Capture Your 365

Kind of a slow week for me on the photo prompts, but I will be sharing a couple of extra photos with you this week!

chocolate chip cookies

ISO 100, 50mm, f/4.0, 1/6 sec

Day 146 – In The Kitchen: Our pastor’s son recently got married down in Southern California and they had a reception with our church family after their honeymoon. For the reception, the groom requested homemade chocolate chip cookies. So I baked a couple of batches of my favorite recipe from America’s Test Kitchen (it is worth getting the trial membership for this recipe!)

smiles

ISO 400, 200mm, f/5.6, 1/80 sec

Day 149 – Smiles: Trying to get these two to cooperate for this picture was hilarious! They kept giggling and squirming. Not the sharpest image (shutter speed was too slow for the focal length), but I love how it captures the sweet relationship my children have for each other.

flowers

ISO 400, 200mm, f/5.6, 1/25 sec

Day 150 – Butterflies: There is no butterfly in this picture, but these flowers do attract hummingbirds quite often. Maybe I will be able to capture a butterfly or hummingbird picture one of these days.

So at the beginning of this post, I mentioned that I would have a couple of extra photos for you this week. Here is the first one:

stoppe reception

ISO 400, 50mm, f/5.0, 1/50 sec

Remember the wedding reception I was baking the chocolate chip cookies for? This is the bride and groom. While I have never photographed a wedding (and I am not sure if I will want to!), I did have fun taking pictures at this reception.

San Francisco

ISO 100, 120mm, f/7.1, 10 sec

Remember this photo that I posted a few weeks ago from our photography field trip to San Francisco? I entered it into the Arts & Crafts contest at our local town festival last weekend. I ended up winning a first place ribbon and Best of Show! So exciting!

Ready to join in the fun? Be sure to visit Capture Your 365 to print out this month’s photo prompt list. Be sure to let me know if you are participating so I can visit your blog.

Capture Your 365

Just a few photos to share with you this week from the Capture Your 365 photo challenge.

fresh fruit

ISO 100, 55mm, f/5.6, 1/200 sec

Day 138 – Fresh Veggies: Obviously, these are not fresh veggies! One of the benefits of living in the California Central Valley is how much fresh produce surrounds us. For the last couple of weeks, early on Saturday mornings, I have been out picking blueberries and cherries at one of the local U-pick farms.

the perfect gift

ISO 100, 55mm, f/5.6, 1/6 sec

Day 141 – The Perfect Gift: Oh, my husband knows when I need a little pick me up in my month!

moon

ISO 100, 200mm, f/7.1, 1/50 sec

Day 142 – Clouds: It has been so incredibly windy here lately, there was not a cloud in the sky to photograph on this day. But we were so close to having a full moon, so I pulled out my tri-pod and took a picture of the moon instead. The picture was kind of blah when I pulled it into Lightroom, amazing what you can do by adjusting a few settings.

may flowers

ISO 100, 135mm, f/5.0, 1/800 sec

Day 143 – May Flowers: I don’t have a huge vegetable garden this year, but I have planted quite a few marigolds around. Hoping they help to keep the bad bugs away.

What did you photograph this past week? It is almost June! This would be a great time to join in the Capture Your 365 photo challenge!

Capture Your 365

Time for another week of photos to share with you from the Capture Your 365 photo challenge!

a new focus on me

ISO 200, 60mm, f/4.5, 1/200 sec

Day 131 – A New Focus On Me: Most definitely not one I will be printing out to hang on my wall, but this was a fun one to do with a reflection of me in the glass surrounding the bobcat at the San Francisco Zoo. Do you see him up in the top left corner?

a mother's gift

ISO 100, 50mm, f/4.5, 1/20 sec

Day 132 – A Mother’s Gift: my 2 kids, they are such a blessing to me!

be active

ISO 100, 50mm, f/4.5, 1/4 sec

Day 135 – Be Active: So I am out on my walk one day last week and I pass by the house with the amazing garden growing in their front yard (yes, you read that correctly. They have their whole front yard filled with a vegetable garden!). The owner of the house is out front talking to another neighbor and I mention to her that I love her yard. She asks me if I would like some Swiss chard. I don’t believe I have ever had Swiss chard before, so I accept her offer. I had enough Swiss chard to share with two friends, plus enough for us to try with dinner that night. I was able to cut it all up, but Kelsey ended up cooking it for me. After cooking it in some olive oil and garlic, we all decided it had a spinach-like texture and wasn’t too bad.

peaceful moment

ISO 100, 50mm, f/4.5, 1/4 sec

Day 136 – Peaceful Moment: This is one of the two quilts I needed to finish for the quilt raffle I am doing to earn money for my Compassion trip to Mexico. I poured myself a glass of iced coffee, put in season one of Downton Abbey, and started hand stitching the binding. Some people might consider this work, but I really enjoy the simplicity of hand work like this.

walk

ISO 100, 32mm, f/5.6, 1/800 sec

Day 137 – Walk: Kelsey and one of her friends spent a lot of time in our backyard ‘decorating’ our brick walkway, What all do you see in the picture?

