Best 11 of 2011

Choosing your own best pictures of an entire year is difficult, but it's a good exercise. Being pushed to select my ONE favorite out of those? Cruel and unusual punishment. It involved snipping little bits of paper and taping them over thumbnails of the images on my computer screen. Once I had it down to three it became an impossible task.

11. "Circle of Life"

I might have maybe promised one of my readers I wouldn't post any more pictures of dead animals, but this one wasn't dead. Yet. And this is art. Or so I've been told.

10. "Taking it All In"

I Heart Faces "Beautiful Eyes" 8th place

9. "The Decisive Moment"


8. "Back to School"


7. "Into the Light"

featured on Mortal Muses - Life in B&W

6. "My Little Melons"

earned a link on Shutter Sisters for being silly (self portrait)

5. "Tiny Joy"

featured on Clickin' Moms blog

4. "Time Never Rewinds"

If I were ranking these by raw emotion alone, this of my boys would be my favorite by a mile.

3. "Hold Me"

"I Heart Faces" winner. The judge: my most favorite photographer. *I must be dreaming*

2. "Past Bedtime"


1. "Fairytale Afternoon"


Thanks for looking!

Last year: Favorite 10 of 2010.

linking up with "You Capture"



Edited to say: Confession time. I lied. This one is really my favorite.

Back to School - Part 2

Thick fog all around. We can only see a little way, but I have no doubt the view any further would be too overwhelming. What we have, right now, is exhausting enough.



The little bumps and dips in the road are sometimes worse than they appear. Sometimes they cause more trouble than the big potholes, the ones that are guaranteed to be worth swerving hard to avoid.

Things happen. Small things and big things happen that give assurance that we are on the right road, no matter what state of disrepair it may be in. The right school. The right teachers. These small and big things show themselves for what they truly are, not chance happenings. Blessings. Straight from God himself.

This is right, for us. For right now.

Back to School - Part 1

linking up with You Capture - Back to School

Pool guest

Exhibit A: The pool guest



If The Bean doesn't want to hold the pool guest, it's perfectly reasonable to put it on her leg instead. Frogs get tired of swimming sometimes too. Obviously.



Once the amphibian is sufficiently rested, it's time to put him through a "pool blender".

Yes, the poor thing is in there. I didn't realize it at the time.



Which is a worse fate? Being taken captive to entertain a few young monkeys for the afternoon... or meeting a voracious miniature dinosaur chicken in a dark alley?

I guess it's over faster when poultry is involved.

You Capture - Water

We didn't pick the flowers

Procrastination is starting to pay off handsomely around here. I might even have to entertain the thought (ahem) of making it a habit.



You see... there were these flowers, on these plants, that didn't make it to the garden but ended up potted in Styrofoam cups in the house, because we sort of had a terrific Spring flood.

I'm finding that too much water is a great excuse for a lot of things.

The plants have been happy ever after underneath gro-lights in our back entryway. When I noticed the flowers, I knew they needed to be picked off. Really, I knew. These are going to be outdoor plants, not indoor plants. But like so many things around here, it just didn't happen, which meant that something else happened.


{one was tired of waiting for mom to get her camera}

Because we didn't pick the flowers...



My kids got to pick a very special treat for breakfast this morning.

And yes, whenever we get around to getting these tucked into a new home outside, I will pick every flower and fruit off of them. I know...



You Capture - Flowers
KinderGARDENS week 6

And!

Those of you who are interested in photography might want to check back again soon, because I have a teensy little giveaway coming up that may just slightly interest you. Something small and insignificant, like a lifetime membership to a certain photography forum. You know, that fabulous one that starts with "click" and ends with "moms".

Yeah, I just said that.

For real.

I could tell you the dollar value of this prize. But the honest truth? It's priceless.

Soon!

The games we play

If you try to take my picture in a professional sort of way, Mommy...

I'm not gonna make it easy.





I'll do everything I can to not look into that camera.



Unless, of course, you tell me there is a bug in the lens.



Don't think for one moment that promising me a yummy treat is going to work.

