235: Free #16 A Walk in the Park

A walk in the deep woods of the park on a bright and sunny summer day.

234: #249 Rain, Rain, Go Away

Quick! Run and get in the car! It's starting to rain!

233: #345 Upside Down

Daddy gets his exercise lifting Gregory (65 pounds!)

232: #041 Canine Companions

Luci is about the same size as Kayla's cat and she's such a sweet little dog!
Luci doesn't like to have Mike out of her sight -- definitely a little companion!

Lightroom does miracles with photos like this where there was way too much contrast between the backlight and the foreground!

231: #355 Weights and Measures

I got my appetite back yesterday and went to the grocery store.
There's an Idaho potato in the scale.
I probably could have turned the scale around, but didn't think about it at the time.

230: #180 March to a different drummer

After the 4th of July parade the drummers gathered into an oval back at the high school and put on a pretty good show!

Thanks for the hint on videos, Nan!
I'm trying an mpg file from Premiere Elements 7 and it's taking a long time to load into my blog.

This isn't much, but the kids in the high school marching band really impressed me with their "jamming" after the parade! It was the first time I tried taking video with my Panasonic p&s.

229: #176 Look Alikes

Well, I'm feeling better. I probably won't catch up, but my hobby makes me happy so I'll keep my camera handy and continue to post when I find something to show.

I looked out my kitchen window and saw what looked like 2 big shells on the railing so I opened the door to the deck and saw these 2 birds sitting very still. The kitchen is to the left and I was looking at their backs. My neighbor says that all the small creatures try to disappear when a hawk is flying, so I'm guessing that was the case. They are look-alikes, right?

228: pause...

I had a "vacation" this week at an expensive hotel known as a hospital and I've fallen behind.
I think I'll just stop for a bit and catch my breath before I start up again.

I might try to catch up, but then again I might just give it a rest for a while.

227: #361 Wholesome

Well, sunflower seeds are wholesome...
It's getting harder and harder to find a theme!

226: #048 Childhood Favorites

One of Kayla's favorite games is playing school.
She begrudgingly let Gregory be the teacher last week...

225: Free #15 Raptor

I think it's a red-tailed hawk eating a squirrel for breakfast. It was on the playhouse roof and let me get within about 15 feet of it!

224: #183 Metallic

A Metallic butterfly in the hydrangeas.

223: #136 Hair

Well, hair and eyelashes...

222: #270 Seasonal

Fragrant, ripe tomatoes at the farmers' market.

221: Free #14 Fireworks

I finally got a chance to try shooting some fireworks!
Friday nights after an Akron Aeros game.

Manual, ISO 100, F16, 4 seconds, 28mm with my 28-135 lens on a tripod.
My remote shutter release battery died, so I used a 2-second delay to minimize shake when pressing the shutter button.

Most of these are cropped because my camera was aimed wrong. It's kind of hard to guess where the fireworks will be in the viewfinder when you have to press the shutter button as soon as you hear the pop, but part way through I decided to use "live view"...

Next time I'll use the XSi kit lens at 18mm.

Skyrockets in flight...

A nice burst or two...

The next one's a little blurred because I adjusted the angle during the 4 second capture -- but I think I like it. Click on it for the big version.

My favorite of the lot...

I caught a couple with Children's Hospital in the background
and this next one shows a parking deck as well...

"the bombs bursting in air..."
Well, the flag is off to the left and out of the picture...

220: #114 Fruits of the Season

Mmmm -- softball sized peaches!

219: #206 Occupation

The tooth fairy had a job to do last weekend.

Tooth fairy-ing is definitely a night shift job and her only payment is the pleasure she gets from seeing the toothless smiles the next day.

218: #308 Summer

A big heap of zucchini says "summer" to me!

217: #143 Harvest

216: #086 Environmental Portraits

Well, my '95 Toyota with 137,000 miles on it passed the e-check.
I'm good to go for another 2 years.

215: #322 The Staff of Life

This may be the biggest stretch I've used for a theme!

These parking lot gulls (too far from a big body of water to be called seagulls!)
found some slices of Wonder bread. The dark one is being pretty possessive!

Not what I was hoping for today, but I had to stop the car and take their pictures!

214: #054 Closed

Queen Anne's Lace
a bud still closed, but starting to open

213: #161 It's Saturday Morning

There's a farmers' market every Saturday morning in the summer on the south side of Indigo Lake. Tourists can ride a steam train through the valley with a stopover on the north side of Indigo Lake.