151: #149 Hobby

My daughter collects giraffes.

150: Free #12 White

White spiderwort

149: Free #11 After the Rain

My peonies haven't opened yet -- but I like the raindrops in a row at the bottom of the leaves.

148: #193 Musically Inclined

Here's my granddaughter again -- the one who jumps hurdles and does the pole vault.

She's also musically inclined. These shots are from a Middle School jazz band concert. The band leader introduced her when she put down her guitar and sat down to play the sax and he told the audience that she plays 7 instruments.

147: #186 Mismatched

I planted several different clematis together hoping to extend the blooming season. So these are blooming together and they are mismatched on the trellis.

I miss playing with the photographs, so I've indulged myself today.

146: #306 Stripes

The corn rows look like stripes -- not for long, though. The corn will grow pretty quickly and we won't see the dirt between the rows.

This corn field belongs to the same farmer who was building a levee, but it's away from the river. I drove by there the other day to look more closely and realized that the farmer has built a levee all the way around a couple of fields close to the river. Either I didn't notice the whole picture when I shot the one in my blog called "Dirt" or he had just begun the dirt moving.

145: #344 Up on Top

The heron babies up in the treetops have hatched!

The first pic was shot at about 6 pm. The light was coming over my shoulder and showing off the birds beautifully. Unfortunately 300 mm isn't close enough and I'm too shaky for that lens's image stabilization, so I had to crop it and add some unsharp mask.

Family portrait.

This second snap was a day later in morning light with my Panasonic point and shoot at maximum zoom, and those pics were much clearer! But the only way to make a good comparison is to shoot with both cameras in the same lighting conditions. Maybe I'll try that later today -- and use the XSi with a tripod to minimize the shake.

144: #186 Monotone

Winter's monotone was white.
Late Spring's monotone is GREEN!

This fern looks like a dragon, I think. Here's another view:

143: Free #10 Ambition

This little duckling has a lot of ambition! He wants to FLY!!!!
He'll have to grow a little first -- especially those wings!

142: Free #09 Bows

Birthday present bows are fun for little girls...

141: #076 Dirt

The field on the left floods in the Spring. I'm guessing that the pile of dirt to the right is the farmer's attempt at a levee to keep the water from flooding the field on the right.

140: #097 Feline Friends

Kayla's worthless fuzzball.
He doesn't have a job like the one with the photography website!
cat photographer
But he comes around looking for treats...

139: #335 Transparent

Birthday balloons

138: #071 Curly

Curly ribbon attached to the birthday balloons.

137: #042 Celebration

Gregory's 6th birthday was Friday and we celebrated Saturday.
I cropped it close -- the better to see the smoke as the candles winked out.

136: #103 Flowers

I gave up trying to grow roses. I had some pretty ones, but the deer ate the juicy buds and the leaves and the thorny stems and all I had left was wild shoots from below the graft. So I have to go somewhere to enjoy the roses. In this case, roses for sale at the grocery store. I'll visit some gardens early in June and admire their lovely roses -- and take a few more photographs.

135: #265 Rural

This could have been "past its prime" but I decided to stick with "rural".

134: #058 Coin Operated

Well, I suppose it isn't worth the expense to convert the slot to a dollar bill slot...

133: #083 Eight

Probably the last pic I'll post from my Akron Zoo excursion, but there'll be another visit to the zoo with Gregory this summer.

Eight flamingoes -- a little brighter in color than the ones I posted with the painted fence.

132: Free #08 Neatly Trimmed

Sculpted shrubbery (topiary) at the Akron Zoo.

131: Free #07 Seeing Red

Back at the Akron Zoo -- some sort of crane

130: #162 Jumping, Leaping, Bouncing

The weather for yesterday morning's track meet was threatening rain so I used my Panasonic point-and-shoot instead of the Canon XSi -- less costly to ruin if it gets wet -- and I remembered one of the big reasons why I love the XSi! It's great for snapping the action as it happens. The Panasonic, on the other hand, blanks out when it's storing a photograph and you really can't take an action series as well. This set wasn't too bad after I quit gnashing my teeth and decided to adjust to what the Panasonic can do -- and that's basically focusing in one place with a wide view and cropping them later.

The hurdles shots were totally out of focus, but I did catch a few of the pole vault.

129: #098 Fences

Back at the Akron Zoo...
A painted fence -- and a flat painted flamingo sculpture.

And the next shot is the real flamingoes around the corner.
I wonder if they always have their heads down like this...

128: #108 For Sale

Calla lilies for sale at the grocery store!

One is prettier than the next!

127: #212 Open

Taking a break from the zoo...
The blossoms of my apple tree are open and beginning to drop their petals!

126: #350 Wall

I love the design of this brick wall at Akron's zoo.

If you look closely you can see that the lighter colored brick extends out from the darker background by a half inch or maybe more.

125: #017 Baby

This pair of cygnets were the only zoo babies I saw last week.
The little stinker on the right kept goosing its sibling!

Behave yourself!

124: #074 Dangerous

This tiger was pacing back and forth next to the plexiglass and snarling!
Either the enclosure was giving him claustrophobia
or he just didn't like everybody looking at him
or maybe he was hungry...

All those things make me pretty grouchy!

123: #079 Doors

The entrance to the Akron Zoo.
Were they planning to bring a parade through the front door
with giraffes and elephants?
That's a mighty tall pair of doors!

122: #314 Swirls

OK -- this is the last jellyfish I'm posting.
But for several days you'll be seeing other zoo pictures.

121: #123 Go Fish

Go fish, go! Jellyfish that is...at the Akron Zoo again.

An experiment making an animated gif in PSE5

Well, blogger doesn't show the animation in that gif, so let's try linking to it on my website
click here for animation

For whoever is interested, it was dark in the display house and the tanks were lit up.
These were taken hand-held with the kit lens. Here's the EXIF:

Shutter speed: 1/60 sec
Aperture: 5.6
Exposure mode: Av
Flash: Off
Metering mode: Spot
Drive mode: Continuous: frame 1
ISO: 1600
Lens: 18 to 55mm
Focal length: 55mm
AF mode: One-shot AF
Image size: 2256 x 1504
Image quality: Raw
White balance: Auto
Color space: AdobeRGB
Saturation: Normal
Sharpness: Normal
Contrast: Normal
Tone: Normal

They turned out pretty good using an ISO of 1600!