Fun With Photography

Snippets of Vacation Memories 2011

2011-10-17T22:43:00.000-04:00

Local Art

2011-09-28T01:02:00.000-04:00

Random Shots

2011-09-26T17:55:00.000-04:00

Picnic Table

Look to the Sky

Gnarly Tree

Dove

Garden

Fire Escape

Doorway

Pine

More Pine

Maple

Smiley Park Fountain

Song bird

Smiley Park Fountain

I'm Back With All New Photos

2011-09-16T01:39:00.002-04:00

It's been awhile, I know. I haven't had the opportunity to get out much and take pictures of anything until recently but here are some of the shots I've taken in the past few months. I hope you enjoy them.

More to come later. Hope you enjoy these.

The Fields of Summer

2008-09-05T23:43:00.012-04:00

These are just some of the pictures I took out my car window the end of July this year. I wish I had taken the pictures of the just cut wheat field on another day previous to this one because the way the sun was shining on it made it look like pure gold. These are not the best pictures but they are the most recent I have of my landscapes. This hasn't been the best time for picture taking this summer. Hopefully next year will be better. I also have film in my other camera that needs to be finished up so I can take it to be developed along with some other rolls that are ready to develope. Those have some interesting blizzard pictures on them (I hope). I actually don't know what all might be on those rolls so I am anxious to get them developed. In the meantime, if you enjoy the farm life, I hope you enjoy these pics.

Wordle Art Fun

2008-07-22T22:44:00.004-04:00

Here is something just found online while browsing through some other blogs. Check out http://wordle.net and see what you can do with your words. The link below was created on wordle.net from just giving the URL to this blog. It is a word art created from the words on this blog. It took just seconds to do.

Fourth of July Fireworks

2008-07-05T01:28:00.014-04:00

Starting out with still photography, I changed to video after these photos were taken. I am still working on the videos. Maybe I will be able to get them on here once I figure out how it works--that is once I am done editing them.

After The Storm Is Over...

2008-06-06T23:17:00.013-04:00

We had a tornado warning tonight that actually ended up with some tree damage, and maybe more. I haven't heard the news yet. Because I live in a mobile home, I had to leave quickly and go to a friend's house where there is a basement. Driving over was not pleasant. I think I ended up driving through the worst part of it. Thankfully, I made it and we didn't get hit as badly as it could have been.
After the storm was over my friend and I and her son decided to go check out my place and some other areas just out of curiousity. What we actually really got a good look at was the sky. I am sorry about the clarity of these pictures not being so good. They were taken through the car windows. But you can get the idea.

Just heard the news. Our area was hit worse than it seemed like in my particular area. The county apparently had at least 5 touchdowns of tornados and has been declared a disaster area. I know when I was driving to my friends, I was dodging big tree branches already across the road and still falling around me. But where we drove around afterwards, there was little more than that. We had a very bad tornado several years ago and I really hate to find out what this storm did.

Enjoy the pictures. Sorry about all the reflections from the flash in the glass.

Landscapes

2008-06-03T23:14:00.001-04:00

These are NOT my pictures, but I wanted to put them in here because they are just pretty.

http://www.outdoor-photos.com/

Flowers, Flowers, and More Flowers

2008-05-19T13:29:00.013-04:00

All these pretty posies were in one flower garden at a client's house where I used to do private duty home health care. Definitely a green thumb in that family. I think one of the pictures might be sideways. Can you pick out the right one?

Venice Beach and High In The Sky

2008-05-16T00:53:00.000-04:00

These pictures were scenes from Venice Beach, California. I spent six days in North Hollywood between Christmas and New Years Day and didn't get to do very much the entire time. Finally we got to go to the beach. These are some of the better pictures I took. All pictures were taken with my Canon AE1 and the zoom lens.

The following photos were taken from my airplane window as I was leaving LAX in Los Angeles after the one and only "vacation" I ever went on. I don't really consider it a vacation, because it wasn't that kind of trip. Anyway, I had never flown before this trip. Going out to Los Angeles I traveled overnight so I couldn't take any pictures. Plus I was pretty airsick. I didn't get airsick after that initial trip. These pictures are all either of the California coastline and the Pacific Ocean, or they are of flying above the clouds. I thought that the clouds when seen from above instead of from below like we are all used to, were fascinating. Sometimes they looked like you could actually walk on them. I hope you enjoy these pictures.

Guess The Location???

2008-05-09T14:30:00.000-04:00

Be sure to browse all these photos today to see which one(s) you are to guess where it was taken.

