Day 26 - Close Up, Day 27 - From a Distance, Day 28 - Flower(s)

The 30 Day Photography Challenge is winding down and I am still catching up. Tomorrow is the last day I will have to create something, instead of pulling from my photo library.

Day 26 - Close - Up

I love this stool display holding sewing threads and wires. I took it at an craft shop hoping to duplicate it. Only thing is I don't sew, but cute idea.

Day 27 - From a Distance

I took this picture at El Morro in Puerto Rico. I love the replication of the series of doors. It looks as though your are looking through a mirror.

Day 28 - Flower

My favorite flower - The Sunflower. I took this picture a couple of years ago in my back garden. I tried to grow some this year, but the seeds decided not to grow. Maybe next year.

Day 18 - Your Shoes, Day 19 - Something Orange, Day 24 - Animal

Day 18 - Your Shoes

These are actually my daughter's shoes, but I love the flip flop picture taken 2 years ago for 4th of July. She just mentioned to me a couple of days ago she loves 4th of July because she loves to dress patriotic.

Day 19 - Something Orange

This picture was taken 3 years ago when we went to Puerto Rico. The architecture there is very colorful. I had just purchased my camera that year. I am glad I did too! I would have not been able to capture the beautiful scenery of Puerto Rico.

Day 24 - Animal

My hippo picture was taken at the San Antonio zoo. They have a new exhibit named Africa Live. I can remember as a little girl, the San Antonio zoo always being my favorite zoo.

Day 23 - Sunflare

Day 23- Sunflare

One great thing about this month long photography challenge, I look at pictures in my photo library a lot differently. There have been many times this month I have no clue what to post. As I look back at past photos I find something that will work for the challenge of the day. This sunflare picture was one of them.

Again, I will not take credit for this photo. My niece Bianca was playing with my camera on Christmas Day and shot the sunflare coming through our window blinds. I love how it reflects off the Christmas ornament.

Day 15 - Silhouette & Day 17 - Technology

Day 15 - Silhouette
This picture was greatly altered to create the silhouette image. I took a picture of my daughter in her room against the backdrop of her window. I only allowed natural light in and shot manual with no flash. I changed the image in photoshop by changing the exposure, added a vignette, and applied a brick wall texture.

Day 17 -Technology

There were so many pictures I could have taken for technology - a computer, tv, my Ipod, my digital camera, or any kitchen appliance. My recent displeasure with a GPS system made me take this photo of my husband's GPS in his car.

While on our recent vacation to Miami we had two GPS systems in our car, needless to say we still got lost for an hour trying to find the condo where we were staying. I have to admit that I never got lost with a paper or key map. Some technology is not all that!

Day 22 - Hands

Day 22 - Hands

This picture was taken last year at my annual girls scrapbook retreat in Missouri. The girls that hosted the retreat made the bracelets in the picture. Every year we take a flip flop picture, this was the first year to take a picture of our hands. When I saw hands listed on the Photography Challenege list I knew exactly which picture I had planned on using.

Unfortunately, for me I will not be able to attend this year's retreat. I hate that I will not be in the mayhem of all the fun, but I am wishing the girls an awesome weekend of creating new memories!

Day 14 - Eyes & Day 16 Long Exposure

Still in the process of catching up. I have skipped over Day 15 because I have to figure out how to excute my idea.

Day 14 - Eyes

This little guy was taken in Winter of 2009. Houston/Katy area had minor snow flurries that day and the entire city shut down. Samantha, Hector and the neighbors made mini-snowmen as the snow fell.
I was looking through my photo library of some great eye shots for this challenge and just could not find any that appealed to me. Then I found this one, not the human kind, but they sure are cute little button eyes.

Day 16 Long Exposure

Taken July 4th 2010. Firework pictures are hard to capture. Right before 4th of July last year, I researched tutorials on Youtube on how to capture the best firework shots. The key is keeping your shutter open as long as possible with a stable surface (tripod). Here is an article in PC World with a better explanation.

With 4th of July around the corner this would be a good opportuntity for me to brush up on my skills. Then again, with the dry spell we have had recently, there may not be any fireworks.

Day 20 - Bokeh

Bokeh may need a little explanation. The Wikipedia definition is below.

In photography, bokeh ( boh-kə,[1] Japanese: [boke]) is the blur, or the aesthetic quality of the blur, in out-of-focus areas of an image, or "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light." Bokeh occurs for parts of the scene that lie outside the depth of field.

Actually, this was the first time I have heard of Bokeh. I have always referred to it as out-of- focus depth of field.

Day 20 - Bokeh

I will be honest and not take credit for this picture. My niece, Bianca, took this at Christmas two years ago. I loved the out of focus lights and background images. This has always been one of my favorites in my photo library.

