Newest Photography Blogs (166)

As I mentioned yesterday in my introductory blog, I took up photography a couple of years ago when I purchased my first DSLR camera. I'd had an SLR camera, but never really got into photography at the time.

After my purchase of my DSLR, I just loved the photos that came out of my camera, and found myself venturing out at all hours to various and sundry places just to take photos. I was totally hooked. Initially, sunrises and sunsets were my 'thing', although macro (close ups) of plants were also vying for top place.

A lady I knew is a photographer and she asked me if I'd like to join the local photo club, seeing how enthused I was about my new-found interest. The answer was a resounding yes, and although it's been frustrating at times, it's a great learning experience and challenges one to continue improving. There are four or five levels in the club and one has to attain a certain number of points in order to attain the next level. I'm finally in level two. Yay!

Monday nights are photo club nights, with the first Monday of the month being our exhibition night (unless it's a holiday, then it gets moved to the following Monday). Mondays are also my border run days where I ship orders out of the US to my overseas and US customers. As I've moved away from the community where the photo club is, it's a bit of a drive now to get there. As the border is in the same community, I go later in the day to combine both trips into one.

It still means a few hours between dropping off the orders and when photo club starts at 7:00pm. No problem, of course. Take my camera and visit the local park, Mill Lake, that I used to bike around daily, before dinner at Mom's and off to photo club. I have this!

My first stop would have been the cherry blossoms in the park, but that particular tree was pretty much done with it's blossoms, so that was a bust. Next stop was around by the pier where the magnolia trees were in full bloom. Yes!

The usual ducks and Canada geese were quacking and honking on the water, and a cormorant on it's log perch in the lake flapping it's wings. Redwing blackbirds flitted in and out of the reeds and saplings near the floating boardwalk, their red and yellow epaulets flashing brightly in contrast to their black feathers. I was too slow to capture their movement, but did capture a couple of them in song on branches. I haven't downloaded them yet, so have no idea how they've turned out.

As I was standing on the floating boardwalk photographing the Redwing blackbird singing up in the willow tree, a little brown bird flew right into the reeds and did not fly back out. Peering through their dead leaves and stalks, I saw the edge of a nest hidden, and the bird moving around in the nest. More photos, naturally.

On my way back from the boardwalk, I noted two Canada geese, doing what I thought looked like a mating ritual. They had their necks curved and heads close much like you see swans do, forming a heart shaped silhouette. It quickly went from that to ducking their heads under water then bobbing up again. One would put it's head under water and come up, then the other would.

This went on for a few minutes, then the next thing I know, the male is on top of the female, she's totally submerged so it's a good thing their mating habits only last a few seconds. That was it. The head under the water thing, and off they went. Alrighty then.

One guy walked by me and asked if I got a good photo of the geese. I'm like, uh, no, I'm not into goose porn. So now I know how Canada geese mate, and it's probably something I could have gone to my grave not knowing.

This morning, still in my nightie and before I even had my cocoa, I had my camera out taking photos of the tulips that were on their last legs on my dining room table. Is photography a passion, an obsession or an addiction?

You know you have it bad when it precedes your morning beverage.

Here's my first caption for the following photo;

Sharon seemed to take dieting a lot harder than some people.


Add your own caption(s), if you like.

Here's the photo;

"Hey ! What the hell is this cold wet stuff ?"

or suggest your own photo caption for......................

This is my Ginger, A rescue cat. When things go bump in the night here, it is usually (but not always) her.

Yesterday when I added the 41 photos to my webpage,



I neglected to add 8 others.

I'll blame it on doing it from the library here in FL, rather from the comfort of my own home.

Nonetheless, I just got done adding them now.

Seven of them are of deer. So, if you don't like deer, there's no need to go to the website to see these new 8 photos. :no:

6 of those deer photos are of one group of 3 deer; a big buck, a small doe and a little doe, that was most likely a fawn earlier this year.

Indeed, I am posting 2 of the deer photos (large doe alone and the 3 other deer together) below and also one of a European Starling perched in a tree.

I hope you enjoy them.

.
I just uploaded 41 nature photos to my Flickr website;
all taken last month.

You can see them all and their descriptions there, as well as many more.

For those of you who are terrified to wander off of Connectingsingles,
I added 7 of the 41 below for your viewing pleasure here.
On Flickr I was able to rotate the photos correctly, but on imgbb it seems that I am unable to do that.
So the one below of the Redtail Hawk perched is sideways.
It's upright on the Flickr site.















Which is your favorite of the 7 ?
Which is your favorite of the 41 ?

Have a terrific Tuesday.

In my futile effort to try to catch up with my photography,
earlier this week, I posted a blog covering my photos from December of last year.
This one pertains to photos taken by me last month (November 2017)

Here is my webpage;



with the most recent photos loaded appearing at the top.
For November 2017 I just posted a total of 32 photos.

For those of you, who fear going anywhere but Connectingsingles
here are a few of those photos, reposted here via way of
but these do not retain as much clarity/resolution.












I hope you enjoy a couple and have a terrific new year !

I JUST (moments ago) finally added 119 nature photos to my Flickr
"photostream" that include lots of different species, all taken during December
of last year.
This includes photos from both NJ & FL.

If you would like to see them all (as well as many previous additions) go here;



For those of you who are terrified to go to a secure site
I added a few here by way of imgbb.com But, those do not retain near as much clarily/
resolution.

Regardless, here are a few;

Osprey (fish hawk) flying;




Great Egret landing;




Pileated Woodpecker;




Woodstork flying;




Ruddy Duck pair;




Green Heron;




Anhinga;




Mooreshen;




Sunset;




I hope you enjoyed them and had a very merry XMas.

The beauty of nature........our glorious world.....

I'm not sure if you enjoy nature, or not.
But, I do.
And now that softball is over for me (until April),
I have some more time to accomplish other things.

One thing I would like to do, is to post more photos to my webpage.
Indeed, I am going to TRY to post the photos I
took the month before and the upcoming month
(from last year) to my webpage each month.

I just did so for last month (October 2017).
Below are 10 of those photos.
However, if you like, you can see all 120 photos
that I took last month (October), by going to my Flickr webpage;



The most recent photo(s)are at the top.
Eventually, they will be sorted into a species(or at least species family) specific album. However, the plan is to add them chronologically first.

Here are 10 of the 120 for you to view here.
First just press both the Ctrl and the - keys 5 times before you view them
to shrink them to appropriate size.
You won't have that problem on the website.