Juno Sunset

All that snow in the air and the blustering that accompanies it made for a remarkable sunset over the Sorrento Golf Course tonight. Looking across the bay, the sun was an unusually glowing ball as it sank slowly down to the horizon. I didn't really have time to set up a tripod for these shots, and it was still snowing quite a bit, but I was able to shoot at a fairly fast shutter speed, so they worked OK, just OK.

Juno, Really?

The removal of snow from our fairly extensive driveway is always a hassle, but almost two feet, bare in spots and drifted to four feet in others makes it even more "hassle some"!

Here are a couple of pictures of David using the snowblower. I always like the way the snow and its field of white draws attention to the subject of snow shots.

Jackson's Birthday

We celebrated today with a few people at Torrey and Katie's. I was a great time, Katie did an amazing job with all the preparation and decoration and I took 120+ pictures! Here's one of my favorites with Torrey playing with Jackson on the sofa.

What a Day For the New Year!

It's a beautiful morning from one of the living room windows!

Morning Plants

I really need to get out of this "macro" mode, but I am finding out so much about the possibilities of it that I hate to just move on to something else just to feel like I am moving on to something else. The philosophy of moving forward to things new seems empty when that which one is moving away from is not fully understood.

With that said, here are four shots from the many I took of the plants in the living room under the morning sun.

Takin' Down the Christmas Tree

So I took a ton of pictures while still in macro mode. Jen and I were getting ready to take down the tree and I had shot the ornaments the other night with the lights on, so figured I would try with sunlight coming in through the windows. I put the 75-300mm lens on my Sony Alpha and screwed a 2+ filter on the front of it, and then played with focal lengths (focus by camera movement) on the zoom as I looked for pictures.

I'm not really happy with the sharpness of the images, but they look alright and give me some good compositions, so I can't complain!

The other thing I did right from iPhoto, was to post them to my Flickr account. I haven't done this all that much, but with a bunch of photos like that (10) I thought they might do better in an album rather than in this scroll down blog. The link is: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chartlie/sets/72157647691348704/
and I will post one shot here so you can get the idea of what they are.

At the End of the Day, At the End of the Year

I know, I know... sunsets tend to be a cliche no matter how cool they are, but I took this one in very little light, with my phone, through a living room window and still got a great sky and the coolness factor of the lights of Bar Harbor under the shadow of Cadillac Mountain!

As the Year Ends...

So does the life of a lowly fly. I got "buzzed" by this creature in Jackson's room Friday, and without thinking I reached out and grabbed it. I've always been quick enough to "catch" flies, but this one I crushed in my hand as I moved to the bathroom to toss it in the trash. I remember so distinctly thinking that showing a disregard for any life form was not the best thing to teach my grandson, but after all, it was "only a fly", so I wasn't too concerned with it.

I am now, I  truly think I shall remain so, although the battle with ants and wasps that has taken place around the "kid's house" may teat that resolve over the summer.

Another Christmas Gone

This one had two grandsons to celebrate with, and there will be many more to come; Christmas's, not grandsons. I have featured photos of our oldest grandson quite a bit on this site, so this post is for Emerson, who is changing daily and has developed quite a personality!

Merry Christmas

Three shots from our tree before we take it down. One green, one red, and one red and green.