Capture Your 365…or not

Usually on Wednesdays, I share with you a week worth of photos that I have taken from the Capture Your 365 photo prompts. Well, the past couple of weeks have been crazily (not sure if  that is a real word or not, but it fits!) busy and I did not take any pictures with my Nikon! Tragic, I know! What was I doing you might ask?

I was able to set up a Compassion table for two days at our local homeschool conference and we found sponsors for three kids! In addition to hanging out at the table for two days and talking with a lot of people, I presented a workshop on the this title, “How One Mom Transitioned from Career Mom to Homeschool Mom”. This was my second time speaking at this conference, but the first time speaking on this topic. The topic is very personal to me because I was that career mom many years ago. Once I have time to enjoy some of my summer, I might just share with you some of what I shared in my workshop.

The other event that keep me busy and away from home was three days at Spirit West Coast in Monterey. I could have taken some pictures with my Nikon at this event, but my focus was on finding sponsors for a lot of Compassion kids. Once I arrived home on Saturday night, I did learn that 165 children were sponsored over those three days! Praise God!

So I finally printed out my August list of prompts and will do my best to share a set of photos with you next week. In the meantime, why don’t you print out the August list and join me for some photo fun?

Capture Your 365

Another week of photos to share!

 ISO 800, 50mm, f/4.5, 1/160 sec

Day 201 – Shades of Blue: Just a few books from our book collection that just happen to have blue covers. Have you read any of these?

ISO 800, 50mm, f/5.6, 1/200 sec

Day 202 – Urban Art: Living out where we do, we don’t really see a lot of what would be considered ‘urban art’. But my son has quite a collection of stickers on the back window of his truck.

ISO 800, 160mm, f/16, 1/500 sec

Day 205 – Action: The youth group at our church does a park tour through the summer. Rather than meeting at the church, they meet at different parks each week, play games, spend time in worship, and DT, our youth pastor, preaches a lesson to the kids. This past week, they were playing frisbee which gave me a great chance to capture an action shot! I put the camera on shutter priority because I wanted to make sure I was able to freeze the action in this shot. Can you see where the frisbee is?

ISO 400, 28mm, f/5.0, 1/40 sec

Day 206 – Progress: A friend of mine brought me a whole bunch of fresh peaches! So I made attempted to make peach jam (it looks real syrupy, so we will probably use it on ice cream!), made 2 peach crisps, and still had extra peaches.

Question for you: What mode do you usually use to take pictures?

Capture Your 365

A week worth of photos for you this week!

ISO 400, 50mm, f/2.8, 1/10 sec

Day 194 – Cropped: Each month, on the Capture Your 365 photo challenge, we are encouraged to take a self portrait. For this photo prompt, I put the self timer on and decided to take a picture of just my hands knitting a dish cloth.

ISO 400, 50mm, f/2.8, 1/25 sec

Day 195 – Old and New: School supplies are showing up in the stores. I picked up a few boxes of crayons. Believe me, they are not for us! We have a big plastic drawer full of old crayons. I will be saving these new boxes to take with us to Mexico.

ISO 400, 50mm, f/2.8, 1/8 sec

Day 196 – I Spy: My daughter has discovered Sherlock Holmes.

ISO 400, 55mm, f/8.0, 1/50 sec

Day 197 – Dry: Things are usually pretty dry here in the California Central Valley during the summer. It is very rare for us to see any rain for months until the fall.

ISO 800, 50mm, f/5.6, 1/13 sec

Day 198 – Starts with S: I couldn’t resist the strawberries at the farmer’s market. You know what that means…

ISO 800, 48mm, f/5.6, 1/13 sec

Day 199 – A Source of Happiness: One more batch of strawberry jam! I hope to sell a few more jars, but we will be keeping some for all those PB&J sandwiches we like to eat.

ISO 800, 50mm, f/5.6, 1/8 sec

Day 200 – Two Scoops: I just love ice cream, no matter what the season.

Question for you: What is your favorite thing to photograph in the summer?

Capture Your 365

Time to share a few of my Capture Your 365 photos from last week with you…

ISO 400, 50mm, f/3.5, 1/100 sec

Day 189 – One Flower: You know what this one flower means, fresh zucchini!

ISO 400, 50mm, f/3.5, 1/50 sec

Day 191 – An Ordinary Moment: This is my kitchen, meals are prepared here usually three times a day. It doesn’t always look this neat and organized, people do live here and we do make messes.

ISO 400, 50mm, f/4.5, 1/80 sec

Day 192 – On The Street: This is the street where we live. That is my son’s truck in the driveway of our home. It is a pretty quiet street and we are so thankful to live here!

