more nature

Lazy Sunday summer days call for wandering strolls through beautiful places. In mid-August, del and I spent a nice afternoon at the Spencer Island nature area. Its wierd... in all my years as a north-ender I never knew this place existed! What a beautiful place!

I found some cool botanical features to work some macro magic on...

and here is the set in black and white...

The wind was interesting (and challenging for macro work, eh?) but I captured this abstract image of some bright pink flowers (wait...actually, the wind died down when I wanted to get this shot, so I, um, shook the plant a bit. gotta do whatcha gotta do!) ... unfortunately, it was very (very) evident that my sensor had some dust bunnies :(

woo hoo! a bit o photoshop & viola... fixed!

I had some fun watching these little guys & was grateful for the opportunity to practice my wildlife photography skills! (could come in handy someday, eh?)

Ok, this one is just my random pic for the day... I liked the way the sun hit the roof of the shed & wanted an image to remember it by. enjoy.

aaah, and I practiced my lanscaping skills, too! So many great shots around every corner!

Of course, I mixed up the landscape and nature work with a bit 'o msg, and took a few frames of the Spencer Island botan features...

this one is the same image as above; just converted to black & white and then cropped a bit.

In all, it was a refreshing afternoon... sun, stolling, exploring, photography, goofing around great peeps. (Thanks again, kate-o, for the Hawaiian. you rock!)

eastside sunset

It was a nice, sunny summer evening...

No matter how many sunsets I have witnessed, they continue to awe and inspire me. This set of pictures are from a trip to Newcastle & Coulon Beaches in mid-August.

First, here are some nice summer scenes...

The ducks at Coulon were beautiful in the sunset...

I remembered an image that Art Wolfe has of some dancers. In one of his videos, he explains that he wanted to capture the movement of the dancers, so he used a long exposure. The image is beautiful. Of course, it is Art Wolfe! I wondered if the gentle motion of the floating ducks would work to create a similar image...

not quite

oh gosh no...

And this one... this one I like!

And here are a few more classic summer shots...

Even though sunset lights are enchanting, I wondered how the image of the couple would look in black & white... ahh, even better!

Thanks for checking out the pics. Hope that you are having a beautiful day, wherever you are.

Peace, lor

Nisqually!

this round of pics is old. super old. super old super.

Well, maybe not too old; maybe sometime in late July? DMA and I swung by the nature reserve near Nisqually after a lovely trip to Olympia. There weren't too many birds there, but I found some interesting areas to practice my landscape skills!

..but first a bit of good 'ol msg close-up work ;)

ok, I have quite a few more posts to catch up on... bear with me!

-lo

lovely day

Last Tuesday, my mom, my sister & I went to San Francisco for the day. Yep, for the day. We wanted to see the Ansel Adams & Georgia O'Keefe exhibit and the closest it would be to us was in San Francisco. From start to finish, it was a lovely day. We made sure to start the day off right with breakfast and mimosas at Anthony's in the airport. mmm lavish!

I had my fabulous little Elph with me & managed to capture some nice artistic images.

This one is of my sister on the plane.

Ok, this one isn't soooo artistic, but isn't the architecture of the San Fransciso Museum of Modern Art beautiful?

We ended up spending quite a bit of time in the museum, plus we also viewed Richard Avedon's work. Amazing. We only had a few hours to spare and kept pretty close to Powell Street. Somewhere we found a GREAT little hole-in-the wall Thai place. It was the perfect stop. Yummy thai & interesting lighting, too!

Here are a few random city scenes. Enjoy :)

We took BART back to the airport & I had a chance to use the good 'ol ISO 80 to capture a bit of movement.

I love travel photography, and could have spent all day out exploring and capturing the sights, colors, and architecture of the city. But, I am thankful for the opportunity to take a little trip with my mom & sister & escape the troubles of the day. Plus, we were able to see Ansel's work! In print! Up close! I loaved it.

thank you for checking out my photographs & I hope that you, too, have a lovely day.