Day 12 - Sunset & Day 13 - Yourself with 13 things

I am a week behind on posting my photography daily challenges, but I am determined to get back on track

Day 12 - Sunset
This picture was taken last week while I was on vacation. I really wanted to get a sunset picture at the beach, but our hotel was not near the beach front. I settled for one outside of our balcony. You cannot see because of the palm trees, but behind all those trees was a beautiful golf course. It was awesome sitting on the balcony every evening enjoying the sunsets with an adult beverage by my side.

Day 13 - Yourself with 13 things

I really was trying to think of something creative for this challenge. It hit me when I opened the pantry and saw a bag of Oreo cookies. Pose with 12 Oreo cookies and get my dog Oreo to pose with me. He even smiled for the camera, not really he was eyeing those cookies!

Day 10 Childhood Memory & Day 11 Something Blue

Day 10 - Childhood Memory

The picture below is of my maternal grandparents. To me and my cousins they were our second parents. The jewelry in the picture (also in the second picture) is my grandmother's wedding ring and grandfather's pocket watch. I never saw them without these pieces. When they passed each grandchild was able to keep something of theirs. I chose these two items.

Day 11 - Something Blue

My blue Talavera suns on my backyard fence. I love my Talavera pottery! They make my backyard shine with color and look great when all my flowers are in bloom in front of them.

Day 9 - Someone You Love

This was an easy one! I love my family.

My husband and I will be celebrating 20 years of marriage on June 15. Time has just flown by. We have had a great time together: enjoying time with friends and family, traveling to fun places, working together at achieving goals for ourselves, and having the most wonderful daughter.

My daughter, Samantha, could not have asked for a better kid. I was very lucky that God blessed me with one though, otherwise I would be broke! She definitely likes the finer things in life. She is a great althete, student, and loyal friend. Her friends respect her honesty and love her sense of style. The last 13 years has provided great enjoyment in raising her.

Day 8 - Bad Habit

Diet Coke is my bad habit. On an average I am drinking about two a day, not good I know! The way I look at it my habit could be worse like I could be a smoker, drinker, or gambler, but I choose the carbonated wonder DIET COKE.

I give it up during the lenten season every year. You would think I could give it up for a lifetime, but I just can't. My family gives me such a hard time about drinking so much DC, but I don't listen to them. As long as I water it down with lots of ice, I feel like I am getting my water supplement in.

Day 7 - Fruit

Wow - I have kept up with the photography challenge for a week. This challenge really has me thinking out of the box. I am getting some great inspiration.

Today's challenege was fruit. Thank goodness we always have fruit in the house. Although I was thinking about going to our local grocery store and taking a picture of the produce aisle. I took this picture without a flash and loved the outcome.

I will be skipping the Cyber-Site Tuesday feature in June to continue posting pictures of my photography challenge.

Day 6 - From A Low Angle

This picture is an older picture from one of our vacations to Puerto Rico. This is on the list of my favorites from my vacation pictures. Hector and I were out exploring in El Junque (The Rainforest in Puerto Rico), when I saw this gorgeous palm tree. I laid on the ground to get a better view of the palm fronds and snapped away.
________________________________________________
Garden Pictures:
I love Summer for all of it's colors and outdoor fun. I love to garden and every year I try to change up our flower beds. Here was my garden from last year, when I planted cucumbers. This year our front and back gardens have produced some great color. In the pictures below are the Hot Pink Hibiscus from our hibiscus tree, the purple exotic plant is a Passion Flower which are great for attracting butterflies, and finally the zinnas and marigolds blanket the bottom of our flower beds.

Day 4 - Something Green & Day 5 - Something From A High Angle

Day 5 - From a High Angle. I took picture of my Talavera Garden Frog from my garden stool.

Day 4 - Something Green. I love my Talavera Pottery. This Iguana has been with me for a long time. Like a real Iguana he loves basking in the summer sun on my porch.

I am enjoying these challenges. It is truly has me hunting around the house, looking at different angles and items to take pictures of.

Day 3 - Clouds

There was not a cloud in the sky yesterday for me to take a picture of. I had to resort to finding an older picture in my photo stock.

I will give credit to my niece Vanessa Parker for taking this picture when she was in St. Croix last summer. Post-Sunset on Rainbow Beach. See the cruise ship in the background.

Day 2 - What I Wore Today

Today's photograpy challenge is what you wore today. I set up my mannequin last night to take a picture of my work outfit for the day.

Some of the other girls in the group took pictures of just their shoes, perfume bottles, jewelry. Very creative! I am going to have to think outside of the box on my next challenges.
___________________________________________________CREATIVE PLAY:
I had planned on posting this a while back and had forgot about it. A friend of mine wanted a Tuscan picture for her Mom. I searched several sites for ideas and this is what I came up with. Title: View from a Tuscan window. (Materials: 5x7 canvas, acrylics, texture gel, tattered angels glimmer mist).

I love how it came out! I wanted a fun spot to take a picture of it. The flower pot fit perfectly.
I hope Misty enjoys the picture, it was hard to depart with.

30 Day Photography Challenge

I have found on photography group on Flickr that has issued a 30 day photograhy challenge. I have decided to join the challenge.

Day 1 - Self-Portait.