random reflections

Love Your Pictures, Love Your Pages: Inheritance Layout

This layout is based on one of Shimelle's sketches and a wonderful digital layout by Amy. After I took the photos for this photo prompt, I knew I wanted to scrap one of them. I decided that the photo with my sewing machine and my mother's tools best supported my "story."

Patterned paper:  Basics by Basic Grey; Sticker border & tab: Basics by Basic Grey; Cardstock: Smoky Shadow by Papertrey Ink; alpha stickers: Scenic Route

If you click on the layout you will be able to read the journaling more easily. The last line seems to have been distorted by the photographer. (sigh)

Love Your Pictures, Love Your Pages: Three

The third photo prompt this week was to photograph a group of three. My mother died when I was only 20. She didn't have much jewelry, and I have very few things that belonged to her. My favorite is her sterling silver thimble which I have used for sewing for the last 40 years. The scissors also belonged to her as did this wooden spool of thread. I thought I had several of the spools of thread from her old sewing box, but I can only find this one. It just occurred to me that the needle might count as four objects--oh, well.  I decided to try some different arrangements, all with different light.

The first one was taken in my craft room on a piece of white foam board that I use when taking photos of paper craft projects. The daylight florescent lights were turned on. I always have to do some color correction and levels corrections because the light is very poor here even in the morning. Other than that, it's SOOC.

The second photo was taken in our bedroom which has light from the same direction as my craft room, but there are three large windows rather than just one. Nonetheless, I had to turn on the lights to get a good exposure here as well, so I set the white balance on tungsten. Our yard is almost completely shaded and light is always at a premium in the house. I set the three objects on an old hymnal that belonged to my grandmother. She inscribed it in 1881.

The last photo was taken in our den which is in the front of the house and has two small windows. Since one window faces east I didn't have to turn on any lights here. I arranged the three objects on my sewing machine, and except for sharpening didn't make any adjustments to the photo.

I'm quite sure I'll be scrapping one of these photos this weekend.

Love Your Pictures, Love Your Pages: Photographing Florals

I was away for the first four days of Shimelle's class, and it will take awhile to catch up. It was a lovely morning here and rain was forecast for later (and did, indeed, arrive) so I decided I should get the outside photo prompt of florals done. My Shasta daisies are beautiful right now so I decided to work with them. Shimelle suggested taking the photos from different angles and perspectives so that's what I tried to do. None of the photos were altered in PSE except to sharpen them. All were taken with my 50mm 1.4 lens. I'm including the aperture settings for my friend, Nancy, since she and I had a discussion about them earlier today. As always, I'd be interested in hearing which ones you like the best. Here are eight of them in no particular order:

1.  f/1.8

2.  f/8.0

3.  Having the bee arrive was truly a lucky accident!  f/8.0

 
   4.  f/1.8

5.  f/6.3

6.  f/8.0

7.  f/1.8

8. f/2.2

Road Trip

Tracy and I arrived home from a five day road trip Wednesday night. Yesterday I took off with three friends to Auroa, New York for lunch at Pumpkin Hill and a trip to the MacKenzie Child shop. Today was equally busy:  my botanical drawing class, visiting a friend, and then grocery shopping. I managed to get one of the three photo prompts completed for Shimelle's class which I'll post as soon as I have them edited. I hope by the end of the weekend to be caught up with the class.

Our first stop was in Hyde Park, NY to visit my brother, his significant other, and my two nieces. We started out with a great Thai dinner, did some hiking (in incredible heat!), and celebrated the Fourth with a cookout. I didn't take many photos. Maybe it was the heat, but I did take a few on our hike through Poet's Walk near Red Hook. There are some great views of the Hudson River and the Kingston Bridge.

 

 

 

My niece, Stephanie, Kevin, and Rocky

Water for Rocky

From Hyde Park we drove to Woodstock, NY. I hadn't been there in over 30 years, but it hasn't changed a lot. We had a lot of fun browsing through the little shops, and had lunch at The Garden Cafe.

 

After lunch we took off for Lenox, Massachusetts and the James Taylor and Carole King concert at Tanglewood. It was well into the 90's when we arrived at 2:30 and folks were already lining up for the show. The gates didn't open until 4:00 so we continued into town and found a great deli where we picked up sandwiches and a bottle of wine for our picnic on the lawn. We got back to the grounds around 3:30 and once the gates opened, found a decent spot in the shade without much difficulty. Although we were a long way from the stage, the video screens and fabulous sound system made it seem as if you were right up front. This was the third show of the weekend, all of them sold out at 18,000 folks per concert. It was a sea of people, but a very warm and friendly crowd. We had great conversations with "neighbors" both before the concert and during the intermission.

