31/365 Close Up in Black and White

Kind of makes you wonder what this is, doesn't it? It could be the hair on a dog, or someone's head. It's not. This is my carpet.

Just for fun, I wondered what it would look like close up. I think the detail is very nice. Without color, you are drawn into the texture. You can almost feel it. Day 11.

30/365 Lunch with My Son...

Andy and I had lunch at Frank's Press Box in west Lansing. Day 10

29/365 View of A Busy Hospital...

I love to people watch. I find the sense of movement interesting. I took this photo without a flash, using the existing light. Day 9.

28/365 Coffee With A Mind Of It's Own...

Waiting in the lobby of the hospital this morning for a friend, my coffee did something interesting. Day 8.

27/365 Sam's

This is a music store in Old Town that I would like to go into but I haven't had the time. The front of the building looked interesting. I had to take a picture. Day 7.

26/365 Trip to the Post Office

I just like the patterns. It caught my eye. It can be something as simple and everyday as P.O. Boxes. Day 6.

25/365 Red Sky At Night...

Day 5 Red sky outside my husband's hospital window.

24/365 Capital of Michigan

Last night on the way home from the hospital (day 4), I saw this sight and couldn't pass it up. I think Lansing has a nice capital dome.

23/365 Stairwell at Night

This stairwell caught my eye when I was leaving the hospital last night. I just like the way it looked lit up. This was day three.

22/365 Thom's Rubber Chicken...

Patty made this for him the first day of his hospital stay in the ER.

21/365 View from the Eighth Floor

We are working on day two of Thom's hospital stay for an infection in his left calf.

20/365 Chair From My Past

This was my chair when I was a child. Some would say it's seen it's better days, but our granddaughter loves to use it when she comes to visit.

19/365 Faded Blue Jeans

Sometimes I feel as faded as my old blue jeans.

18/365 Working in Black and White

This is what my deck and back yard look like in the daytime. I understand when working in black and white, you have to think differently. You have to look at your subject in terms of its textures and form rather than color. I have been playing around with taking pictures in black and white just to see the contrast.

I think the deck railing is a strong contrast to the snow and the pine trees. The railing seems to "pop".

17/365 Pizzle Pieces

Sometimes life feels like these pizzle pieces, all mixed up and out of place. Jesus Christ can put your life back together...if you let Him.

16/365 Qwerty

Did you ever wonder where the lay out of letters and numbers for a typewriter came from? Qwerty from Wikipedia, "It takes its name from the first six characters seen in the far left of the keyboard's top row letters. The original design, by C. Latham Sholes in 1874, had a serious jam issue. Characters were mounted on metal arms or typebars, which would clash and jam if neighboring arms were depressed at the same time or in rapid succession.'

"The solution was to place commonly used letter-pairs (like "th" or "st") so that their typebars were not neighboring, avoiding jams."

There is a myth the QWERTY was designed to "slow down" typists, this is not true. It was designed to prevent jams while typing fast.

I am not a very fast typist, something about hand/eye not working well together. I find it hard to text message on my phone also. Maybe I have learned QWERTY a little too well, better than I thought.

Please excuse the dust.

15/365 CPRR Wiskey Decanter

Ok, I lied...I like this decanter. But in my defence, my husband just got this. I tried to take the picture on the table using the available light and the background was too busy. So I turned off the light. In complete darkness I took this picture. I love the way the yellow glowed off the table top. I think this is a cool picture.

14/365 In The Game...

This is about the only way I will ever get into an MSU women's basketball game.

13/365 Well Worn, Trusted Friends

Sometimes we just need some well worn, trusted friends in our lives. Like these slippers or my husband, who is my best friend. We need people that we can depend on, who will stand with us. People who will be there for us and love us no matter what.

12/365 The One Who Started It All - Bebee

This is our Bebee. She is the oldest of the three and the smallest. She is the one who hates to have her picture taken. She is a very good looking dog, but sometimes you can't tell from her pictures. She will be 4 the end of the month.

11/365 Time Passing...

I love this clock. My husband gave it to me for Christmas. I could talk about all the old sayings that come to mind like, "how time heals all hurts", but I will not.

