gives more of the full effect of the staircase. This picture is of just the top half.

f3.5, Exp 1/30, 18mm

Day 55 - Stairs/Selina

Jeff and I stopped in Thorpe, WA on the way home so I could buy some peaches/nectarines.  This fruit stand also has antiques up above, so I wandered up the two floors to see what I could do with stairs.

(F5, 1/50 second, ISO 100, 36mm)

Day 54: Attractions/Heather

I got a text from Selina last night asking if we could change the theme for today. She and her hubby are taking a kid-free mini vacation and she sent me a list of the things they were hoping to do today and asked if I could work with that. I told her my plans for today were going to work and paying bills so I would get back to her.

This morning I sent her a text suggesting "attractions" and said I'm sure Vancouver has at least one of those. I could have gone over to Portland and found any number of them but after living here since 2000 (except for a stint in Arizona from 2003-2005) there is still so much about my town I don't know. So I Googled "Vancouver, WA attractions" and the first thing to come up was Ft. Vancouver. I used that for "history." The second thing was Pearson Air Museum, which is not open on Mondays.

After going through the (very short) list, I settled on the Covington House. The house was built in approximately 1843. Mrs. Covington ran a boarding school (not clear if it was in the house) teaching the children of the Hudson's Bay employees and Mr. Covington ran their 640 acre farm. Their home became the center of hospitality and musical entertainment and they are credited with bringing the first piano to the NW. The house was moved downtown from it's original location in Orchards (a Vancouver "district"). I suspect the original location may be somewhere close to my house in the area where Covington Middle School is currently located.

It is not currently open to the public so I was not able to go inside.

f5.6, Exp. 1/125, 27mm

Day 54 - Attractions/Selina

With a full day of sightseeing, attractions was going to be so easy.  Jeff and I had plans to go to several locations in Seattle, including: Underground Tour, Space Needle, Pike Place Market, and SciFi Museum.  We didn't end up at the SciFi Museum, but we did do the others.  The Underground Tour was totally not worth it, the history of it was cool, but the tour was not very good.  We didn't see as much as we thought we would.  The Space Needle is cool and love Pike Place.  

(F11, 1/125 second, ISO 100, 18mm)

Day 53: Abstract/Heather

I wasn't really sure what I was going to do for this one. I got lucky. My plans for today included playing bunco with one of my Meetup groups at a little pub in SE Portland. This painting was on the wall.

f4.5, Exp. 1/30, 46mm

Day 53 - Abstract/Selina

Abstract....it's all in the eye of the beholder right?  Well, I tried an older painting Victoria did for me, but wasn't thrilled with out how it turned out, so I hoped to find something downtown Seattle while we were there.  I saw this artwork someone had done and really liked it.

(F5.6, 1/160 second, ISO 100, 55mm)

Day 52 - Games/Selina

Well, today was bunco - should have been easy for games, but do you think I remembered to take the camera out while we played?  No!  Oh well, good thing my family loves games, we have a huge cupboard full of them.  Here's a shot of the majority, but there are still many that aren't in here as Jeff took them to a friends house a few nights prior.

(F5.6, 1/13 second, ISO 3200, 51mm)

Day 52: Games/Heather

Yahtzee, anyone?

f5.6, Exp. 1/125, ISO 200, 24mm

Day 51: Luggage/Heather

Who would have guessed something as seemingly simple as luggage would be such a pain to get a good picture of? When I got ready to take pictures today my first thought was "Do I really want to drag everything out of the closet?" It took about two seconds to answer that with a resounding "No!"

I took a few pictures in the closet and then decided to drag a couple of pieces out after all as I wasn't getting any shots I was really happy with. I didn't really like the shots I was getting outside of the closet either. So I decided to get up on the step-stool for a different perspective and also decided this would be a good opportunity to play with the manual settings. In the meantime, Charlie decided to help me "pack." He and his ball are ready to go!

f4, Exp. 1/60, ISO 200, 31mm

Day 51 - Luggage/Selina

The original thought for this theme involved Morgan actually making it until the end of camp.  The kids all have piles of luggage waiting for their parents to pick it up.  But, Morgan came home early, sick, so we had no pile of luggage.  Here's what I shot at the last minute Friday night as I had forgotten about it all day long.