ISO 400, 50mm, f/2.8, 1/10 sec

Day 193 – Stacks: Here is a stack of flannel baby blanket and wash cloth sets I have made recently. As you know, I have been making items and selling them to earn money for our Compassion trip to Mexico in January. See a set here you would like? Be sure to visit my Facebook page and see what else I have for sale!

Questions for you: What did you photograph this past week? What would you consider an ordinary moment in your home?

Capture Your 365

We are past the halfway mark! Even though I haven’t taken a picture for every prompt, this is still exciting that after 6 months, I am still making progress on this challenge.

ISO 100, 50mm, f/6.3, 1/200 sec

Day 180 – A Dark Backdrop: For the second time this summer, temperatures in our area were around 108 degrees. My husband and I were suppose to go on a miniature golf date, but with those temperatures, we knew we would just melt. So we drove over to the coast for the day instead, just the two of us. Capitola had temperatures in the low 70’s that day. Kev is not a beach person, so we walked around the shops and had an early dinner. We did walk out on the beach for a bit and I had a chance to get a few pictures under the pier which were perfect for this photo prompt.

ISO 400, 50mm, f/3.5, 1/13 sec

Day 183 – Whiskers: I really need to start watching the shutter speed when I take pictures. Once I pulled this photo into Lightroom, I could see that parts of the photo are blurry, that I didn’t intend to be blurry. So to try to salvage the photo somewhat, I converted it to black and white. I probably should have used my 55-200mm lens on this one and zoomed in.

ISO 100, 50mm, f/3.5, 1/2000 sec

Day 184 – A Contrast: When we picked out the red chairs for our backyard beach retreat, I knew I wanted to have some type of blue pillow for the chairs. My daughter and I found the perfect material. I just love spending time out there with a good book and a glass of homemade iced coffee.

ISO 400, 50mm, f/2.2, 1/20 sec

Day 185 – Fireworks:  I know these are not fireworks, but we generally don’t do fireworks at our house on Independence Day. I have a really hard time spending money on them, knowing that you are just going to burn them up. The month prior to Independence Day, our town does a big fireworks display during our town fiesta which we can watch from our driveway. So I couldn’t resist this bouquet of red, white, and blue flowers at least to decorate our table for Independence Day. At least cut flowers last for about a week or so.

Question for you: What did you photograph this past week?

Capture Your 365

Four photos to share with you this week!

ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.2, 1/20 sec

Day 176 – Put It On A Plate: Summer time food – BBQ hamburgers, sweet white corn on the cob, freshly picked zucchini from the backyard. Just looking at this makes me hungry.

ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.8, 1/3200 sec

Day 177 – Boots: OK, I have to admit that I laughed when I saw the prompt for this day. Seriously? Boots in summer? Maybe if I plan on going hiking, but during summer, these feet love to be wearing sandals or flip flops all summer long (looks like I need a new pair of flip flops!)

ISO 400, 50mm, f/2.2, 1/13 sec

Day 178 – Abandoned: When we first started Civil War reenacting, Kelsey was interested in learning to spin wool. A fellow reenactor even had us over to her home to learn how to make soap and she ended up giving Kelsey this lovely spinning wheel. Unfortunately, the spinning wheel is not being used at all right now. Maybe one day, she will take up this hobby again.

ISO 400, 50mm, f/2.2, 1/50 sec

Day 179 – Fresh Produce: Apricots and plums from a neighbor’s tree. There is nothing like freshly picked fruit in the summer time.

Question for you: What did you photograph this past week?

Capture Your 365

So, I have learned that it is a good idea to format a memory card rather than delete photos from them. However, it is a good idea to check to see what is on that memory card before you format it, otherwise you only have two photos to share for the week! Oh well…

ISO 400, 50mm, f/4.0, 1/250 sec

Day 167 – Something Masculine: For Father’s Day, my husband just wanted to spend a quiet afternoon at home after church. One of his favorite things to do in the summer time is to BBQ using his charcoal BBQ. So we made sure to plan BBQ hamburgers for our lunch/dinner for that day. Why lunch/dinner? You see, on Sundays, we usually find ourselves eating lunch around 3pm. By 5 or 6pm, no one is hungry for dinner. So on Sundays, we just plan on eating a late lunch/early dinner. If we do find ourselves hungry later in the day, we can always pop some popcorn or make something yummy for dessert.

