January 31 - 31/365

28-135mm lens @ 44mm, f/25, 1/200 with fill flash, ISO 320

As I mentioned in Jan 30th's post, we got more snow yesterday, so instead of taking more "snow on trees" etc pictures, I thought I would look down today instead.

And I have to boast that today is the end of my first month of Project 365! So for all you fellow 365'ers, congrats on making it through the first month and keep it up!

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January 30 - 30/365

28-135mm lens @ 95mm, f/5.6, 1/60, ISO 400 with flash

What a day. Today was the day we had planned for my husband's 30th birthday party. It was also the day that a rather unexpected 6inch snowstorm crippled central Maryland, effectively knocking most of our anticipated guests out of commission. I realize 6inches of snow doesn't sound like much, and it shouldn't be enough to cause so many problems, but sometimes in this area, when road authorities/workers are unprepared, it does. We were both really worried that no one would be able to come to the birthday party and there wasn't much hope of being able to reschedule for a variety of reasons, but luckily a few of our friends that live closer by were able to make it to our house. So while the evening didn't quite go as planned, we ended up having a blast, resulting in the best thanks imaginable - a great big smile on my husband's face, captured in this photo.

One side note, this picture was taken with a new lens I just purchased this week! Got a great deal on a gently used Canon 28-135mm lens [with USM, IS]. I bought this lens with the intention that it will be a great walk around lens. I'm especially hoping that it will serve to replace my 18-55mm & 75-300mm lenses as an all purpose walk around lens when we are on vacation.

Oh, and the cake was a hit! And sooo yummy.... check out some photos of the masterpiece on my other blog!

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January 29 - 29/365

18-55mm lens @ 40mm, f/5.0, 1/50, ISO 640

We are having a birthday party for my husband on Saturday, so I have been spending almost every night this past week working on a cake for his party. Now normally I don't go to this much trouble for a cake, but this is his 30th birthday, so I wanted to do something really fun and special for the party. I don't want to spoil the end result yet, so today's picture is of the "discarded" cake pieces after the cake had been cut into shape. Yellow cake with white chocolate mousse filling.... yummmmm! For pictures and a description about the cake making process, be sure to check out my other blog for all the details! [should be posted sometime after the weekend]

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January 28 - 28/365

18-55mm lens @ 55mm, f/5.6, 1/60, ISO 600

In case you can't tell what the object in this photo is, it is one of the attachments for my Kitchen Aid stand mixer. I spent a LOT of time with my mixer tonight, working on a confectionary masterpiece for my husband's 30th birthday party this weekend. I had taken a number of photos of my adventures in baking tonight, but spotted this whisk attachment when I was finishing kitchen clean-up and knew it would end up being the winning photo for the day.

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January 27 - 27/365

18-55mm lens @ 42mm, f/7.1, 1/100, ISO 200

I took this image after I got home from work. The original image was quite a bit larger since I was using my 28-55mm lens. I could have put my 300mm lens on, but figured I would be able to recompose the image with a little cropping. This was the end result, with minimal adjustments besides the cropping.

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January 26 - 26/365

18-55mm lens @ 55mm, f/5.6, 1/15, ISO 800

These poor tools have been sitting out for a while... tried to fix something in the house... didn't work. Never got them put away. Wish my husband and I were better with these things. :-)

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January 25 - 25/365

18-55mm lens @ 55mm, f/5.6, 0.4sec, ISO 800

Today was another day of photo-related frustrations. I took a bunch of photos around the house... nothing. Blah. And then it started pouring rain outside. So I grabbed my umbrella and trudged outside to try and get something water related... and ended up with this. Water rapidly flowing down the street toward the sewer. You can even see some texture from the rain drops hitting the water. Hopefully tomorrow will be a little more satisfying!

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