soeurs du jour

Sky Hunters

When BB and I went to Ball's Falls to the Thanksgiving Festival we discovered an exhibit of birds of prey.    I was mesmerized by the bald eagle.

Then she took a bath.

She didn't seem quite so tough then. 

Go read Margie's post from yesterday.  Who did she buy those fish for?  I don't think it is me, but I love them.    I think we can likely add to A.'s new collection when we're together next weekend.   It's going to be a long week waiting for Friday, I'm very excited and I plan a cheat day on Saturday so we can go out for dinner (week five of the 8 week challenge starts today).   I have a plan for making the week fly by, I'll stay busy getting ready for our guests.  Charley's bed and bowls need to be washed and put out for her, I'll have to hook her long leash to the clothesline so she can have the run of the yard and then we'll be ready.

Yesterday, I drove BB to work and I arrived home to discover a phone message from Watson's Farms.  

These had been picked and our pail of Chardonnay juice was ready.   This week, we'll start winemaking 101.   Should be fun!

xo  Kath

monday monday

this weekend i reread our blog. i hope that doesn't sound like a pat on the back comment but treat yourself, go back and see who you are and where you are coming from.

i took a lot of photos yesterday.  have a look, i am half happy and half not unhappy.

go visit bill stankus he has a wonderful explanation of sarah palin's rise to the top.

want some fun, read this

i spoke to shania through email and she assured me this bizarre and hysterical story is true.

lisa is playing macro monday.  i have to ask kath but i think we might like to play too!!

i am taking this blondish hair and making it brownish.  all you mascara hounds out there

whadda ya think?

and please, tell me what is up with these cows.  

they get up every morning and put on knee socks?

 

margie

thanks for waiting

i went to synagogue this morning.  i am home now, lunched and relaxing.  tomorrow i will be having 25 or more people for lunch so i am taking it easy this afternoon.  i drifted over to shutter sisters a minute ago and the talk is "light", where it is, how to find it indoors.  i took these photos just shortly after i bought my camera, it is my grandson, in my living room, in afternoon light.

they may or may not be examples of a good use of light, but i love them.  i love how soft and gentle the light is around him.

margie

side tracked

photography excites me and disappoints me at the same time.  i go out each day and visit your blogs, i look at your photos, i look at mine, and i think, mmm??  why them and not me? i want to grow and progress and expand and develop and learn, you get my drift. i also want to finish reading doris lessing's the golden notebook but time interrupts my reading as well as my photography. i am enjoying this book for two reasons, the soul searching it inspires and, truthfully, the challenge of reading it. very smart that doris lessing. 

Mrs. Lessing says: 

'About five years ago I found myself thinking about that novel which most writers now are tempted to write at some time or another - about the problems of a writer, about the artistic sensibility. I saw no point in writing this again: it has been done too often; it has been one of the major themes of the novel in our time. Yet, having decided not to write it, I continued to think about it, and about the reasons why artists now have to combat various kinds of narcissism. I found that, if it were to be written at all, the subject should be, not a practising artist, but an artist with some kind of a block which prevented him or her from creating. In describing the reasons for the block, I would also be making the criticisms I wanted to make about our society. I would be describing a disgust and self-division which afflicts people now, and not only artists." 

so today, just like my friend robin, i was up early, had the two cups of coffee, did my hair, packed up the dog and the camera and set out to take the photo to end all photos.  my cell phone rang, it was charley's good friend.  "hi bubby".  

i didn't miss a beat, i said "get your shoes on, charley and i are coming to pick you up, we'll go for a walk and take pictures".  the photo shoot to end all photo shoots had certainly ended, rather abruptly and all of a sudden the day was side tracked, and i was turning down the grandmother path.  he climbed into the car, water bottle and bag of trail mix in hand, and off we went.

he and charley pretty much ignore me when we walk.  they run ahead, they run back, they fall down.  One friend throws the stick, the other brings it back; the boy laughs, the dog wags her tail.
     

the two of them have been close for a long time.  they love a little out of town time together so they can go fishing.

the two little friends were playing and running and i was just preparing to focus very hard, both mentally and manually with the camera when this face jumped in front of the lens, scared me and i accidentally took the picture.  i laughed, it was in focus and cute and i had no idea how or why it turned out as well as it did!

and the moral of my little story, sometimes the best photos are the ones you least expect.  i will always look at this funny little head shot and remember this day.  it was a photo to end all photos.  i will get there, i will take better and better shots all the time, i expect that in due course i will finish the golden notebook.  maybe this funny little head shot was in focus for a reason, to help me unblock my artistic sensibility and focus.   

xo

margie

Barn

2008 09 12_4269, originally uploaded by kathstewart.

I don't see my sister today. She must be busy reorienting to city life and attending to all the chores that built up while she was at the cottage. Here's a photo for you to enjoy while we wait for Margie!
I'm at work and am secretly doing this.
shhhh
have a great Wednesday.

Kath

the harlots of haliburton

the frustration of dial up....don't ask.  on our trip into town i willingly, horror, entered a knitting store.  agghh.  don't tell kath but i couldn't resist these harlots of haliburton in the window!