I decided to add some random photos here today. The first group are winter scenes at our pond when we lived in Michigan. It had snowed overnight and the next morning the world looked like something out of a fantasy. It was so beautiful. The snow was so wet and heavy that it stuck to everything. It was a good thing I got out and took these pictures early because by mid-morning the snow was mostly melted off the trees and bushes.

These two pictures are of a pretty little tree that I wanted pictures of for identification purposes. I thought it would be nice to have a tree or two like this at my home but I had never seen one before and didn't know the name of it. This is years later and I still don't know the name. Do any of you know the name?

Also, let me know if you can identify the building in the background. Also maybe if you know what building that is in the background, you may also know where this tree was planted. I will give you this much of a clue. The little tree is at a very popular business. Take a guess and let me know what you think. I will tell you if you are right.

Here are a few pictures of the beautiful fall colors in our woods at our home in Michigan. No matter what direction we looked, we could see all the beautiful changes of color all around us. These are just a few examples. We also had deer who lived in the woods and would daily come out to have a look around.

I think that tall bunch of weeds above represents my garden. Those weeds were taller than I am. It is obvious that my garden did not do well. I planted the seeds but it didn't rain for weeks afterwards and I had no way to water it since it was too far from the house for the hose to reach and the garden was too big to water any other way by hand. The previous owner had put all the "natural fertilizer" from the horse barn at the front part of this "garden" and of course, weeds well fertilized don't need rain. Anyway, it made a nice rustic picture.

This tree above is the same tree shown in the middle photo of the snowy pond pictures above.

The picture below is one I really like because of the cool shadows, the snow, and the way the light plays on the trees.

Lake Photos

2008-05-01T18:11:00.000-04:00

Cute little water fowl enjoying the day. Same lake as the photos below but in a far different area.

Camera Canon AE1 probably with the telephoto lens. I am sure I wouldn't have gotten so close without it.

The above photos were taken at a special private spot at the lake where we used to go fishing, swimming, and have picnics. This private area is no longer the rustic secluded area it was back when these pictures were taken. I am sure the view is still as gorgeous.

Camera used was Canon AE1 with the regular lens and star filter.

Photos--Finally!!!

2008-04-24T22:20:00.001-04:00

Finally a start at the photos I promised. Took me long enough to get started with the scanning. You really should see the amount of photos I have been going through the past couple of weeks. Sorting out the ones I want to scan and get put here has been fun, but getting to the scanning has been another story.

All of the pictures below were taken in Central Michigan from 1992-1993 using my Canon AE1 camera. I also used my zoom/macro lens for most of my photos with this camera.

I hope you enjoy them.

The buds above and the daffodils below were taken in my yard.

These lake pictures were taken at Tamarac Lake. The ducks were always available for viewing.

The following photos were taken at the Muskegon River near a little town called Rodgers, Michigan. This town isn't much more than a few homes and a couple of stores. If you blink as you drive past, you won't even notice it. We found this pretty spot one day and let the kids go swimming in the river. It was the first time they had ever swam in a river and they said it was really cold. But they had fun. While they swam, I had fun taking pictures.

These last two were two of my favorite photos.

Both still at the river.

Michigan has such beautiful landscape. Sometime I hope to get back up there just for a photo/road trip. For now, I have my pictures.

Sorting Photos

2008-04-13T15:37:00.001-04:00

Oh my goodness! I have a ton of photos that I have been going through this weekend. I even have a bit of a stack sitting here next to my mouse ready to be scanned this week so I can use them on here and other places. My daughter got me 3 photo storage boxes and I started the job yesterday and worked at it almost all day until just before I went to bed at 1:30 this morning! All three boxes are just about as full as you can get them and I have more to sort yet. That is, just tossing the pictures into the boxes haphazardly without any bit of organization. All I have done so far is select an almost random date to start with which is 1977. The reason I selected that date is because that was when I left home for college and lived away from home for the first real time in my life. So, I have one box of all the photos, no matter what they are, from pre-1977. Then I have a box of all family and I and the homes we lived in after 1977, which in this box I included all extended family as well. The third box is everything else which includes friends, landscapes, nature, hot air balloons, all our pets, and much more. The next step I suppose is to figure out how to sort each box individually, and see if they will actually fit once they are standing up. Only one of the boxes has any kind of dividers. The other two don't so if I want them I will have to see if I can buy them somewhere, or else I will have to make them myself. My living room around my chair is a real mess. All the negatives are still in the packets they came in so I can hopefully find it easier to identify them. I am not sure at all how to deal with the negatives and get them safely organized and stored. Right now all those packets and some loose negatives are lying in a sloppy pile on the floor beside the photo box. I am looking forward to getting this project finished so I can get my room cleaned up again. I am also looking forward to getting some of my favorite photos onto this blog.
After I had been going through the pictures for awhile, I decided I should start doing some scrapbooking...just because I know I could do at least a page or two focused on my different hair styles and colors through the years! Oh what a funny site some of those were to see again! Of course, I could actually do something like that with all the pictures of my family members...just watching the changes...especially of the kids. Well, that might just be another project down the road a ways. Too much to do right now with just organizing these photos first.