Are you participating in the Capture Your 365 challenge yet? Let me know in the comments so I can see your photos!

Capture Your 365

I have a whole week of photo prompts for you today!

Compassion Mobile Experience

ISO 100, 20mm, f/7.1, 1/640 sec

Day 124 – A Wide Angle: My whole family was able to volunteer for a shift at the Compassion Mobile Experience when they were in our area recently. I knew this was the shot I wanted to take to go along with this prompt. Have you had a chance to visit the experience yet?

strawberry jam

ISO 100, 44mm, f/5.3, 1/6 sec

Day 125 – Relaxation: that is exactly what I did after making 2 batches of strawberry jam!

crayons

ISO 100, 36mm, f/5.0, 1/30 sec

Day 126 – Crayons: Crayons in our home are not used very much any more, but it is amazing to me how many we have! Every now and then we bring them out when we are watching little people, or when we are doing a fun project for our Compassion kids.

candy

ISO 100, 50mm, f/3.5, 1/15 sec

Day 127 – Candy: Can you see my favorite candy there on the top right shelf?

macaroni and cheesse

ISO 100, 50mm, f/3.5, 1/10 sec

Day 128 – Snacks: Interestingly enough, I don’t really eat a lot of snacks when I am home during the day, so I decided to take a photo of the homemade macaroni and cheese we had for lunch on this day. Yum!

rabbit

ISO 100, 50mm, f/3.5, 1/40 sec

Day 129 – Animals: This is Kelsey’s bunny, Vinnie. She used to show rabbits while in 4-H years ago, but now she just has two pet rabbits. I can’t believe I didn’t get the very tops of his ears in the picture!

framed

ISO 100, 50mm, f/4.5, 1/15 sec

Day 130 – Framed: I believe it was back on day 68 that I did a photo similar to this one, with just me. This time I decided to have Kelsey join me.

So this wraps up a full week of Capture Your 365 photo prompts for me! Have you started joining in on the fun? Please let me know in the comments so I can visit your post of photos.

I went on a field trip!

Now I know I usually post something about Compassion on Mondays here on my blog, but I just have to share with you what I was able to do on Saturday this past weekend. Since last fall, I have been taking a photography class through a local photographer. He teaches through one of the charter schools, but he is open to having adults join in his classes, which I have really appreciated! My camera now sits in manual mode almost 99% of the time while I am shooting pictures, and I love having the control over the settings.

So on Saturday, our class went on a field trip to San Francisco for a whole day excursion. The city was quite foggy which was a little disappointing because I was really looking forward to going to a spot I had never been before. The plan was to end our day at the Marin Headlands around sunset time to get night time shots of the Golden Gate Bridge. But it was not going to happen, there was just too much fog to make that trip over the bridge. So we started heading back home…or so we thought.

There is an island part way across the bay as you are driving back over the Bay Bridge. We decided to give it a try. So, with all of our camera gear and whatever warm clothing we had with us, we made our way across a hill to set up our tri-pods for some shots of the San Francisco skyline.

ISO 100, 135mm, f/22, 30 seconds

At first, it really wasn’t quite dark enough

ISO 100, 100mm, f/25, 30 seconds

Amazing what a difference a few minutes later can make

ISO 100, 70mm, f/8.0, 13 seconds

Then someone suggested that I open up my aperture and change my white balance settings in my camera. Can you see the light trails in the bottom right corner from a boat?

ISO 100, 70mm, f/8.0, 13 seconds

The only difference between the last picture and this one is the white balance settings. Which one do you like better?

ISO 100, 120mm, f/7.1, 10 seconds

We did move around a bit on the hillside to get just a little different perspective

ISO 100, 120mm, f/7.1, 10 seconds

Again, the only difference in these last two photos is the white balance setting in the camera. Which one do you like better?

We were all out on the side of the hill for just over an hour shooting pictures. I had a great time adjusting settings, moving around to different spots, and learning how many white balance settings I have in my camera. There is always something new to learn, right? Now I have to tell you that these photos are straight out of my camera, I have not done any editing on them yet in Lightroom. I know they need a little work, so hopefully, I will have a bit of time this week to play around with these…or any one of the almost 300 pictures I took on Saturday.

Did you take pictures of anything fun this past weekend?