Love the flowers!

I was out last night taking some photo's of the flowers that are on the property line of my house and my cousin who lives right next door. I love some of the shots I got!

A-Z Pictures

I have seen a lot of A-Z memes. Heather and I thought it would be a lot of fun to do A-Z pictures. Sorry if someone has done this. We are not trying to make this a meme though if you'd like to do the same you are welcome to. So naturally we start off with "A".

Today I have chosen to do Apples.

I think "A" will probably be the easiest for me to do. My kitchen and dining room are apple themed.
Now I don't like this picture....at all. I could not seem to get a good shot of these apples and this was the best that I got.

HI there, it's Heather! For my "A" it is my daughter Allison!

One day last week it was such a beautiful day so I decided to take the kids to the park. Here is Allison on the swings watching all the other little kids play.

My Little Baby!

Guapo was laying in the sun and I had to take the chance to take a pic of him in the spot light. I did a little editing to the pics, but not sure if I like any of them. First pic is straight out of the camera, and the other 3 are edited.

Which one do you like best?

SITS Challenge: Day Two

Today's challenge is to tell a story about the photos from day one. 

It's Springtime in Ohio! Which means ever changing weather. You can wake up and it will be warm and sunny and go to bed with some snow on the ground. Yesterday I woke up and went outside to warm temperatures but a nasty thunderstorm heading our way.  It was raining lightly and the wind was blowing my favorite tree in my yard. I really love this old tree. My husband wants it cut down but I say NO way! We don't have a whole lot of tree's in our yard so it must stay. The dark clouds was getting closer and the wind was getting stronger so I snapped as many pictures of this old tree before the rain got harder. I made it to my front porch just in time, the sprinkles of rain turned into a downpour. I wanted to stay outside to see if I could get some shots of the lightening but I knew I had to get in the house. The kids was still asleep and I knew the thunder would wake them and they might be frightened. Luckily the slept right on through the thunder that was shaking the house. Which was kinda nice, it gave me some quiet me time.

My SITS Spring Into Action Challenge: Day One

SITS is having a Spring Into Action Challenge and today is the first day. 

Today's photo tips are about Composition & Perspective

The challenge was to Photograph a subject using a variety of compositions and perspectives. (Don’t move it. Move yourself.)

So here are my photo's of a old tree in my yard. The backdrop was great because we are expecting a huge storm. Yep I was out there while it was windy and raining. I love some of the shots I got though. 

 

All my photos are taken with a Nikon CoolPix L110

A Few Tips

I always ask myself: Where do I begin? Well the answer to that question is....research, learn and know what I am doing. So I went to one of my favorite places to learn a few things...about.com and did a little research. I thought I would share what I am learning with all of you as I go along. So to quote about.come on Introduction to Photography:

Composition: "something that is created by arranging several things to form a unified whole". That is exactly what it is. The composition of your photograph is the combination of elements coming together to create the whole image.

I took this picture in December and posted it on Photoblog.com I had a lot of comments saying "good composition" and I'm still working on figuring out what that is. I love this picture, but what makes it a "whole".

In Flight!

I was actually shocked that my camera took such a good picture of these planes.

 Shocked again how the bird picture turned out!

I took this picture in Chattanooga, TN on my little mini vacation 2 weeks ago. It's a sign of spring and I'm can't wait for warmer days.

A few photo tips:

Imagine your camera is like a window with shutters that open and close.
Aperture is the size of the window. If it’s bigger more light gets through and the room is brighter.
Shutter Speed is the amount of time that the shutters of the window are open. The longer you leave them open the more that comes in.
Now imagine that you’re inside the room and are wearing sunglasses (hopefully this isn’t too much of a stretch). Your eyes become desensitized to the light that comes in (it’s like a low ISO).
There are a number of ways of increasing the amount of light in the room (or at least how much it seems that there is. You could increase the time that the shutters are open (decrease shutter speed), you could increase the size of the window (increase aperture) or you could take off your sunglasses (make the ISO larger).

Read more: http://www.digital-photography-school.com/learning-exposure-in-digital-photography#ixzz1GyJakglo

It's A Squirrel!

Ok, its kinda a bad shot but the squirrel was jumping from the power line to the tree! 

I had to run in the house to grab my camera before he was gone, he was almost gone when I got back! 

Bubbles!

Cheesy Goodness

Nothing like a hot, homemade pizza on a cold winter's day

 

 

I love the sky

Another beautiful day with a beautiful sky! 

I really love the color of the sky that day, this photo has not been edited :)

I Need Color

I got my new lens for my camera in the mail yesterday. THANK YOU SO MUCH HUBS! I got a 70-300mm Sigma. I was so excited to go outside and play with it. I hate that there is no color outside right now and not a lot to take pictures of. I did find a few things to take pictures of though.

 This is on the back of hubs Jeep...yeah he loves that thing. Some times I wonder if he loves it more than me.

This is the bottom part of one of my wind chimes.

So berries outside. They are there all year, so nothing special but I'm learning to use the macro on my new lens.

Hope everyone is having a great week!!!
Melissa

Valentines Love

I had a pretty good Valentines Day. Hubby suprised me with this cake from 

Cold Stone Creamery.

It is a yummy red velvet cake with chocolate ice cream and fudge, YUM!

I also got these beautiful flowers that make my house smell so fresh!

I just took the pink ones outside to I can play around with my new camera that I love. I love playing around with the settings, got a few cool shots!

Beautiful Sky

I came home yesterday to see this beautiful sky. So I rushed in  to grab my camera to get a few shots, couldn't pass that up!

Catching The Sun

I woke up this morning to actually see the sun rise. That is not normal for me! 

Which was beautiful by the way, plus I wanted to see what my new camera could do for me! 

A Little Editing...

I had taken these pictures when we had all that snow, so I thought I'd do a little editing on them.

These were all edited on Adobe Photoshop Elements.

Short Story

A little boy was walking down a path and he came across a rattlesnake. The rattlesnake was getting old. He asked, "Please little boy, can you take me to the top of the mountain? I hope to see the sunset one last time before I die." The little boy answered "No Mr. Rattlesnake. If I pick you up, you'll bite me and I'll die." The rattlesnake said, "No, I promise. I won't bite you. Just please take me up to the mountain." The little boy thought about it and finally picked up that rattlesnake and took it close to his chest and carried it up to the top of the mountain.

They sat there and watched the sunset together. It was so beautiful. Then after sunset the rattlesnake turned to the little boy and asked, "Can I go home now? I am tired, and I am old." The little boy picked up the rattlesnake and again took it to his chest and held it tightly and safely. He came all the way down the mountain holding the snake carefully and took it to his home to give him some food and a place to sleep. The next day the rattlesnake turned to the boy and asked, "Please little boy, will you take me back to my home now? It is time for me to leave this world, and I would like to be at my home now." The little boy felt he had been safe all this time and the snake had kept his word, so he would take it home as asked.

He carefully picked up the snake, took it close to his chest, and carried him back to the woods, to his home to die. Just before he laid the rattlesnake down, the rattlesnake turned and bit him in the chest. The little boy cried out and threw the snake upon the ground. "Mr. Snake, why did you do that? Now I will surely die!" The rattlesnake looked up at him and grinned, "You knew what I was when you picked me up."