ISO 400, 50mm, f/4.0, 1/80 sec

Day 168 – Splash: Taking some creative license on this one! We don’t have a pool of any kind at our home. And rather than try to create some ‘splash’ using water of some form, I thought it would be fun to take a picture of pouring rice krispies into the melted marshmallows while making rice krispie treats. Certainly not the same effect as water splashing, but it was worth it later while we were enjoying the rice krispie treats!

Question for you: What do you like to take pictures of during the summer?

Capture Your 365

There are some days when I just get so busy with the tasks of my day, that I find myself at the end of the day and I have not picked up my Nikon even just once. So this week, I thought I only had two photos to share with you, but surprisingly enough, I discovered one photo that I forgot to check off on the list!

ISO 100, 105mm, f/25, 1/40 sec

Day 159 – Star Burst: Today was one of those days when I almost didn’t take a picture to match the photo prompt for the day. I quickly ran outside and captured this one as the sun was setting over my neighbor’s home across the street.

 

ISO 400, 50mm, f/4.0, 1/25 sec

Day 163 – Relax: Over the course of two days, I made 7 batches of apricot jam. One of my favorite ways to relax in the summer is with a tall glass of homemade iced coffee and a good book. What is your favorite way to relax?

ISO 400, 50mm, f/4.0, 1/3200 sec

Day 165 – Stars and Stripes: Last week on Flag Day, I made sure we put up our American flag. With this photo, I wanted to do something a little different, so I captured just a portion of the flag. The breeze was blowing quite briskly on this day, so I had to act quick to get what I had in mind.

Question for you: What photos have you taken over the last week?

Capture Your 365

We are now entering my favorite time of the year (summer, yay!) and I have a few photos from the Capture Your 365 Challenge to share with you this week!

ISO 100, 86mm, f/4.2, 3 sec

Day 152 – Signs of Summer: Our town has a festival at the beginning of June each year and Saturday night always has a fireworks display. We love sitting out in front of our home and watching the fireworks over our neighbor’s houses. I set up my tripod and just continued taking a lot of pictures during the display. It was a great way to end an almost-summer day!

ISO 400, 190mm, f/5.6, 1/50 sec

Day 154 – Dandelions: No dandelions in my backyard and not the sharpest picture I have ever taken, but I was able to capture a butterfly! Boy, that was hard work!

ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.5, 1/15 sec

Day 155 – Negative Space: My husband surprised me with a bouquet of ‘just because’ flowers. These were the perfect subject for today’s photo prompt!

ISO 400, 50mm, f/3.2, 1/60 sec

Day 156 – Documented: When it was decided that I would be joining the Compassion trip to Mexico in January 2014, I decided to start a ledger to keep track of my ‘earnings’. To remind myself that God is in control, I wrote out “The Lord will provide” from Genesis 22:14. There is no reason for me to worry about the funds for this trip because God will make it possible if it is His will for me to go. He has been providing abundantly, it has been exciting to see Him work in all of this!

What have you captured this week with your camera?

Capture Your 365

Kind of a slow week for me on the photo prompts, but I will be sharing a couple of extra photos with you this week!

ISO 100, 50mm, f/4.0, 1/6 sec

Day 146 – In The Kitchen: Our pastor’s son recently got married down in Southern California and they had a reception with our church family after their honeymoon. For the reception, the groom requested homemade chocolate chip cookies. So I baked a couple of batches of my favorite recipe from America’s Test Kitchen (it is worth getting the trial membership for this recipe!)

ISO 400, 200mm, f/5.6, 1/80 sec

Day 149 – Smiles: Trying to get these two to cooperate for this picture was hilarious! They kept giggling and squirming. Not the sharpest image (shutter speed was too slow for the focal length), but I love how it captures the sweet relationship my children have for each other.

ISO 400, 200mm, f/5.6, 1/25 sec

Day 150 – Butterflies: There is no butterfly in this picture, but these flowers do attract hummingbirds quite often. Maybe I will be able to capture a butterfly or hummingbird picture one of these days.

So at the beginning of this post, I mentioned that I would have a couple of extra photos for you this week. Here is the first one:

ISO 400, 50mm, f/5.0, 1/50 sec

Remember the wedding reception I was baking the chocolate chip cookies for? This is the bride and groom. While I have never photographed a wedding (and I am not sure if I will want to!), I did have fun taking pictures at this reception.

ISO 100, 120mm, f/7.1, 10 sec

Remember this photo that I posted a few weeks ago from our photography field trip to San Francisco? I entered it into the Arts & Crafts contest at our local town festival last weekend. I ended up winning a first place ribbon and Best of Show! So exciting!

Ready to join in the fun? Be sure to visit Capture Your 365 to print out this month’s photo prompt list. Be sure to let me know if you are participating so I can visit your blog.