April 20 - 110/365

28 - 135mm lens @ 122mm, f/8, 1/10, ISO 400

Another flower photo, but I couldn't help myself. These beautiful little bluebells called to be photographed. I added a soft focus effect and a burgundy color layer to enhance the blue color, as well as lightened the photo. I love the ethereal feel in the end result.

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April 18 - 108/365

28 - 135mm lens @ 135mm, f/14, 1/40, ISO 100

With the warm weather in full swing here, it was only a matter of time before the grass cutting was reinstated. We finally got around to mowing our grass late this afternoon, and the yard looks so much better now!

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April 13 - 103/365

28-135mm lens @ 132mm, f/5.6, 1/50, ISO 800

Rain today, which doesn't make for good photo ops outdoors. Except when it stops raining just for a little bit and there are still rain drops on beautiful spring flowers. :-) A shot of an early blooming azalea bush in my front yard.

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April 11 - 101/365

28-135mm lens @ 95mm, f/5.6, 2", ISO 400 w/tripod

I spotted this tree on an evening walk with my husband this evening. I'm not really sure what kind of tree it is, but the blooms on it look like mini-carnations - so pretty and fluffy! The glow and contrast provided by a street lamp behind the tree really caught my eye, so after our walk I went back outside with my camera and tripod to get an image of the back-lit tree. Little digital editing was done, so the image is almost straight out of the camera.

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April 10 - 100/365

28-135mm lens @ 115mm, f/5.6, 1/200, ISO 400

We spent some time this afternoon doing a spring time ritual - washing the cars of the winter grime and some of the spring pollen. Lucky for me, my husband loves to make our cars nice and shiny. I just help out here and there to make the process go along faster. I took a few images at the car wash of our cars and my husband washing them, and this was by far one of my favorites.

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April 9 - 99/365

18-55mm @ 34mm, f/4.5, 1/800, ISO 100

With spring in full force right now, I have been feeling inspired to take photos of flowers and pretty colors every day. But I figure this would get boring and probably be less creative. So instead of photographing flowers, I decided to showcase the beautiful spring weather we have been having by shooting the sky instead. It was a slightly windy day today, so the clouds were clipping along and changing shape every few minutes. I took quite a few sky photos, but ultimately liked the composition of this one the best. I also tried using my polarizing filter to enhance the blue background.

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April 3 - 93/365

28-135mm lens @ 50mm, f/4.5, 1/2500, ISO 200

This picture pretty much speaks for itself. My photography group had organized a group outing to photograph the cherry blossoms in DC. I was worried the blossoms would be too far past their peak, but they were wonderful. This photo of the Jefferson memorial was one of my favorites from the day.

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April 2 - 92/365

18-55mm lens @ 55mm, f/5.6, 1/30, ISO 800

My husband and I had the chance to spend an evening with my family celebrating my brother's birthday and doing some Easter preparations. And of course, Easter would not be complete without some egg dying! Even though it is kind of silly, we still have fun doing it. Today's photo was of the best egg of the night. Not necessarily because it was the most beautiful or the most artistic, but because it was the most amusing. Sadly, I had to have someone explain it to me - apparently the chicken on the left is kicking a soccer ball towards the chicken that is "guarding a goal" on the right. Yes, that red line/squiggle is a goal. Don't think that second chicken will be a very good goalie since the only thing sticking out of his egg is his feet. :-)

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April 1 - 91/365

50mm lens, f/2.8, 1/1000, ISO 800

Have you ever seen those photos some people have in their portfolio that show detailed birds in flight, or super close ups of insects? I've always wondered how they got those photos and figured the likelihood that I would ever happen to catch a bird/insect/etc at just the right time [and get it to stay still for me to capture] was pretty slim. Well today was my day. I went out in my backyard to check on the growth of a few new plants and two bumble bees practically smacked into me while in the middle of mating. Not liking bees, even "tame" bumble bees, I started to dash back to the house. But luckily, I stopped to watch them for a minute, and not long after, the female shook off her male mate and landed on a tree branch. And of course the male, not happy about being shoved away, hovered in front of the female, just waiting for his chance to pounce on her again. Lucky for me, I dashed into the house to grab my camera, even taking time to switch to my 50mm lens, and those bees were still there. I got as close as I could to them without scaring them off, but still needed to crop the photo a  little bit to really show off the bees. I love that I was able to capture this moment in nature, and can't believe I was actually able to get one of "those" photos that I have always admired in others work.

