Sunday visit

I stopped over at Mom and Dad's on Sunday to hand out with Kaylee for a while, as my folks had traveled north for the day to visit some of our family. I brought my camera along, and now that I've finally gone through all the photos I took I figured I'd post a few of them here.

A dead tree that I thought looked particularly striking against the snow:



A couple of shots I took when the flurries were in particularly high gear:





There were still a few Redpolls hanging around. And by "a few" I mean "enough to have their own Hitchcock movie":







And a closer look at the Redpolls swarming the two seed feeders:



Evidence that I took this picture during a very strong gust of wind?

1. The streaks of snow show that it was moving sideways.
2. The side of the feeder that this Hairy Woodpecker is clinging to is, as you can see in the previous photo, usually perpendicular to the house, not parallel to it:



A male Cardinal that joined the woodpecker on the feeder:



The two birds weathering both snow and Redpoll flurries:



A couple of shots of the male Cardinal in the blue spruce:





And I managed to spot the female Cardinal tucked into the spruce as well:





Finally, a couple of Kaylee shots I took as she made our walk safe from fallen branches...



...and dealt with any suspicious-looking bark as well. After all, one can never be too careful, right?

A few Saturday shots

I stopped by Mom and Dad's for lunch today, and even though the photos I took while I was there aren't my best shots ever, I figured I'd share anyway...

A Red-breasted Nuthatch that took advantage of a Redpoll lull to grab some thistle:





A Blue Jay checking out the ground under the seed feeders:



I was actually focused on photographing Blue Jays when I managed to catch this Hairy Woodpecker as it came in for a landing:





The woodpecker kept an eye on a Red-breasted Nuthatch as it departed from the mesh feeder:



Kaylee, soaking up some sunshine:



And finally, Kaylee decided that she and her duck would be more comfortable on the blue chair just a few minutes later:

See? Told you I'd be back...

Gotta say, it is very weird to not be using the 365 tag when creating a new post...

Anyway, just wanted to share a few pictures I took over the course of the weekend, starting with some Blue Jays:



Loved this lucky shot of a Blue Jay in the midst of tossing a seed down the hatch:



And a few more pictures of Kaylee, starting with her curled up in her favorite chair:



Wearing one of her new toys as a party hat at my parents' New Year's Day gathering:



Finally, I think this is my favorite shot because of the way the couch brings out the color of her eyes:

Day 365

I have to confess, it's a bit hard to wrap my mind around the fact that, after 380 posts containing 3785 pictures, I've reached the last day of my year-long photographic adventure. Needless to say, I have many thoughts rolling around in my head about the entire experience. But first, today's photos.

As the calendar rolled over to December, I began thinking about what I wanted to feature in this, the final post of the year. But even though I kicked around various ideas, one in particular felt like the right way to go pretty much from the moment it occurred to me. So I'm ending my project the same way I began it—with photos of Kaylee, curled up and looking adorable in her favorite chair:



A couple of close-ups:





And one last wide shot:



First things first: yes, I do plan on continuing to take photos and post them to this blog after today. If nothing else, my mom has mentioned a few times how much she's looking forward to seeing what I come up with during our stay in Hawaii next month, so I'll definitely be sharing pictures from there. And I'll still be bringing my camera along with me whenever I go anywhere, just in case I see something that interests or inspires me.

But I do want to take at least a few days off to recharge my batteries, so to speak. For one, I can barely remember what it's like to come home after work and be able to do absolutely nothing but read or watch television. And I also think, or at least hope, that when I'm taking photos because I want to, not necessarily because I have to, the results will be even better. Don't get me wrong, though—I have a feeling that if I could go back and chart my brainwaves I'd find it was on the days I didn't necessarily feel like doing so that I learned the most about how to take a picture. And because of that knowledge and experience, I know that going forward I'll have a much better chance of making sure my photographs come out exactly the way I want them to.

Sitting here right now, on the last day of the year, I'm finding it's really hard to try and summarize what this project and experience has been like or what it's meant to me. There's all the technical stuff I've learned about cameras and photography, things like aperture and shutter speed, although I'd also say I now know enough to realize how much more there is to learn. I've also picked up a lot about framing and composition, and I've gotten better at paying attention to everything I'm seeing through the lens, not just what I intend the main focus of the picture to be. And my photo editing skills have improved greatly, mostly in order to make up for my shortcomings as a photographer.

