Flakey

Minty Fresh

Reflection of an Angel

...or maybe it's just me.

Tip-Top

The roof of my daughter's gingerbread house.

Not All He's Cracked Up To Be

For some reason this guy looks a little worried to me...

Bigger Than Life

This star is 2cm wide and high. The angel holding it is only 4 inches tall. The camera was on automatic, with a macro at night. Sometimes I'm so pleasantly surprised by how something develops!

Not Quite Angelic

These German angels have been sitting on my parents' windowsill since I was a baby. We got them when we lived in Germany, and when we went back recently we found out they still make them. They are exactly the same! Except A LOT more expensive! :)

What I used to think was hilarious (and still do if I'm honest) is that these angelic symphonic members have no pants. NO PANTS! Not even underwear. So if you turn them around.... that's right. Butt cracks.

Who decided this was the proper way to make angels, I'm just wondering.

Crystalized

Decorative berries on a wreath.

Gilded

It's that time of year when beautiful things packed away get pulled out and adored again. Looking forward to using my macro a bit over the next weeks!

On The Lookout

Ever watchful, my pup Scout. It's exactly one year since we got him.

Bounty

There are so many places where people are starving because there is no food. I can go into a market and face this. I feel so blessed.

What You Do When It Get Cold

Go to the Natural History Museum butterfly exhibit. Beats waiting until spring!

Comfy?

My kids have long wondered what kind of crazy animal the master was in Kung Fu Panda. Last week we looked it up and discovered he was a red panda. Then we went to the zoo and saw a real one. When we first came up on him, he was sleeping. Like this. I'm appreciating my nice bed right about now!

"I Just Wanna Be Your Teddy Bear"

At the National Zoo. I grew up with Ling Ling and Sing Sing, who are no longer here. I wonder sometimes what happened to them. Did they die? Did they eventually have to go back to China?

This is Tian Tian. He and his mate Mei Xiang had a baby not too long ago, which was the biggest boon our zoo had seen in many years. They kept the baby around for a little while, but since our pandas are on loan from China (as opposed to the gift that Ling Ling and Sing Sing were), the baby panda Tai Shan technically belonged to China and they took him.

There is something about that that makes this exhibit sad for me.

The Reason To Hang Out

Grilled Stickies, from the Old College Diner. Yum!!! During game weekends, they sell these by the box full, which are stacked high throughout the diner. During the school year, the best thing is to go in after midnight and get them fresh off the grill, all sticky and oozing with brown sugar glaze and pecans!

Hang Out A While

Ye Olde College Diner, a late night hang out in State College, PA. I took this on a recent trip up for the Penn State Football game.

A Place of Remembrance. Happy Veteran's Day.

Arlington Cemetery.

Now and Then

This was our driveway this morning.

This was our driveway ten months ago.

A Howlin' Good Day

A wolf, at the National Zoo. He was really big, but we get foxes that could be exact miniatures of him that run through our yard all the time.

Spotted

Nature's Ornament

A Place to Rest

The Climb

Change of Mind

They started green, turned yellow, decided finally on orange. Unless they still have a red in them before they fall...

Before and After: The Pond

The day I went to the pond to capture the fall colors, the sky was overcast and the grey seemed to seep into all of the colors. The original photos were bland and washed out.

Rather than deleting them, I opted to fool around with them creatively and see what I could salvage.

The second photo is the "altered" one, which is a bit over-processed for me, but still fun to see what you can do with a washed out photo. I actually didn't even do a lot. I adjusted the white and black points (always my first "fix"), then heightened the saturation a bit. Using the unsharp masking tool, I crisped the photo up just enough to bring out the individual leaves. The sky, being flat white, would either have to stay that way, or be replaced. I opted to do a graduated blue across both the sky and the reflection, a much easier change to mimic in the water than trying to replace the sky with another prettier sky.

The picture looks processed, and not well-done at that. It would have been much better if it had been a sharp, vivid picture to begin with. But when you hope for great pictures and download them only to find they didn't turn out the way you'd seen them through the lens, it's nice to know you don't have to leave them that way.

Reflections

 

A pond near the elementary school where my kids attend. 

Creepy Crawlies

Etched In Stone

Opportunity Knocking

The Long Walk Home

Weekend Stroll

Taken in Heidelberg, Germany.

A Face Only A Mother Could Love

The Prayers of Many

From the National Cathedral in Washington D.C.

A Light In Changing Times

A Close Shave

My daughter needed sharper crayons. This is what was left behind, macro-fied.

Unexpected Fall Color

Have a Seat

A picnic table at a local pumpkin patch farm. I loved the way the electric blue made the diagonal lines stand out even more. I could have done better with the angles, but I like the idea of it.

Got You Covered

You Lookin' At Me?

A Different Kind of Rainbow

From last year. I'm ready for fall colors to work with!

Seeking A Little Light

Playing around with editing. Sometimes I feel like these flowers, turning and turning, seeking the sun, only to find it's a cloudy day.

Book Festival: A Well Placed Banner

This was the view on the mall in D.C. during the National Book Festival. If you want to see my description of the day, you can read about it (and see more photos) here on my writing blog.

I didn't take my good camera with me. Instead, I took an old camera that is lighter and easier to carry. As a result my pictures are much grainier than I'd like, and the color isn't quite as vibrant. I was kicking myself when I downloaded them, but then I remembered why I took the old one: the day was about running to and fro catching up with authors and not about trying to capture the perfect photo opportunity.

Sometimes my two worlds (writing and photography) collide well, and sometimes I just have to choose or I don't enjoy either one. This was one of those choosing moments.

A Glimpse of Tomorrow

Tomorrow I'll be walking the grass mall in front of our country's Capital with thousands of others to listen to dozens of authors talk about their books and about why and how they write. I went last year, and it's an incredible feeling to be amongst so many people who love the written word. Have a great weekend!

A Sea of a Different Kind

Penn State football game at Beaver Stadium.

This afternoon may be fall, but this morning it's still summer.

Fog-rise

This photo would have been much better if A) I hadn't taken it through a car window B) that car hadn't been going 50 miles per hour and C) I'd set the ISO lower. But, when you're going 50mph and you come across this speeding by, you take what you can get. :)

Up Too Early

I drove up the driveway last week after dropping my son off at the bus stop and the sun was streaming through the trees in such a way that the rays looked practically solid. I ran in and grabbed my camera, but when I came back this was all that was left.

Standing On Rocky Ground