Sunday Stills - Wildflowers

Now that I have completed my final assignments for Photography 68, I can return to the things which I love - actually capturing images and sharing those with like minded people!

I am back to Sunday Stills, hoping to be able to look at and comment on all the participants.

This week is Wild Flowers, and all images were taken yesterday on Croak Rd., a frontage road that is little used these days, and resplendent with weeds that make me sneeze, but have interesting flowers.

Mustard seed fields cover the surrounding hills:

Close up, and between sneezes:

Another flower that grows within the mustard:

These grew behind my house as a kid, and the spikes on the stems and leaves are NASTY!

The rest of these were all in one small area, and I think the result of some neighbor dumping one of those wildflower cans along the barbed wire fence.

Sunday Stills - Toys

Today I took my inspiration from the two places I will site a t the bottom. If you want to see the rest of the participants, which I suggest you do - go! do it now! GO HERE

"Woody, we seem to have landed in a mysterious place, far from home!"

"Buzz, this is just our backyard."

"It most certainly is not our backyard, Woody. See this oddly shaped gourd? What evil genius is growing this?"

"Buzz, it is not odd, nor is the grower evil. It's a pumpkin. For Halloween? and the grower is J9, hardly evil at all.""I still don't trust her, she has a past. I'm going to look for a way back home.""Buzz, just stop messing around in the tomatoes, and get up here! See, look in the window - that's the kitchen."

"Right, and I suppose those upside down tomatoes are just a good idea?"

"Well, I'd say they are a little creepy, but evil? No Buzz. Now let's go through the dog door and get back to the toys before they think I tried to kill you again."So that's my borrowing of Toys for this week!
I was going to do Lego Indiana Jones, until I saw this.
And the following made me laugh so hard - the language is NSFW, but really REALLY funny.

My Town Shoot Out, and Sunday Stills

Both Challenges that I have been neglecting chose the same theme for the same week, so I get a two-fer! And I have little excuse not to jump right into both!

The theme this week is Texture.

For My Town Shoot Outs, I recommend going to look at everyone's home towns. You can find us all in the comments of Patty or Reggie Girl's Blogs, or in the sidebar from Gordon or GingerV. I did not get very far from home - all shots taken in my back yard!

For Sunday Stills, you can find all of the participants in the comments of the link.

I enjoy participating in both challenges, but it is sometimes a challenge just to get to all the posts (at least 70 combined), navigating through ie issues, commenting, and sometimes even coming up with a comment that has more meaning than just, "nice shots". That is part of the reason I haven't been joining in recently - the whole work life balancing act added to visiting and thoughtfully commenting on 70 posts was too much. This week, I will indeed try to get to all of them, though no promises.
Roofing Composite Tiles on my shed out back:The roof of my patio cover - corrugated aluminium:Bark on the wood pile on the side yard. I fiddled with the lighting and contrast:

Mossy bark on the wood pile:

The tire on a hand truck. I really like the sharp edges on this shot:

Wood on the back gate:

You can even find texture on a leaf with cobwebs:

Or on the head of my Youngest:

A Paintbrush worn and weather beaten. It reminds me of tall grass and autumn:

Sunday Stills - Yellow

This week's Challenge is Yellow. Follow the link for more participants.
I couldn't decide between these 3 images, so you get the lot.

Happy Sunday and Memorial Day all!

Sunday Stills - Eyes

Today's Challenge is Eyes.


This is my oldest you get up his nose as a bonus:
This is my youngest, with a look he often gives us:I adore my boys! Happy Sunday all!

Sunday Stills - Flowers & Plants

This week's Sunday Stills Challenge theme is Flowers & Plants. Check the link and comments for everyone's postings.

This week has been rainy, so I went to the archives for my shots:

Happy Sunday all!

Sunday Stills - Religion

So I had no clue what to post for this, as I am not a particularly religious person. I did a my town shoot out a few weeks ago on churches, but somehow that just seems like cheating... I could put up images that aren't my own and claim a membership to the Church of Buffett Orthodox, but again, that's a bit like cheating. I could revel in tales of the followers of Bacchus, but I think the statute of limitations has yet to run out.


As I said, I am not particularly religious. I have found that many evils in this world are veiled behind the label of religion, and I think that is wrong, but as such it has turned me off of organized belief systems. I have studied many world religions, monotheistic as well as polytheistic and pantheistic. I have read the major religious texts, and they have many commonalities. I have toyed with labeling myself as Unitarian, Buddhist and secular humanist, but ultimately decided to just take it one day at a time. I do believe in a power greater than that of human kind, and whether that is one single being or many is not for me to decide, nor what form that takes. I also am very spiritual an live my life with a code of ethics and morality to harm no others.


So, what image would I choose to represent my spirituality? The very same one that graces my header, in it's original size. I love this image. It represents everything amazing about the world, and it centers me like no other.
Happy Sunday all!

Sunday Stills - The Color Red

This week's Sunday Stills Challenge is Red. I'll hope it's the color red, and not the slur used to describe communists during the cold war, and I've never been to Russia, so we'll just go with what I do have pictures of. For additional interpretations of Red please visit the comments here.This first image is a flower. I shot it following an early morning rain over this past winter. If you know what kind of flower this is, please let me know, as I'm completely clueless about them! The next image is a pomegranate that was smashed open on the walkway to school. I liked the randomness of it, paired with the order of the seeds themselves.

Enjoy your holiday all!

Sunday Stills - Animals of Husbandry

This week's Sunday Stills Challenge is Animals of Husbandry. I actually looked it up because the only animal I could immediately come up with was cattle, and there just aren't many cattle ranches within easy reach. Ironically, The Oldest was cast in Hans Christian Anderson's "The Swineherd" during drama class.