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March 31 - 90/365

18-55mm lens @ 18mm, f/14, 1/500, ISO 800

Today was beautiful outside. Beyond beautiful. The first gorgeous spring day after days and days of rain. And the trees are really starting to bloom, including these behind our house. The buds on these trees have a slight pink tinge to them, so I wanted to capture the blue sky, pinkish tree buds, and the beautiful day.

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March 24 - 83/365

28-135mm lens @ 135mm, f/5.6, 1/100, ISO 200

 This past Sunday was a great day to get some yardwork done. I spent a good few hours of my afternoon that day pulling dead flowers and weeds and such from the flower beds around our house. The added bonus from doing this chore was that I discovered these beautiful little flowers next to our daffodils behind our backyard fence. Aren't they pretty?! They are super tiny but I absolutely love the little blue stripe that runs through the star shape of each flower. I had wanted to take a photo of them that very day, but I became distracted by other chores and next thing I knew, I had lost my sunlight. So today the sun was shining and I got a photo of my new favorite flowers!

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March 21 - 80/365

50mm lens, f/3.2, 1/15, ISO 200

After my self-indulgent day of taking photos at the zoo, today was spent catching up at home. Errands. Yard work. Laundry. Blah. But part of the work I did on our yard was trimming some of the beautiful blooming forsythia bushes in our back yard. I felt a little sad cutting off these pretty flowering branches and throwing them straight into the trash, so I grabbed a few branches out of the trash and brought them into the house to put in a vase. Instantly brightened our kitchen table! And made for a good "subject" for today's photo.

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March 17 - 76/365

18-55mm lens @ 55mm, f/5.6, 1/800, ISO 100

I was so excited to see the first "official" sign of spring when I left my work building Tuesday afternoon - crocuses! I knew I wanted to get a photo of them before they disappeared, so I brought my camera with me to work the next day and made sure to snap a picture when the sun was shining on them in the afternoon.

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March 16 - 75/365

18-55mm lens @ 18mm, f/5.0, 1/3200, ISO 400

I went out for a little walk around my neighborhood after work today. It finally felt like spring! With the sun shining, I thought it might be fun to play around with the idea of taking a "self-portrait" using my shadow. The photo ended up working particularly well for this month's monochrome theme.

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March 15 - 74/365

18-55mm lens @ 50mm, f/5.6, 1/200, ISO 100 w/fill flash

Spring is almost here.... flowers are almost in bloom and trees are starting to bud. And since we just started Daylight Savings Time, there is more daylight at the end of the work day for me to get out and take some pictures! Ironically, because it was overcast and raining today, the light in this picture had to come from my camera flash. But warmer sunnier days are ahead!

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March 8 - 67/365

28-135mm @ 50mm, f/4.5, 1/5, ISO 400

A shot of a few of our pansies that survived the crazy winter that we had.... pretty hearty little flowers! Can't wait for more flowers to pop up soon!

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February 22 - 53/365

28-135mm lens @ 50mm, f/4.5, 1/15, ISO 200

For the first time in what feels like forever, rain fell from the sky this afternoon instead of snow. Little signs that spring is slowly approaching are manifesting themselves, and while there is still some snow on the ground, included in this photo, the bright colors of my umbrella and the rain make me think ahead to spring. Only a few more weeks of winter left!

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February 16 - 47/365

28-135mm lens @ 127mm, f/13, 1/50 +1, ISO 200

I've always been one who loves all the seasons. I like the variety and the fact that you always have something to look forward to. Right about now, I am soooo looking forward to spring. I'm loving all the snow we've been having, but I'm starting to long for the vibrant colors and greenery that comes with the start of spring. I'm getting a little bored of feeling like all I have are monochromatic-like scenes in front of me to photograph - white snow, brown trees, black pavement. So while I was editing today's image, I started playing around with those "hue" and "color" and "saturation" options in Paint Shop... and my yellowish bush turned into a beautiful, vibrant red! Yea for color! While I do have a goal of doing less post-processing with my photos, I couldn't help myself this time. And I have to admit, I love the result!

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February 2 - 33/365

28-135mm lens @ 44mm, f/4.0, 1/200, ISO 800 with bounce flash

Ahhh... the dream of spring. Of course it is snowing outside as I write this, and the Groundhog, Punxsatawney Phil , announced today that spring will be delayed for another six weeks. Bummer. Until then, I will be trying to stay warm and reading about all the fun things that will come with the warmer weather!

On a side note, I did something I usually don't do with this picture - I shot my camera on full manual mode. As I've been taking pictures this past month, I've been paying more and more attention to the settings the camera is choosing for certain shots, and I knew what settings I "needed" the camera to have for this picture to turn out the way I envisioned. Hopefully I can do this more often!

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