Merry Christmas Eve!

Since I know

most of you are gathered with family

and it is a busy time...

I just wanted to post a

Happy Christmas Eve message

along with

a Merry Christmas too!

 

Thank you all for being in my life...

 

You mean the world to me!

 

 

This little picture was taken last year.

 

It is a driveway across the lake from our side of the lake...

 

but I loved the gate and the snow,

and somehow,

it just feels like the

road their family takes to get to a family gathering...a real

Christmas scene to me...

 

 



I also hope 2013 brings you good health and happiness!

I can't get them out of my mind....

I am like most of you...

 

in mourning

over

those precious little souls

lost

in the school shootings this week.

 

 

I just can't get them out of my mind.

 

 

Recently, I visited a local cemetery

and

found this lovely angel headstone.

 

She looked forlorn to me,

and

sad.

 

 

Now, she has taken on new meaning to me

as it seems she is looking down from

heaven

onto the earth

and wondering,

like us...

how this could happen................

 

 

 



May God be with all the families in compassion and strength.

This and That from late Autumn.......

Well, Google's blackmail did work....

I ended up paying the new plan of

$2.49 a month

in order to continue posting pictures on my blog.

Even though it let me post a few more

with smaller loading,

it stopped letting me load pictures again,

saying I had taken up too much space.

So much for a "Free blog", huh?

So, I bit the bullet and am now paying to do this.

But since I have so many images

that I love to show you,

and because it has led to a few "jobs" for me

in the photography world,

I decided to continue here.

Today?

I have a few images from this past autumn.

I am still so far behind in post processing

my many, many, MANY autumn images,

that I may be showing you quite a few more

over the next few weeks/months until I get caught up.

We are expecting a HUGE

snowstorm over the next few days.

(The flakes JUST are starting outside my window as I type this).

So, before I know it, I will be donning my snowshoes

and getting out in the wild white wonderland to get some

winter scenes too!

I hope this big guy made it through this hunting season..I took this in November right before our hunting season began...



This guy is NOT legal to hunt here (yet)....a bull moose. We saw him a few days in a row, we found where he was hanging out....but then after that we went back the next week, and he had moved on from the area we saw him before.

And despite the cold, cold weather, the same day we saw THIS....

poor little thing was moving in slow motion (probably FROZEN). Sure hope he got somewhere safe to hibernate for the rest of the winter!:

Maybe

I better do the same????

Gotta Love that Bokeh!

Say WHAT?

 

What is Bokeh you say?

 

(I know, I had NO idea what it was either until I started into photography for reals).

 

Bokeh means "blur"...it is when you do a closeup of your main subject and purposely blur

the background....

and if you want to experiment,

you can be creative with your bokeh

by making a lens cover for your camera

lens in shapes....

 

 

Here are some we did in photography class a few weeks ago!

Believe it or not, I hung mini Christmas lights in the background behind these objects, but
I cut out a "fake" lens cover with a snowflake design in the middle
and used a rubber band to hold it around my lens and snapped away...
and
THIS
is what you get!:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then, I used a homemade lens

where I cut out a little heart

in the middle

and rubber banded it

around and in front of my lens

and got

THIS!!!:

Now?

 

 

NOW?

I am bugging all my scrapbooking friends

to borrow their

cutouts to make more homemade lens...

 

I think I have "bokeh FEVER"!!!!