(F5.6, 1/25 second, ISO 1600, 53mm)

Day 50: Balance/Heather

I decided to take a couple of days off to enjoy the last few days of nice weather now that summer has finally decided to join us. (So naturally it was cold and drizzly most of the day).

It turns out my godson has been attending "rodeo Bible" camp this week about 5 minutes from my house and today was family day. So, much to his annoyance (he's 16) his parents and I decided to go watch him perform. When I headed over there this morning, I didn't know what today's theme was. Partway through the rodeo, I decided to pull it up on my Droid and was thrilled to see it was "balance." Great theme for a morning watching teenagers trying to stay on bucking broncos and bulls! I got a lot of awesome shots. This was one of the first performers; this is not my godson.

Action mode, f5.6, Exp. 1/320, 300mm

Day 50 - Balance/Selina

This one was not nearly as easy as I thought it was going to be, but the kids sure had fun trying to balance all sorts of things.  Here's what I finally ended up with:

(F 4.5, 1/640 second, ISO 400, 80mm)

Day 49: Sphere/Heather

When I saw that "sphere" was the theme for yesterday, I asked if we could switch it with "seam." A couple of weeks ago at "Flicks on the Bricks," my friend won 4 tickets to a Portland Beavers game and gave one of them to me. We decided to go to tonight's game.

Director's Park is right across the street from the parking garage I parked in for the game. This is a new park in Portland and has a huge sphere in front of the fountain that is dedicated to teachers. As the non-profit I do most of my volunteering for is for Portland Public school teachers and directly benefits their students, I knew I wanted this for my sphere.

f9, Exp. 1/100, 60mm

Day 49 - Sphere/Selina

I knew just what I wanted to try for this shot and loved them all.  Narrowing it down to which I liked best was a bit more difficult.   These are the marbles the kids both got for Easter this year. 

(F 5.6, 1/40 second, ISO 400, 55mm)

Day 48: Seam/Heather

Though not nearly as hectic as Selina's day, I didn't have a lot of spare time in mine either. After work, I headed over to Portland for a dinner with one of my Meetup groups and by the time I got home, checked my e-mail, Facebook, etc., it was time to get ready for bed. But I still had a picture to take.

I wanted something with a distinct seam and had a hard time finding something that would fit the bill. In retrospect, a baseball would have been perfect. This is a picture of a hooded sweater my cousin gave me, which has a thick seam down the middle of the hood.

f4.5, Exp. 1/30, 70mm

Day 48 - Seam/Selina

Well, I really wanted take a picture of something Victoria had sewn, but I was in a seminar from 7:45 until 4:30; then I got a call from Morgan's camp nurse and he needed to come home because he had a fever, so I left town at 5:00 to get him getting home back home about 7:30.  Fed us all some dinner and started pumping the liquids into Morgan (pretty sure he has heat exhaustion) only to get a call that I need to help a friend complete her move last night.  So Jeff and I ran back out by 8:00 to help with that, getting back home about 9:30.  Crazy!  So, needless to say, I had a few other things on my mind and snapped the quickest picture I could.  It's not good, but it will have to do.  It's a pictures of the seam on the throw pillow for the couch.

(F 5.6, 1/25 second, ISO 3200, 46mm)

Day 47 - Curves/Selina

I decided that the splashpad would have the best picture opportunities with this fun little sprinkler it has.  Victoria had a great time playing in it as well.  

(F 5.6, 1/30 second, ISO 800, 42mm)

Day 47: Curves/Heather

I really wanted to find something cool in nature or around town for this shot but it is about a bazillion degrees out and I don't do well above 80. So the last thing I wanted to do was go trouncing around outside in the heat for the 3rd day in a row.

I have found a lot of things around the house that have curves but nothing was really attracting my attention. And then I remembered I have a set of wrought iron candle holders from PartyLite that will hopefully someday actually make it up on the wall. I just need to find someone who is a lot more patient than I am to measure and make sure they are even.