I'll let you know exactly what I think of being bribed, and I'll even look into the camera, to be sure you get the message.



And just to drive the point home, I'll pee my pants too.

You Capture - Games

Jump!

I've tried, and failed, to find the words to adequately describe how...



Wait a minute. That's totally not right.

How...



Oh dear. Do you hear my husband laughing?

I should have made him jump with me.

And...



Lord have mercy.

I nearly hurt myself that time.



Yes! YES!

I gotta tell ya. How great it feels to be posting back here again!


Linking up with
You Capture - "Outside" and
Selfie Magic - "Jump"

Frozen farm

It was two degrees (above zero F) when I was out a few hours ago to take these, and now we're already up to nine degrees. While it's still cold, that's a whole lot warmer than it was yesterday, and the day before, and the day before.

The You Capture challenge this week is "cold". Cold is all relative here.

Do I show you my best photo first or my worst one? Maybe chronological order?

First I wandered out to the end of the sidewalk road. What you can't see is how full of snow the ditches are.


1/5000 f/2.8 ISO 50

It's only the end because they don't plow past our place in the winter.

Then I wandered back over to our shop.

Cold door. Cold handle. Cold shadow.


1/2000 f/2.8 ISO 50

A little cold sun flare.


1/640 f/32 ISO 3200

I was using my big lens. Twenty three elements makes for a lot of sun flare (and weight too).

Then I heard some awful racket in the barn and headed back that way.

I guess she just laid an egg and the world needed to know.


1/800 f/2.8 ISO 800

See the fog from her breath? Cold. And I didn't sharpen that photo at all, just sayin'. The big lens kicks chicken butt once again.

If you're curious, I braved -24F to take pics of the moon that I posted HERE. Now that was cold.

Mmmm... happy.

I tried to take a picture of one floating in a glass of milk. But it sank before I got my camera settings right. So I had to eat it.

I dropped another one in the glass. It sank too. I ate it.

Third time's the charm, right? Nope. I ate that one too.

It wasn't such a bad deal.



You Capture - Happy

Favorite 10 of 2010

This image is my absolute favorite of the entire year. The boys were showing off the upstairs of their lilac house.



Second fave. He'd been dust bathing with the chickens, and was trying his best to convince me he did not need a bath now that he was in the house. This one took the "people" category of a local contest, which proves that craptastic 1-hour Walmart prints can, in fact, save the day when you've procrastinated and have no other option. Or, possibly no one else entered the contest.



Underwear on the head. Honestly, what's not to love here?



Grandpa's burial ceremony.



That was the day that put to test my theory that I am emotionally detached while I'm shooting. Once I finally put my camera down I was a complete mess. Knowing this gives me hope that one day I might be proficient enough to volunteer for Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep.

Soybeans ready for harvest.



This one cracks me up every time!



And, yes, all three were laid by our chickens.

I can just feel the late summer evening captured here. This is what makes our harsh winters bearable.



Totally random, I was testing my focus and couldn't throw this one away. My baby girl and the pink shoes she chose all by herself.



Self portrait.



Open your eyes to the beauty in everything.



linking this post with You Capture

Serene

Last weekend we enjoyed some unbelievably gorgeous weather for this time of year. Like, short-sleeve-shirt not-even-a-breeze gorgeous weather. And although our daylight is shrinking day by day at an alarming rate, it means our late afternoon hours are saturated with that amazing light.



But not only was the weather perfect, and the light fabulous...



our Red rooster didn't bother us even once, and the kids dug in their sand-paraboloid with complete and utter joy.



Dare I also say the moisture content of the sand couldn't have been better? It's true.



But if I've learned anything as a mom, I've learned this: beautiful serene moments like these are, truly, only fleeting moments. As I lay there in the grass shooting my happy kids bathed in my favorite kind of light with my piece-o-crap Rebel, I knew. I knew the clock was ticking.

And the micro-second I turned my head?

The little Bean ran.



She ran far far away.

Thank you Lord, for barbed wire fences that have seen much better days, yet still do a fine job of slowing the escape of any semi-domesticated critters.

You Capture: serene