Persistence

Remember I said, one of these days. Well, persistence paid off much sooner than I expected. This is more what I was thinking of:

There's even a wee fly buzzing above him. Next up, attempting a butterfly in flight. Yikes!

Remembering moments, not days...

One. of. These. Days.

I was washing dishes yesterday evening (not that that's anything new), and noticed a bumble bee getting drunk on columbine.

One of the days I will get the perfect shot because these aren't them :o).

Remembering moments, not days...

Walk to the Canola field

On Monday evening I decided to take a walk to our neighbors canola field. The canola was almost done flowering, but I thought I would try to get a few last pictures of the field as the sun was going down.

I took our old Sony alpha 100 with a 75-300mm lens. I hadn't done much shooting with this lens so this was a good opportunity to experiment with it.

On may hike there I passed by a wheat field. I was surprised the the heads of wheat were already coming out! It's only May! This first picture is of the wheat field. The sun was close to the horizon, so I had to hurry to get to the canola field before it set.

But I had time for a few more pictures before I got there. I don't know what this is. All I know is that it is old and for some reason they moved it just into the wheat field. I think Deborah wants the big old steel wheels somewhere around the yard at home.

The sun was just above the tree line when I reached the field, and so the experimenting began. First a little depth of field with a really long lens.

Then some exposure adjustments. I think this was my favorite of the shoot. I like how the light from the sunset is carried into the tree line.

The sun was almost gone. One last shot to get the canola focused and some light background bokeh.

Now I had to get back home before it was completely dark, and the mosquitoes ate me for their evening snack.

When I got home there was just one more shot I had to try to get. The moon was up, but not quit full. Spinning the lens out to 300mm and hand holding the camera I took a few portraits of the man in the moon. I think I caught him a little by surprise!

Okay, now the mosquitoes were really bad, so I had to go in. The experimenting was done for an evening.

Grand Rapids, MI

I had the privilege of attending a Christian women's conference in Grand Rapids, MI. I knew that if I didn't bring a camera, I would regret it, so I took the alpha 350 with the 70-200mm lens. We were in a hotel a short walk from Van Andel Arena. The architecture around there was very pretty and impressive. If I'd had more time, I would have gone for a long walk. I think I could have filled a card.

Because we remember moments not days...

Dandelion Fuzz

Remembering moments, not days...

Lilac Love

The lilacs are at their height. They were damaged by frost a week ago, so they weren't in the finest condition to begin with, and then we had rain, rain, and more rain. I think they're very happy to be seeing some sunshine and drying off.

I am happy to see the sun again too.

Because we remember moments, not days...

Carl the Cardinal

Remember this guy?

Well, he's still hanging around. The kids have named him Carl, the Cardinal.

Remembering moments, not days...

Boston

Two weeks ago I was in Boston at an Aspen (engineering software) conference. The travel there was not the best (I missed my flight). The Aspen folks kept us very busy. So I didn't have much free time to enjoy Boston. A pity really. But I had a camera in tow, so I did get a chance to capture a little of the city.

Interestingly, the hotel for the conference was right across the street from the Boston Public Library. I think they have a lot more books here than in our small town library.

This building was on the opposite corner. What I found interesting here was that this tower of glass was right next to so many old buildings. I found this tower of glass interesting to photograph, so here a a few more, from different angles.

The church that you see reflected in the tower of glass was also very interesting in itself, but of course very different, in that it was much older. The craftsmanship around this building was amazing. Here are a few of the details.

I took many more pictures around the church, but I just can't put them all here.

On Tuesday evening the Aspen folks treated us to a habour cruise and dinner. The sky had threatened rain all day, but as we headed out on the cruise, the clouds were getting pushed away. The following are a few of the Boston harbour sunset pictures that I was able to capture.

It was incredible to watch the colour of the sky change as we moved along on the cruise.

This is where the boat turned around and we headed back. The sun had set and by the time we were moving in the other direction, it was dark out. I tried a few night shoots of the skyline as we went past the skyscrapers again, but the lights went all blurry. I was missing my tripod again!

This was taken from my hotel window. In Houston it was the old YMCA trying to survive among the towers. Here in Boston it's the old YWCA. That tower of glass, that I showed earlier is right across the street, to the left.

This was also taken from my hotel window. I just found this strange. There are no lines on the street for lanes. These cars seem to know where they should be, but a number of times I looked down and saw cars going in different directions trying to move to the corners. It just seemed a little odd.

That is what I captured of Boston. The city is interesting and I would love to spend some more time there, when I have the time to walk the streets and capture more of the city with my camera.