Golden girl / Tetris

   You know it's cold outside when the dogs wanna sleep on my feet and the kitty wants to sleep on my lap! The couch is a bizarrely-furry game of Tetris lately.

Catching up on Omaha!

   I took a quick weekend trip up to Omaha July 6-8 with Allyson and Scott—my first time at the Henry Doorly zoo! I was shooting with my brand-new Canon EOS Rebel t4i (which, admittedly, I don't even know how to use yet), and Scott borrowed my Sony HX1. We both got some great shots, and I'm working on posting them now. Scroll down to the "blog archive" pulldown menu on the right and select the appropriate date range to see what we captured.

Birds on the beach

   Met a couple of macaws on the beach today. And there just happened to be a pro photographer nearby...

Asombroso!

   PADI just posted this photo by Armond A on their Facebook page: cave diving in Mexico! I'll be doing 2 cenote dives with the group, among other dives, in little over a week. Equal parts mind-blowingly amazing & frightening.

The Possum's Paw

   This morning I went downstairs to let the dogs out, and noticed something sitting on the rug—just a couple of feet from the door. I stepped closer, then immediately recoiled from the pungent odor. Someone left a desiccated foot on my deck! At first I wasn't sure whose foot it was, but upon looking closer at the appearance of the toes and claws, decided it must be from a possum. (This was later confirmed when I found a patch of black, dried skin with telltale-colored hair on it. Taylor had found it first, and rolled on it. Are you shivering from sheer grossness? Good. Me too.)

   The paw reminded me of that short story "The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs—so I made sure not to make any wishes on it. It's funny how a surprise event can trigger a distant memory. (There are plenty of useful things I can't seem to remember... but old short stories I read in middle school? No problem.)

"It's just an ordinary little paw, dried to a mummy."

   The moral to the story is "Be careful what you wish for, you may receive it"; in other words, our lives are ruled by fate, and there is a penalty to be paid for trying to overcome it. I'll definitely be careful about what I wish for after this not-so-subtle reminder!

Omaha Zoo: Flocks of Birds

Peacock in hiding

His adorable family! (ARGH! My photo is blurry!!!)  :(

Scott gives Ms. Peacock a wide berth

Stork, sans baby

Flamingo quarrel

Meanwhile, a sweet moment between ibis

Watching from under the bridge

Spoonbill storks and their gangly, pink babies

A very serious-looking snowy egret

Testing, Testing... 1, 2, 3

   These are from the first series of shots I took on my new camera. The evening light was beautiful, so the dogs obliged as my models first.

   And then Kismet came out for a quick shot. It was already starting to get dark, and I wasn't sure how to compensate for it with the camera.

   As I was trying to figure that out, some loud, deep yowls came from the other side of the fence! Kismet looked worried, then ran and hid under the deck. It was a gentleman caller from next door, Mitty Moo, who jumped right up onto my 6' fence to say hello. I took a few shots, then he gave up (because Kismet wanted nothing to do with him!) and he took off. The session was over for the night!

   It will be very interesting to look back at these months from now and notice how I've improved. I'm hoping to find a good class to take to jump-start my learning, since I've used digital cameras with automatic features for so many years. I've heard of f-stop and aperture and ISO, but am not sure how to use them to my advantage just yet...

Happy 4th!!!

(Note: NOT taken with new camera!)

   Happy Independence Day to all. I celebrated by—finally—investing in a semi-pro DSLR camera (Canon EOS Rebel T4i... and I can't wait 'til it's charged & ready to try it out!!!) So hopefully my blog photography will be getting an upgrade soon. 'Til then, please enjoy these iPhone shots of some delectable treats I whipped up this afternoon.
   Sure, tacos brimming with homemade salsa may not be the traditional food of July 4th, but why not, I say?

    And I found a recipe this week for no-bake red-white-and-blue fruit tarts, so I quadrupled the recipe and am going to surprise my team tomorrow. (Okay, and maybe eat one myself tonight, too.)