 

two weeks at the lake in september is a challenge.  we have an outdoor shower and there are days when the running from the back door to the shower requires a deep breath.  it's cold here in the morning and at night.  the wood stove is number one on the agenda each morning, after charley's early morning romp outside, and then coffee in bed with our books.  rough life huh?  i just came up from the dock, i sat in the sun wrapped in a blanket and finished my book.

earlier i walked around our 65 acre island with charley and my camera.  things are changing so quickly, leaves are falling, mushrooms popping up over night and shriveling just as quickly.  last night there was a strong rain and wind storm that left a whole new set of broken branches and leaves on the path.  each day the island seems to take on a whole new look.  

charley gets scared walking with me, i don't know if she is scared for me or of some unknown presence in the forest but today i was starting to feel a little scared too.  meanwhile we came home safely an hour or so later and i was telling a. how she had been growling at some unknown predator.  we were standing admiring a.'s fancy carpentry work in the bathroom and she started to growl again.  this time at a wood carving, of the sun.  so much for demons in the woods!!  she is such a wuss.  

i am going to spend the afternoon downloading my photos from the walk and hopefully in spite of this darn dial up, i will be able to post some later in the week. hi to all our friends out there, i haven't been able to read your blogs this week but i promise next week i will get caught up.

in the meantime, i may be having a bath tonight in our new bathtub.  yay.  

margie

Shooting on M, like a big girl

I'm busily uploading ALL my photos to flickr, then off they go on to an external hard drive in my efforts to make this sad little PC work faster. 

Watching the photos as they go by has been an interesting experience.   I love the snaps, the photos of faces I love and the shots of places and things that make me remember a specific moment in time.  Every now and then a photo shows up that I had forgotten about and I stop to examine it carefully.  I'm working with the photos by date, oldest first and I can see a progression and an improvement, I am getting better.  

As I challenge myself to learn more and more about my camera and the making of pictures, I have a range of reactions and emotions,  I go from being disappointed at how slowly I think I'm learning, to being excited when I start to understand something and finally proud when I remember it the next time I take a photo.    When I get a "money shot" as we are now calling them, I feel amazing.

I have progressed to using P most of the time now.  Tonight, I set the camera on Manual,  changed the image quality to RAW, grabbed Scott Kelby's Digital Photography Book and headed out into the backyard.   I put the camera on the tripod,  chose two flowers, didn't concern myself with composition and took a bunch of photos, wildly spinning dials because I wasn't sure what would do what. 

Here are my two best, I have converted them in Elements from RAW to .jpg so that Typepad will accept them.

s 1/50 f 5.6 focal length 66m

s 1/50  f 5.6 focal length 135 mm

I looked at all the photos carefully, I chose these two because they best represented the actual light and colour and they seemed to be fairly sharp.  I have recorded the shooting/settings info (is there a name for that?) under each photo.

Did you notice?

They were both shot with the same settings. 

Obviously, the shutter speed and aperture setting were right for the light and the subjects.   I was using all sorts of settings, some shots were so dark that I deleted them immediately and others are so blown out that the hibiscus was pale pink and the colour in the rose non-existent.

As I write this, I'm looking in the book to see how I did, and as it turns out, I should have listened to Scott Kelby in the beginning.  His advice was to use the smallest aperture number your lens will allow, suggesting f 5.6 which is what ultimately, through trial and error, gave me the best shots.  Now I notice that my camera has a lower setting than that, it goes to f 3.5 which I didn't try.  

I think we need a flickr pool where we post our trial and error photos, we can call it Shudder Sisters.

Kath

Squash(ed)

This photo says it all for me today.    I've been squashed.  Just like that, no more back to school for me.  Last night I arrived home to a voice mail from the College that my first course has been cancelled.

I am disappointed. 

I am still taking a "Learn to Use Your Digital Camera" four week course in October if they don't cancel that one too, yes, I'm slightly pessimistic but this has made me grumpy. I was excited and ready to start tonight.  I was supposed to start learning and understanding the rules and theories of photography.  And now, I'm not.  

Okay,  I hear you whispering in my ear,



you're saying, get back on the horse, right?

Kath

jamaica, jamaica....colour your world

saturday night a. and i went to a reggae concert. we love jamaica we love the people that live there and we love the music. i've been there many times, with the kids and without, with friends and alone with just a. this week, over at written inc. the theme is colour and while sitting outside listening to reggae, i looked around and saw those famous colours of jamaica, everywhere.  to me, the sound of the reggae is a sound of hope and redemption, reggae music digs deep into your heart.

 

jamaica ranked thirteenth in gold medals at the beijing olympics, a country of 2.7 million people, about the same size as chicago, sent the fastest men and women in the world to the 2008 olympics. this is a small island that struggles, as many developing countries do, life is not easy on that colourful island.  shout out to you jamaica.  i took this last photo in negril, jamaica.

jah works.  

margie

a bee, two chickens, a cow and a frog

yay, i love saturday mornings.  

this little bee was selling, of course, honey!!

 

i wanted one to buy one of these chickens, only ten dollars.  

i forgot to go back and get one!!!  

this fella had attitude!  but after all, his earrings didn't match.

first time i used my new tripod!  thanks a.

ya mon, tonight we are off to a reggae concert.  

margie