10/365 Night, Light Play

This was taken in my back yard at 10:45pm. I had taken the dogs out for the last time and this scene caught my eye. I wondered if my camera could catch the mood. I tried to use the night setting and it didn't come out the way I wanted. I then took another shot using just the regular setting and this is what I got. I was amazed it turned out the way it did. I think it's interesting the way the light plays off the snow.

9/365 Strong Lines and Repetition

I have been studying patterns and repetition in photography. As I was leaving work today, the back of the building caught my eye. It is amazing how much we take for granted in our daily lives. As I was looking at it, I realized how interesting and simple the scene was.

8/365 Frosty, Morning Fun?

This is my husband Thom cleaning off the car windows. He's such a good guy. He hates to have his picture taken so I take them when I can.

7/365 Our Buddy Cisco

This is our male Cisco and the youngest of the three dogs. He loves to have his picture taken. I think the colors in this shot are very cool. This picture was taken with only the lighting coming in from the front window. I like to take pictures with as much nature lighting as I can.

6/365 Whiskey Clown

My husband has a whiskey decanter collection. I really like this one. I'm not overly crazy about many of the others. I thought this shot came out very well because I used backlighting only for this picture.

5/365: Train Tracks for Cars?

I read a posting on another blog where a guy, I guess a police officer, was saying that it was illegal to be anywhere around train tracks or take pictures of train tracks. He was talking about taking wedding pictures and how the bride-to-be could get a heel caught.

From@daquellamanera:
"The right to take photographs in the United States is being challenged more than ever. People are being stopped, harassed, and even intimidated into handing over their personal property simply because they were taking photographs of subjects that made other people uncomfortable. Recent examples have included photographing industrial plants, bridges, buildings, trains, and bus stations.
...there are not very many legal restrictions on what can be photographed when in public view. Most attempts at restricting photography are done by lower-level security and law enforcement officials acting way beyond their authority. Note that neither the Patriot Act nor the Homeland Security Act have any provisions that restrict photography."

I guess the use of trains tracks as a subject is still open for debate. I am drawn to train tracks because of childhood memoirs of my grandparents living across the street and beyond a parking lot from a railroad track. Also, from years living not too far from a busy train track and listening to the sounds of the trains at night when I couldn't sleep. These both are special memoirs for me.
As far as these pictures are concerned, I remember as a kid, this was a working line. Up until maybe 10 years ago, this line was busy. It doesn't appear to be a very safe thing to do. When I saw this I thought this was crazy but I guess if the people know for sure it is not in use, they will risk it. These cars were across the street from each other.

Different photograph books and magazines encourage the use of railroad tracks as subject. I guess the debate will go on.

4/365 Beautiful Sunset

This picture was taken from our back deck. Only God could paint such a wonderful sunset.

#3: Furry Best Friends

My husband and I breed and raise Chihuahuas. We have two females and a male. This is Carman. She is our middle "child". She is the most photogenic and really the prettiest. She really doesn't like her picture taken.

Day 2: Giant Christmas Ornaments

I live about 10 miles outside of Lansing Michigan, but I grew up in the city. I happened to be downtown a couple days before Christmas, and of course I didn't have my camera. I thought this was one of the funny things I had ever seen. Is it just me? These are three giant Christmas ornaments in the middle of the round-about at the main four corners in downtown Lansing. I knew I had to get a picture before they took them down. This is not fake.

365 Day Photography Project

Today is the first day of a new year, decade and something new starting for me. As a New Year resolution, I have decided to take the 365 Day Photography challenge. For the next 365 days (hopefully) I will post one photo a day. I hope to become a better photographer due and because of this experience.

Many people become interested in photography for a number of different reasons. Some use a camera to record major events in their life, such as their marriage, the birth of a child, holidays and family gatherings. Then there are those of us who take pictures as purely a means of expressing our creativity and personal view of the world, just as an artist paints and an architect designs a beautiful building.

This was and continues to be my motive for picking up a camera for the first time some 15 years old. Since then, I have been experimenting with countless different techniques, not only as a means to adding my own personal "signature" to an image, but also because there is nothing more satisfying than trying something new and using it to create an interesting photo.

This first photo was taken on my dinner room table using different equipment from my camera bag. I love simple still-life photos using my close up setting on my digital camera. At this point I have a simple Nikon Coolpix 5600 with 5.1 megapixels. In the future I would like to buy a nicer digital camera with more megapixels.