I tried shooting these in various positions and had a hard time not getting the base or the wall mount in the shot. While I did lose some of the detail in this one, I like how it turned out.

f4.5, Exp. 1/10, 40mm

Day 46 - Horizon/Selina

I do not live in a good area for horizon's apparently.  I really wanted a good sunset pic, but that is a theme for another day.  I couldn't even think of any good straight stretches of road that rode off into the horizon!  So, this is the best I could do.

(F 5.6, 1/100 second, ISO 100, 75mm)

Day 46: Horizon/Heather

This was one of those days when I knew I was going to hate everything I took. And I was right-at least as far as the theme goes. I did get a couple of cool shots of a water fountain, a bench, and the rocks and water and a few other non-horizon things.

My vision of the horizon is where the sky meets the ocean-a view I don't have from here. So in an effort to improvise, on my way home from volunteering, I stopped at a walking trail along the Columbia River. My camera has to have something to focus on and with a slight haze in the air thanks to a wildfire, I couldn't quite capture what I was going for. This certainly isn't the best of the bunch but is the one I feel best captures the theme. The two blurs in the forefront are trees.

f11, Exp. 1/800, 300mm

Day 45 - Moving Target (Movement)/Selina

I was hoping this would be so much easier, but I decided that I wanted to try something new.  So, I waited until it got dark this evening and headed out to try to take pictures as the cars went by.  I got some shots that were much clearer than this one, but this is the one that showed the movement I gave it by slightly moving the camera.  I shot this in "bulb" mode and covered the lens with a baseball cap between the cars driving by so that I would have more than one set of lights, but because I wanted to show a bit of movement too, I also give the camera a very slight movement to show the lines jumping around.

(F 5.6, 59 seconds, ISO 200, 300mm)

Day 45: Movement/Heather

I asked to move "movement" to today because I knew I was going to be at the Adult Soapbox Derby cheering on a friend. I thought that would be a great event to capture movement and was hoping to get a great shot of his car to use. What I ended up with was a lot of blurry shots taken in auto mode and some really cool shots taken in action mode.

I had one shot that I love but wasn't really sure if it really captured the theme, so I polled the audience-meaning I asked my co-worker and boss-and they said it did. This was taken looking towards the finish line and is the only race in which I was able to capture more than one of the cars in the same shot. (My pictures were MUCH better once I realized I could take them from this vantage point without getting yelled at or told to move).

Action mode, f5.6, Exp. 1/1000, 300mm

(This is one you have to click on to really get the full effect).

Day 44 - Black & White Flower/Selina

I took so many shots for this challenge (105 actually black and white actually made it through the first run through & 76 in color that were really nice too); I had a really rough time deciding which photo to go with.  Victoria and I headed up to Manito Park again and spent more than an hour wandering around all the flowers taking pictures.  My foot is sore, but it was fun to spend the time with Victoria.

 (F 5.6, 1/50 second, ISO 400, 55mm)

Day 44: Black and White Flowers/Heather

As I mentioned on black and white day, I discovered I don't have a black and white setting on my camera. And black flowers aren't that common in nature-at least not where I live. So, I had to be creative. I thought about dying carnations and even went as far as to look up how to do that.

Another idea came to mind and yesterday at lunch, I ran over to Michael's to see if they had any black silk flowers. The selection wasn't great but I did manage to put together a bouquet of various black and white flowers. After taking several shots inside, I decided it would be fun to take some outside as well to make it look a little more real. This isn't my favorite shot, but I like it.

f10, Exp. 1/320, 34mm

Day 43 - Bells/Selina

I had many ideas for this one, but used the one that means the most to Victoria.  Her Grandma Worley collected birds and bells, so she was able to get a couple of those to remember her by.  She picked out some bells that she really liked and I thought they'd be perfect for this challenge.  Each of these bells has a different handle on them.  Here's to remembering Grandma W.

