Assignment: Night time Shots

The assignment (Flickr group Oklahoma Through My Eyes) this month was night time shots. Hmm....is what I said. This is going to take some thought and effort. So one evening my family took a night time swim, and I thought would be a great oppoturnity. Well, the pool shots didn't turn out so great. Very hard to get action shots when you have to have your shutter speed so slow because of the lack of light.

And then I saw it. Staring right at me. Night time--the big full moon!!! I took several shots and had to play around with the settings, but overall I was pleased. Especially because I didn't make the effort to get out the tripod and these are all hand held.

And then I talked my son into walking into the street after he swam so I could capture him under the street light.

Wow! Long time no post

Hmm....guess life just gets in the way of fun. Just because I haven't posted doesn't mean I haven't had any fun since August. I have taken hundreds NO thousands of pictures since then. I even got a new camera for Christmas. But, often, I forget (neglect) to post any here....so a small sampling is in order.

Rural Oklahoma

A couple of weekends ago I had the pleasure of attending a photography workshop in a small Oklahoma town. I had a great time and learned alot. It was also an opportunity to take a couple of rural pictures (I didn't have time to get as many as I would have liked). I would like to go back and take alot more....there is just something about the countryside. I guess you can take the girl out of the country but you can't take the country out of the girl!

Zeus? Adonis? Atlas?

What is this guys name? Well we can just call him Fred for now. He lives in my mothers back yard. Well, both he and is identical twin brother live there. My mom has a great eye for garden statuary. (Have I told you what a wonderful oasis her yard is?)

You can see these two brothers from my mom's dining rooms. They work well in her yard. I was just wondering around her yard one night with my camera and captured the backside and the frontside. I had to do quite a bit of post processing because the original just had too many background distractions.

I am pleased with my capture. Can you keep a secret? I am going to blow this up and give it to someone as a Christmas gift. It will be a funny but appreciated gift. I can't wait!

Downtown

Since my daughter had to be at a reading class at the downtown library, I thought this was a good photo opportunity for me. I spent about an hour and covered all of about 4 blocks. I didn't want to get too far away from the library and it was about 100 degrees outside- miserably hot. But I got a few pics that I liked.

I may try again next week (only if it is a little cooler outside)

Welcome to downtown action city!

Up Up and Away

It is not everyday that you get this close to a hot air balloon. On the 4th of July we looked and just down the road they were blowing it up so they could go for a flight (or is it a coast?) It blew up rather quickly and was airborn and gone. It looks like fun, but I would first have to get over my fear of heights (or sit at the bottom of the basket shaking uncontrollably).

Fireworks and fires

I hope everyone had an enjoyable 4th of July holiday. Ours was nice and I truly enjoyed that extra day off work...can we have an extra day off every week??

My son and husband live for lighting fireworks on the 4th. They save up their money and then spend a virtual fortune (don't get me wrong I like to spend money- I just prefer to spend it on things that will last more than one day, like cameras and lenses...I call them investments)

So I was able to capture a few of the fireworks shots. Not too bad for an amatuer and this was my first attempt.

The fireworks show ended when they purposefully lit the log burn pile on fire.