I started with the Sheep that are pretty close to my house. This is Forest Home Farms and they will be sheared soon according to the calendar.Not sure if these sheep are also a part of the same herd. They were grazing on a patch adjoining the farm. My boys wanted to go out and chase them, but I didn't want to start a stampede, and there were no ranch hands nearby to ask.

The next two shots are of a small cattle herd I caught while driving around the back roads of our area. Specifically, this was at the crossroads of Sunol and Foothill, across from the entrance to the water temple.

This last shot is for all the horse folks out there. This is about as close as I get to horses. They make me nervous!Happy Sunday everyone, and now off to see the other challenge participants!

Sunday Stills - Landscapes

Today's Sunday Stills Challenge is about Landscapes. I love this topic, as I almost always prefer this to shooting anything else. I shot a couple in my yard, but I'm going to use one from the archives because I appreciate the vastness of open spaces.

What I noticed when looking for Landscape photos, is that I actually shoot more Seascapes:

And Skyscapes:

Happy Sunday all!

Sunday Stills - Lines

Today's Sunday Stills Challenge is Lines. I had a couple of ideas early on in the week, and I think I'll use them, along with a last minute idea that came to me this morning.

The first two images were taken at the pole farm, where I learned how to climb a telephone pole.
This image is a fence and shadow in my neighborhood.

This image is a line of Irish dancers performing at a fundraiser. They are from McBride's School of Irish Dance, and I've seen many of their performances.

This final image is from Sacred Ground: America's Military Cemeteries. It's one of my shots that did not make it into the book.

Sunday Stills

This week's Sunday Stills Challenge theme is In Motion. My entries were all taken during my youngest's Baseball practice.

For this one, I had my oldest bounce a tennis ball into the youngest's gear bag. Not sure if I like it, but it was something I wanted to try.


This is the team going on a warm up run, led by their coach. Seven kids all in motion!


This is a shot of my oldest's feet as we were playing hopscotch. He did this move where he turned around and clicked his feet together mid air, like an Irish Dancer, I thought it was really cool and surprising, and asked him to do it again and again, until I got a good shot. It really only took 3 tries.

All of this week's photos - including the Photo Friday ones were DOOC - Directly Out Of Camera, no retouching or even cropping on these. I've found myself doing a TON of photo shopping of pics, and need to get back to original shots as I was getting a bit carried away with the color saturation.

I believe in angels

Woke up with this song going through my head - has been all day, especially the lyric above.

ABBA - I Have A Dream
Uploaded by djoik

Got a call from another cohort at work. Evidently my name is on a list of folks that have been surplussed. He wanted to know if I was taking the money and running, or looking to stay. When I told him I was looking to stay, he asked for my resume, and said he will advocate for me and my team for positions in his organization - YAY! Now I know why the song was in my head all morning.

This popped on in the car on my way to a photo walk:



I listened to this ENDLESSLY in High School. This clip actually had me laughing - remember the Solid Gold Dancers? Marilyn McCoo?
Later in the afternoon, this came across. Normally I wouldn't link to that website, and I wouldn't have if I could have found this version elsewhere, but I didn't. Ru Paul looks AWESOME! I admit to having an obsession with drag queens, and have written about it before.

During my walk I was able to see a couple of streets downtown that I normally do not get to walk. It was eye opening, and nice to slow down the pace and listen to the sounds of the area. I'll have some of the photos in my Friday post, and for Sunday Stills.

I was blown away last night after stumbling across this blog. Nick is only 20, but some of his thoughts are right on the money and I will be using some here. Yesterday's thought that completely hit it on the head for me: "Never let someone become so much of yourself that you lose yourself if you lose them. Love is a chance, not a guarantee…embrace what comes but never fight for what leaves." Nick gets it, and I look forward to reading how his philosophy evolves as he goes along.

My thought of the day, that was brought back to light recently is a quote from the movie Unbreakable, "The villain is the hero of his own story." Too true, and when you are too close to a situation to see the bigger picture, it is even more difficult to see this fact. It's true for normal people too. Many people are just going through their lives with blinders on, thinking that they are doing the right thing, the just thing, and not accepting the reality that their actions and words affect those around them, sometimes very profoundly, and sometimes for the worse. There is a sad lack of self reflection and evaluation. If you knew how badly things were going to turn out, would you have made the same decisions? Why, or why not? I've found that even major cluster fucks of life can provide the opportunity to learn about life, about yourself, about the worth of family and friends. In the immediate aftermath, I think we'd all say that we would do things differently, but after sometimes years of reflection, we find the lesson we were supposed to learn all along. It is then that we change to knowing why things happen, and why we wouldn't change a single thing.

And now some light hearted fair for your enjoyment:

Sunday Stills

This week's challenge is the moon. I do not take many pictures of the celestial body known as the moon, so I have to improvise. Especially considering the cloud cover I've had all week and the lack of actually being able to see said moon.

This is a picture of my oldest at 3 months of age. I took this photo after purchasing lots of fake fur fabric, and figuring out how to shoot him without him falling onto the floor - he's on a changing table. If I was smart, I would have placed it all on the floor, but I'll just attribute it to "Baby Brain" - that which affects one following the birth of a child. Seriously, you may have been a Rhodes Scholar leading up to giving birth, but after the event, you cannot so much as walk and have a single coherant thought at the same time. Luckily, your brain is only on vacation, and it mostly returns at an undetermined later date. Mine came back after my youngest went to Kindergarten (this last fall).

I went trolling through my photos for ANY other moon shots, and did come up with several from past Mardi Gras and Fantasy Fest events, but really, who wants to look at those? I did find this however:

Taken on the way from Yosemite to Mono Lake a couple of summers ago.