Friendship & Photographs

   My friend Rick is amazing. Not only is he super knowledgeable and talented, but he's equally generous and thoughtful. He took me on a great hike on my first day in Portland last November, and loaned me a fantastic hiking guide for the Columbia Gorge (which totally got rain-soaked despite my best efforts, and he wasn't even upset!). Since Rick & his wife have a dear dog with kidney disease, he knew all too well what I was going through these past few months, when I quickly lost both kitties.
   Rick recently surprised me by sending me a few prints of one of my favorite Gypsy photos, on several different high-quality papers. Each has subtle differences in value, color, and texture and I can't even pick a favorite. Rick joked that I could wallpaper the house with them, and I just might.
   What a sweet, thoughtful gift… sure to be as treasured as the creature who inspired them. THANKS, RICK!!!
   Rick is a keen observer of nature, an incredible photographer, and relishes life—which all comes through in his work. I hope you'll check it out. Great stuff.

images © Copyright Rick Stare

The Cat of 1000 Faces

Upon waking me up in the morning

Looking wonderfully indignant. "Feed me NOW."

Gyppy Photography

   I've been making a point to get some good photos of Gypsy while she still looks and feels as good as possible. (Yes, even more photos than usual!) She is such a striking cat, and so dear to me, that I want to capture her spirit to, in a sense, keep her with me forever.

"Now, how would *I* know why your pink sweater is covered with black & white hair?!"

I love how she sits with her white paws together

morning sunlight

Here's Looking at You, Kid

*WINK*

Strange Clouds

   Not sure what type of clouds these are, but they proceeded the storms this week, and I love how dramatic they look, like a vortex around the setting sun! I saw these in LA when I visited Kelley last July, too. Fascinating!

Auntie Jen is Frightening

   I just met my new nephew, Sean Julian... and I think he might be afraid of me...

I (heart) LA

This is me on LA. And it is good.

   20 degrees at home, 70 here. If I can't be snowboarding, I might as well be sitting outside on a  patio sipping blackberry-pomegranate soda, listening to birds singing and enjoying some nice weather!

Handsome Mr. Tay

Handsome Mr. Tay (an experiment with Camera+ on iPhone)

   Eric is teaching me why I should like Camera+ (and after seeing the filters, I do!) and now that I like that, he's selling me on Snapseed, which has even finer control over images.

Tayzilla

   I love playing with the iPhone camera. Took this after Tay crawled into my lap & wanted to wrestle...

Tayzilla Too (Electric Boogaloo)

Terrorizing the couch: it's Tayzilla!!!

Deciphering the iPhone Camera

   I'm not sure I'm ready to throw out my higher-end digital camera, but the iPhone holds its own against other small point-and-shoot models. It's fun to play, especially with some of the apps that allow you to modify the shots right on your phone! Here's a spontaneous Gyp shot:

Gorgeous Gyppo, up to her old tricks (preventing me from reading the Sunday paper)

A before-and-after from Instagram:

Snarky Aki & Sweet Taylor

Here's the same shot, with some Instagram magic! This app is great because it uploads your work to a social site, where you & your friends can view & comment on each others' work.

And here's another before-and-after:

   Just by cropping and applying simple preset filters, you can enhance the drama in a shot. Here are a few fun ones from Colorado:

    One of the filters blows out the color and flattens the darks, just like 70s film photographs:

   There's an app called TiltShift that makes the subjects look like miniature scale models by adding a blur strategically. (At least, that's the idea... it's tricky to get right, but I'll keep trying.)

   Another fun feature is that the iPhone has both a forward- and rear-facing camera, and you can choose which way you shoot. This takes the guesswork out of shooting photos of yourself, since you can view the shot live onscreen. Fun for spontaneous snapsHere are a couple pics from the ride out to Lawrence on Saturday:

Asher, stop licking my eye!

MOMMMM, Asher's sticking his tongue out at me!!!

Basking in the Kippy love...