Fun Photo Sites

2008-04-07T20:04:00.000-04:00

http://www.randomchicken.com/ This one isn't really funny. But as was said on About.com about this site...the funny thing could be just how many times you refresh your browser to see what the next chicken will be.

http://www.tensionnot.com/funny_pictures_1.html There are hundreds of funny and interesting photos at this site. Supposed to be G-rated. I didn't check through them all. Not enough time in a day for that.

http://www.funforever.net/archives/category/art/photography/ Another photography blog. Had to include these ice pictures. Amazing.

http://www.christinefarah.com/index2.php Nice website...Cool photos.

http://fun.familyeducation.com/page/39458.html Photography for family fun.

http://www.aarpmagazine.org/lifestyle/digital_photo.html Cool photography ideas...forget that it is from AARP...age has nothing to do with it.

http://www.nelsontan.com/reviews/seagull.html Some new ideas for an old form.

http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=10075&pq-locale=en_US Ideas for photography for scrapbooking.

http://www.photosecrets.com/tips.html Can you make money with photography? Here are some ideas.

http://www.nyip.com/ezine New York Institute of Photography's Ezine.

http://www.photoworks.com/community/feature.jsp?tab=communities PhotoWorks photo communities.

Check This Out!

2008-04-04T00:46:00.000-04:00

Check out this photographer website and blog. Enjoy!

http://www.butzi.net/

Video Uploading

2008-04-03T20:47:00.000-04:00

Well, the closest thing I have to a solution, even though it is just temporary and not even a great solution, is to use Photobucket to upload my videos. Without a paid membership I have limits as to the size of the videos I can upload. Even with paid membership, I have a limit, although it is a bit larger. At least I can share most of my videos with the people I want to share them with for now.
Uploading to Photobucket takes a lot of time...on DSL...even a video of just a few seconds takes several minutes to upload. The free membership allows up to 100MB or 5 minute videos to be uploaded. I had several that were 70 or 80 or 90 MB, and they took up to half an hour to upload for each one. The ones that I did not upload due to length probably would have taken an hour each.
I did find that I could download from Photobucket to Real Player. The videos were converted on Photobucket to .flv files. I could not burn the videos from Real Player to CD, however, which disappointed me. All I want to do with these videos is to be able to burn them with full video and audio to CD or DVD so that I can give them to their parents, grandparents, etc. and have them be able to watch the videos on their own computers. But when I tried to burn them from Real Player I got an error message saying that the CD I was using was "read only", which is the same message I got when I tried to burn the original .mov videos.

.mov Files to .avi Files Help Needed!

2008-03-24T22:49:00.000-04:00

Okay, this video issue is getting more and more frustrating. From what I have learned from Kodak is that to get the sound to work on the videos once they are burned to CD, I have to convert them from the original .mov files to .avi files. I don't know how to do that. I have been checking online about conversion program downloads (the shareware free programs) and the more I read, the more confused I get. Probably the process isn't so difficult once I have the right program. But it is trying to select the right one that is frustrating me the most. I don't understand all the techie terminology. All I know is that I want these videos to be burned to CD or DVD and for them to work as perfectly as they do on my computer! Is that such a difficult request?

Before you say that I got a bad camera, from what I am reading about this, most, if not all digital cameras that have the video option make the videos in the .mov file format. So what does that mean? Are the camera companies somehow connected with the companies that make the conversion programs? And if the camera companies know that this is going to be a problem, why do they not include the conversion programs along with the other camera software? After all, what is the point of making videos with the cameras and having the sound included in the video on the camera if that same sound is not going to be available once the video is burned to a CD or DVD? Basically, any kind of backup you make from your computer of these video files will not be complete backups unless the files are converted before the backup. AND...one place I was reading about the conversions say that the sound may not come out right after the conversion. ?????????? Another said that the conversion increased the size of the files tremendously, while yet another one said it made the file size much smaller, but the picture was not so good.

So, what is it with the camera companies? Does anyone out there know what is going on and how to fix this problem?