The concert itself couldn't have been better. I saw both James Taylor and Carole King in concert when I was in college and they were just as great as ever. They've assembled a great band (Jame's original) as well as backup singers and they sang all the old favorites. The special treat was a guest appearance by YoYo Ma who came on twice after intermission to accompany them on Sweet Baby James and You've Got a Friend. What a fabulous surprise!

 

 

On Saturday we drove to Vermont, had breakfast at Up For Breakfast, our favorite breakfast spot, and spent quite a while at Northshire Books. I picked up a copy of Allegra Goodman's new book, The Cookbook Collector, which I am thoroughly enjoying. Also added several more books to my Amazon Wish List. If only I could read as fast as I can find new books! Tracy and I laughed when we saw this sign in the sidewalk outside the book store. I'm not sure how we've missed it before.

We had lunch in Middlebury, VT and were in Burlington by late afternoon. Our niece, Jasmine, had made reservations at the Blue Bird Cafe for dinner and it was fabulous. I failed to take any photos, however. The next morning we had reservations for breakfast at the Shelburne Inn at Shelburne Farms. What an amazing place! Here are a few of my favorite photos:

The view from our table; because it was so hot, the view of the lake and hills beyond in New York were covered with haze.

 

The view from the road.

Shelburne Farm is a working, sustainable agriculture, farm. They have a herd of Swiss Brown cows that they milk to create wonderful cheeses. They have daily tours, many children's activities, and opportunities to participate in the working of the farm.

The barn and cheese making facility is almost as beautiful as the inn.

Unrelated to the farm, but also wonderful, is the Shelburne Museum. It was too hot to take in all it has to offer, but we spent quite some time at the Ansel Adams exhibit which was air-conditioned. This is the third Ansel Adam's exhibit we've seen in as many years. Each one has been wonderful with a different focus. I had never seen many of the photographs hung here. About a third came from the collection held at Mount Holyoke, a third from the Johnson Museum at Cornell (I had no idea they had a collection of Ansel Adam photographs), and a third from the private collections of the Wallace Stegner family. We did take some time to visit a small collection of Warren Kimble paintings and to tour the steamboat "Ticonderoga."

 

 

The staircase in the Lighthouse where the Warren Kimble exhibit was hung.

 

 

I always envision documenting these trips and posting day by day, but it never seems to happen. So thanks for hanging in there on this long post!

Team-up Thursday: Water

Nancy's been on a trip out west so this is our first post in a couple of weeks. This week's prompt was "water," and Nancy sent me a photo she took last week in Yellowstone (bottom). Since I didn't have any brilliant ideas for water locally, I went to the photos we took last summer in Yellowstone and found this one (top) of water spilling over a falls in the Yellowstone Grand Canyon. This was originally a landscape photo but I cropped it so it would be portrait like Nancy's. I think it improved the photo overall.

Papertrey Pixie Challenge and Garden Update.

I finally finished a card last night that has been on the "to do" list all of June . Why I wait until the last minute, I do not know! Karen H. posted this challenge at the beginning of the month. It's a photo of fat quarters and we could use the square design, the colors, or sewing on our card.

I used a little of everything from the challenge. I deliberately did an uneven stitch around the edge of the card, cut the scalloped squares with a Nestability die, and added something different to each square. The green and orange also come from the challenge colors. I colored the flower and the button twine with my Copic markers. Thanks for the challenge, Karen! It was a good one.

Cardstock: Kraft (PTI); patterned paper: A Muse; brads, flower, & buttons from stash; sentiment: Friendship Jar (PTI); button twine (PTI)

We went to the garden yesterday for the first time in over a week, and I was amazed at how much the plants had grown. The tomatoes are nearly as tall as my shoulder, the pole beans are crawling up the poles, and the lettuce and herbs are lush and full.

 

The empty spot you see in the middle is partly the path we left to get into the middle of the garden but also where the peppers are planted. They are the only plants not doing too well.

We brought home enough lettuce for a week and picked just a portion of it. Before we go to my brother's this weekend, I'll go back and pick some to take to him. By then there should be a couple more zucchini ready to pick. We also harvested two large zucchini which I'll use to make zucchini bread today or tomorrow. These goodies were an unexpected surprise!