(F 5.6, 1/30 second, ISO 800, 55mm)

Day 43: Bell/Heather

I went back to the Catedral Tapatia for this shot. (One of these days I'll go there to actually eat!) They have a huge bell in front of the restaurant and it is a great subject for trying different modes on the camera. This was taken in Portrait mode. It was a clear, sunny day and while I was able to get several nice shots, I didn't get quite what I was hoping for.

f8, Exp. 1/500, 44mm

Day 42: Clouds/Heather

I was a little concerned about this one. We have been having a lot of overcast mornings lately, but with the dreary, solid grey cloud cover typical of the NW. It has been burning off by late afternoon so luckily, I took my camera to work with me and took a few shots at lunch-by the time I got off work at 4:00, there wasn't a cloud in the sky!

f13, Exp. 1/640, ISO 200, 70mm

Day 42 - Clouds/Selina

I was hoping for these kind of clouds today!  Lucky for me, I also had to drive down to Lewiston for work, so I made sure I brought my camera along.  I got a lot of great "cloud" shots, but some other really cool shots that had some of the beautiful scenery along the way.  It's such a long drive, but it sure is beautiful.  Here's my favorite shot.  It was not only my very lost shot, but I think it's the best and it just might be frame-worthy.  :)

(F 18, 1/125 second, ISO 100 and probably 75mm)

Day 41 - Over My Head/Selina

I tried a few different things to make this shot work.  I even wanted to take a picture of the huge rose bush on the side of the house, but I stepped on a thorn in the process.  Not good.  So, I came in the house for a bit and decided to try again later.  While watching tv with the family, I noticed that everything looked pink outside, so I went outside and so the pretty pink sky from the sunset.  Well, it's over my head, so I decided to try.   This is one of my favorite of those shots.

(F 5.6, 1/40 second, ISO 200) ... not sure on the mm as this laptop won't give me those details

Day 41: Over My Head

I actually took pictures of this for "Looking Up" but decided to use my yucca plant for that instead. I was happy to have another go at this but not with how my photos turned out. The first time I did this was a very clear day and it definitely made a difference.

This is the bell tower at the Catedral Tapatia Mexican restaurant here in Vancouver. The story behind this restaurant is there used to be a church where the restaurant now stands. When the church was torn down, the developers who built the restaurant decided to make the restaurant look like the former church. It really does look like a church too!

f11, Exp. 1/400, 60mm

Day 40 - Fill the frame/Selina

I was hoping to get a good shot of Morgan today, but I waited too long so my lighting wasn't as good.  Instead he and I headed to the field to take some pictures and ended up with this photo.

(F 5.6, 1/80 second, ISO 500, 55mm)

Day 40: Fill the Frame/Heather

This one was really easy. I wanted to find something super cool but by the end of the day I just didn't have it in me to go searching. I love my Japanese Maple so I just shot that.

f4.5, Exp. 1/80, 70mm

Day 39 - Symmetry/Selina

This is a tough one!  I even tried some of the trim work in my sister-in-law's kitchen, but ultimately decided that this leaf is the most symmetrical.  My niece, Rachel, was even trying to help me find some things to take pictures of.  I think that had more to do with the fact that she wanted to go back to playing with my camera - she is saving her money for a good camera and was checking mine out.  She got some great shots!

(F8, 1/50 second, ISO 100, 55mm)

Day 39: Symmetry/Heather

This was a tough one for me. I looked online for some ideas; I looked around in my day-to-day travels to see if I could find anything. I finally found this item, which was actually hard to get a good shot of. And then I thought it would be fun to not identify it to see if Selina recognizes it. :)

f3.5, Exp. 1/60, 18mm

Day 38 - Birds/Selina

We had originally had planned on taking window shots today, but Heather was going to volunteer outdoors and thought birds would be better for her; but I was going to be in Bonners Ferry and was hoping for a good window shot.  So we decided to shoot both and go from there.  I, sadly, never saw the windows I wanted, but I did go with the kids to City Beach in Sandpoint and, of course, there were birds!  So, here's my best shot of teh afternoon.

(F 5.6, 1/2000 second, ISO 250, 300mm)

Day 38: Birds/Heather

I asked for today's theme to be birds because I was doing a volunteer project at the Audubon Society (I should have asked for weeds instead! I am now quite familiar with "Stinky Bob."). Selina wasn't sure about relying on nature to cooperate and suggested we try for birds and the original theme of window. I like my window pictures better; she liked her birds better. Since I can get my window shot any time, we agreed on birds. I snapped this in the meeting room when no one was looking.

f4.5, Exp. 1/60, 70mm