Frustrations Abound

2008-03-21T20:54:00.000-04:00

For the past few weeks since I bought my Kodak EasyShare Z885 Digital Camera, I have been making lots of videos of my grandkids and transferring them to CD's. Today I was just checking them out and realized that the videos on my computer are great, complete with good lighting, color, and sound. However, the videos on the CD's are missing the sound, or only have little bits of sound here and there with total silence in between. I have no idea what is going on or why the sound portion of the videos is not transferring to the CD's. What am I doing wrong? Maybe I should be using DVD's instead of CD's? I thought about that, but CD's should hold the sound since it is CD's that are used for music. At first I thought it was the program I used because the later CD's I used the EasyShare program to burn the CD's and the earlier ones I just sent the files to the CD from the file where they were saved. But the sound was bad on all the CD's, not just the latest ones.

Well, for now I am going to go get some DVD's because I have used up the last of the CD's I had getting all the grandkid photos and videos transferred. I know the DVD's will hold a lot more than the CD's do. and maybe the videos will work on them. Either way, I want to get all the photos transferred again and keep the photo DVD's separate from the video DVD's. Then when I get them all transferred the way I want them, I will just throw away the others since they are not the kind that can be recorded over.

Is there anyone out there in cyberspace reading this blog that knows what the problem is and can tell me how to correct it?

I Love My Camera!!

2008-03-16T23:14:00.000-04:00

I am so glad I got this camera! I never realized just how many videos I could take with a regular digital camera. I also never knew I could take long videos with a digital camera. It is so nice not to have to have a bigger video camera to take nice videos.
Today I had 5 grandkids and step grandkids at my house all day. It was definitely video time at Grandma's. The kids are little hams and enjoyed talking it up to the camera. Even the 4 month old got some chattering in. Three of the 5 belong to my son and the other 2 are his girlfriend's. Their ages ranged from just under 7 to 4 months. It was wild at my house today. No not really so bad. I am not even as tired as I expected to be. The house is a little bit more worn out with all the mess they made with toys and other stuff. But for the most part, they did a great job cleaning up before they went home.
I only got myself a 1G memory card and have yet to fill it up.
The plans I had originally for today were changed quickly when my son called to see if I could watch the kids because his girlfriend had injured her hand at work and needed to be seen at the local ER. Those pictures I want to get put on here soon will have to wait awhile.

Video Camera in The Palm of My Hand

2008-03-15T23:21:00.000-04:00

I am so excited about my new digital camera. I have wanted a video camera ever since they first came out. That was years ago, it seems. When I got this digital camera I thought about how much easier it was going to be to take pictures of my grandkids, nature, and whatever else. What I didn't expect was the ease of taking quality videos with this little digital camera. The sound is there. The movement is there. It is great! The thing is, now I am taking more videos than I am stills. It is just so much easier and so much more fun getting those videos of the grandkids. Nothing gets missed unless I shut it off too soon. The only problem is that I haven't figured out how to share these videos via email, if that can even be done. I have tried to use the share program that comes with Kodak and it is great for sharing the stills, but if there is a way to share the videos I haven't figured that out yet. I think maybe it allows very short videos to be shared, but mine are not short.
When I got the camera I knew it had video capability, but I had no idea I could take videos that are as long as these are. Following my grandson as he crawled all around his living room floor today was great! I got the sounds he makes, the squeels, groans, laughter, and tears. That is something you just don't get with the stills. Now the question is whether I will ever take a regular photo again. I am sure I will, when I want something posed, or find something like a cool landscape or sunset or something that doesn't require video. Time will tell.

Playing With My New Camera

2008-03-14T00:21:00.000-04:00

Today I got the chance to play around with my new Kodak Easy Share Z885 digital camera. Daughter brought Grandson over for awhile so I could play with him while she ran some errands. That gave me the chance to experiment with the camera. I made several videos along with some snapshots. Sorry, they won't be posted here. My grandkids are off limits to the internet. I am hoping to get to my photo box soon and get some of my best pictures on here.

Oooops, I Did It Again!!!

2008-03-12T13:47:00.000-04:00

I'm back with yet another new blog. This one came about because I set up another Squidoo lens. The Squidoo lens is focused on photography and cameras, videos, and other things having to do with the subject of photography. You can check it out at this link: http://www.squidoo.com/photographyhotspot .

Having just purchased a new Kodak Easy Share Z885 digital camera, I am really itching to get out and take pictures. I also own a wonderful Canon AE1 that has the capacity for all the attachable lenses, and is programmable for all kinds of photography. I do have to admit that I have never quite figured it all out yet, but I sure have taken loads of photos over the years with it. It has remained a very reliable camera for me and my family. In the near future, I hope to get all my great big box of photos organized...or at least somewhat organized...and then start scanning some of my favorite photos so I can put them in my blogs. Now that I have this blog and the Squidoo lens on photography, I am going to have to make getting those photos a priority.

In the meantime, take a look at my other blogs--after you have visited my lens.