Then there's all the cool things I've seen over the course of the year, moments I never would have enjoyed if it hadn't been for this project, like watching a gray fox walk by, less than a stone's throw away from where I stood. All the different birds I'd never seen before: mergansers, egrets, warblers, and yesterday's starling, to name a few. Having an otter come so close I seriously started considering which direction I should jump if it decided it didn't like me. My quest to get a good photograph of a kingfisher over at Howell's Pond.

Most of all, though, this project has taught me a lot about looking at the world around me. Of all the photos I've taken all year, the entry that got the most hits wasn't the one with the gray fox, or a bird post, or one filled with doggie cuteness. It was a post from August when I photographed rain drops clinging to the plants growing next to my apartment. Something simple, the kind of thing we've all seen countless times over the course of our lives. On that one day, though, whether it was inspiration or desperation, I really looked at what I was seeing, and then did my best to convey at least some of the beauty I discovered in that ordinary moment. Even though I'm sure I still miss a lot, I also notice much more than I used to. And I figure any way you look at it, that can only be a good thing.

Finally, I have to express my gratitude to my family and friends for all of their love and encouragement, as well as say thank you to everyone who visited, read, and commented over the course of the year; there were a number of times I doubted myself or considered bailing on this whole thing, but your support and belief in what I was doing helped me carry me through those times my own faith deserted me.

I'll see you all in 2011.

Sara

The golden hour

This morning I decided that it just didn't feel right to close out the year without one more visit to Whimsy Pond. We were enjoying another sunny day here, so I waited until about an hour before sunset to head over.

Once I got there and found a spot to park, I started walking along the road, examining the landscape and trying to figure out what I wanted to photograph. I heard a lone bird calling, and after a moment spotted it sitting up on a power line. When I got a closer look at the bird through my telephoto lens, I realized it wasn't one I immediately recognized. So I took a few photos in hopes of identifying it when I got home. It was on my second pass through my bird guide that I finally was able to put a name to the face: it was a female European Starling, sporting her winter plumage. Because I got very lucky with this particular image, despite the distance you can see some of the white speckles in her otherwise dark plumage—a visual that, according to my book, is the reason why they're called Starlings in the first place:



When the Starling departed a few minutes later, I turned my attention back to my surroundings. The pond itself was iced over and covered with snow, so instead I looked to the terrain on the other side of the road for things to photograph:



It took a bit of fiddling with my camera settings, but I finally managed to get a few shots that captured what I was seeing where the sunlight reflected off the snow. This time around the shadows aren't caused by trees or anything else out of frame, but by wind-carved ridges on the surface of the snow itself:





A light flare that I thought actually enhanced the image rather than detracted from it:



The last remnants of a milkweed pod backlit by the setting sun:



Finally, I just really liked the lighting in this shot:

Redpoll overload

Not a very exciting post today, I'm afraid. I stopped by Mom and Dad's for lunch today, and was amazed at the number of Redpolls they now have visiting their feeders—there were easily twice as many birds there today than what we saw over the weekend. At one point I'd guesstimate there were 20-30 Redpolls under both the thistle feeder and the seed feeders, and at least a dozen up on the feeders themselves. Add in the birds flying back and forth between the two spots and those resting in the blue spruce, and you're talking about upwards of 70 birds hanging around the yard. No wonder Mom and Dad are refilling the thistle feeder twice a day.

At any rate, I tried to take some shots of the thistle feeder whenever it appeared to be reaching maximum capacity:



I count 17 birds in this photo, although two of them aren't on the feeder itself:



The feeder at a quieter moment, as there were only 13 birds on it when I took the shot



And this last shot features 18 Redpolls, all of which are perched on the feeder, with one hovering around the edges in search of an empty spot—it reminded me a bit of when you see cars circling around a mall parking lot as they wait for a space to open up:

Snow and shadows

I woke up to sunshine and blue skies this morning, which actually came as a bit of a shock—it's been so long since we've had a truly clear day, I'd almost forgotten that the sky comes in colors other than shades of gray.

Naturally, I couldn't resist photographing my neighbor's barn against the new backdrop, especially since it still has such picturesque snow piled on the roof:



I fully intended to stay away from bird pics today, but while I was working on a Sudoku this morning I happened to glance up in time to see an unfamiliar bird on my feeder. So I grabbed my camera and managed to take a few photos of it before it flew off; when I consulted my bird book, I discovered I'd played host to a Carolina Wren:



Finally, our sunny day meant I got to take photos of various shadows against the unbroken snow, which I find sometimes make for a more interesting than the objects themselves: