Thanksgiving 2010

C and I had a great Thanksgiving! We spent it at both of our families, which makes for a long, and fattening day, but wonderful family and friends as well!

Turkey, my favorite :)

C and I at Thanksgiving #2

And the cutest mini dachshund puppy ever!

I hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful as well!

Pink Memories

Mountain Hints

I love pink sunsets. They are so lovely. I managed to just barely get the reflection of the tips of the mountain in the tidepool!

Watching Over the Beach

The almost full moon over the beach. On the left side of the image toward the bottom, you can see a reflection from the moon! This was shot with my new 17-40L lens! Unfortunately, I do not have any filters for it, as the good ones are really expensive, so long exposure shots are out for a little while :)

Wispy Dreams

This is one of my new favorite images! It is newly available as a print, and it falls under the 20% off sale!

Plastic Wrap Sunset

My husband thought the water looked like Saran wrap :)

Blue Sunset 1

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the United States! I hope it is wonderful and family filled!

I have been having a blast with long exposures on the beach lately!

Meat!

C and I had been hearing about a grocery store an hour and a half up the road that had incredible prices on meat. We kept meaning to check it out and always managed to forget about it. On our way back from Chicago, we stopped. And were amazed. We quickly filled up our cooler with 99 cent hot dog packages and had to get a box from the store to fill with ice. We got an 8 pound chunk of beef for $17. We cut it up into thin strips and bagged and froze them. Now we have thin steaks at a fraction of the cost. We also got some ground sausage and ground beef. We discovered that flattening out meat is an incredible way to stack in the freezer! The pile on the left has the sausage on top and the ground beef on the bottom. On the right, is all the steak. It was definitely a worthy haul!

Underrealized Glory

I love sunsets :)

Looking Down

Fairy Tale Matryoshka Doll

 I have never been really interested in Russian nesting dolls, but I found one at my work last year that I completely fell in love with. With my end of the summer bonus, I finally got it and fell even more in love with it. Isn't it beautiful? Here are some photos, along with my supposed interpretations.

 Back of Doll #1: I think the fish is the "Magic Pike" and the horse is the "Humpbacked Pony"

 Front of Doll #1: Not sure!

Side of Doll #1:

Front of Doll #2: Not sure!

Back of Doll #2: Firebird

Front of Doll #3: Not sure!

Back of Doll #3: Not sure!

Front of Doll #4 Not sure!

Back of Doll #4: The Frog Prince with the golden arrow

Front of Doll #5: Not sure!

Back of Doll #5: The snow maiden?

If you have any ideas on some of them, please let me know :)

Canon 17-40L

After long amounts of saving, I purchased the Canon 17-40L lens! I am proud to have my first piece of L glass!

It is my first lens to have the Ultrasonic Motor, so it auto focuses incredibly quietly. I love it, but it sometimes is hard to tell through the viewfinder if it actually focused!

I bought a B+W UV filter for it, since it makes no sense to have cheap filters on an expensive lens. Yep, this a $100 piece of glass! The cost, unfortunately means that I have to save up a bit more before I can get some neutral density filters, so long exposure shots are going to have to wait a bit.

My new baby. I have not noticed an incredible difference in image quality, but it is sharper, for sure!

The lens hood on this puppy is huge!! The 50mm lens is swimming in it!

What fun! My 18-55 lens has terrible bokeh (blurred background) but this one is beautiful, for a wide angle!

I am really happy to have this lens. It's amazing (but silly) how much more professional I feel with the red ring on my camera. It feels like I am already gaining respect for it :P

Star Set

Thanksgiving Sale!

Thanksgiving is this week, and this is the perfect time to start thinking about Christmas gifts! I am running a sale on all the products in my shop for 20% off! This sale will go on for one week, but don't delay, to ensure you get your prints in time for Christmas!

Once you get to the shop, have put items in your cart and are preparing for checkout, there will be a place to put in a coupon code. Enter 20off for 20% off!

My Flower/Plant Wall in my kitchen. All images are available on the site!

In addition to prints, there are also other products available on the site, including puzzles, calendars, and magnets.

Also, if there are images you are interested in that are not available in the shop, please leave a comment with the link to the blog entry the image occurs in and I will be happy to make it available to you!

Facing the Star

Snowy Tree

The spots are not spots on the lens, but snow falling :)

Mountain Ash Berries In Snow

 The first weekend of November, we got dumped on with snow. These poor berries were no exception!

I am disappointed that the berries are mostly out of focus here, because I absolutely adore the teal bokeh!!

Drifttwood

Driftwood is plentiful on the Alaskan coast. I found this trunk washed up on the beach a couple weeks ago and knew I had to include it in my shot. I am not completely happy with the perspective on this one. I should have moved a bit farther back to get the horizon higher in the frame, but that's how it is! Earlier shooting times also mean more cold, and that makes for quick thinking that is not always clear!

Full Slough

 I have seen the Beluga Slough full of water like this a few times before. It never lasts long before the water level goes down. I got some photos earlier this day of the level even higher.

The sunset was less than stellar, but I definitely wanted it along with the flooded slough!

Pastels

I have come to love shooting long exposures, especially because I have a lovely body of water to shoot all the time. It can really bring out the colors in the sky and in the water, and definitely makes the whole image seem a lot calmer.

Winter Sunset

 I have come to love this time of  year. It is so much easier for me to go out and shoot when it is 6pm over 11pm. Now the sunset is earlier than 5pm due to Daylight Savings Time. I still miss some due to work and such, but I am more available these days, so it works in my favor.

Let the winter sunsets begin!

Sparkly

I do not know what this plant is, but I shoot it every summer, and even though it was dying, it still looked incredible. The water drops were after a hard rain we had, and the whole plant looked magical.

Termination Dust Moving Down

Alaskans call the line of snow there "termination dust", meaning summer is over. It is fascinating to watch as the line moves down the mountains as the days go by.

Golden Grass

Took this shot after I saw the first snow of the season. My last chance of getting background colors of gold instead of white!

Red Leaves 2

A square crop of the leaves from yesterday. I think they look even more intriguing with the rain residue on them!

Red Leaves

 Two winters ago, I saw these leaves and took a couple photos of them. Ever since, I have wondered about them, wanting to shoot them again. I saw them green in September and again wondered. Two weeks ago, I saw them, just like this. I knew I had to shoot them. By the next week, the leaves were all off!

Most of our trees here have yellow to orange leaves, but never red. I was happy to find this one :)