Sooo, this past Saturday I attended a workshop/class on “No Light/Low Light Landscape Photography.” This essentially meant that we spent time photographing landscape scenes during sunrise and sunset.

We met at 4:15 in the morning (!!!) for the sunrise session, which produced some amazing pictures, and then we met again at 6pm for the sunset. In the morning, the rain came right after we finished our shoot, but in the evening the rain just kept of falling. We found ourselves under a pavilion on the East Peoria side of the river looking towards the west while the sun was setting behind the rain clouds.

Then, all of a sudden, the sky turned bright pink and this is what we saw. It was IN-CER-ED-I-BULL!!! This turned out to be my favorite picture from the whole day.

If you want to see many, many more, just click on the picture to see all of my pictures on flickr.

I have been driving past this set of stairs for more than a decade, and I have always wanted to stop and take a picture. Well, I did so tonight, and here it is for you to see.

I like rust. I don’t like it on things that belong to me, but I sure like to find it with my camera.

This picture was taken near a bridge construction site, and it appears that these bits of metal will be used to form rebar supports for concrete. The site was abandoned (at least for the weekend), so I took the time to explore the equipment that was there. This bucket of metal was just too fascinating to pass up, so I captured it and brought it home.

WOW! I never would have guessed it, but this photo was chosen to be displayed in an exhibition at One World Cafe later this summer! I just have to hurry up and get it printed. matted, and framed so that it’s ready to hang…

The show is going to run from July 25th to September 19th, and it celebrates the fifth anniversary of the Peoria Flickr Group. This group is comprised of both professional and amateur/hobbyist photographers from the Peoria area, and the contest was open to anyone that wanted to submit a photo. This picture will be one of 13 on display. I’ll post more details as the time gets nearer, but make plans now to stop in at One World sometime during August!

The Peoria Flickr Group has monthly contests for its members. They provide a subject/topic and many people go out and try to capture that subject/object with their camera. It’s always neat to see how different people interpret the subject/topic in their own ways and also to see how they capture them on film.

I went hunting for July’s “Patriotic Celebration” images, and I was let to Riverfront Park and Constitution Garden, which are essentially in the same place. While I didn’t find much that screamed “Patriotic Celebration,” I did find an old train turn-about, which allowed train engines to be spun 180 (or 360, technically) degrees to be routed in a different way. It’s been out-of-commission for a LOOONG time, but the rustic look of the tracks and ties make for some neat photos.

This is just one of a few shots that I took of the turn-about, and there are more on my Flickr stream. Hopefully I’ll get to share more pictures from the weekend very soon…. I just need to find time to sort through them all…

I’ve been busy trying to establish another flower bed/planter in my front yard, so I haven’t had much time to spend on taking photos. However, things are still growing, and there there are more colors emerging. This purple, spiney thing is just soo much fun to look at! it reminds me of a sparkler – you know, the fireworks wannabe?. It even seems to “burn down” on the stem, as the color fades from top to bottom as the blooms slowly open from top to bottom. It’s REALLY fun to watch.

Along with my obsession with all of the flowers in my yard, I’m also eagerly watching for bees. You see, I gave a speech in my Toastmasters club a couple of months ago about Colony Collapse Disorder, which has depleted the bee population across the nation and even the world. As part of my research, I found some “tips” for helping to encourage the bee population, and one was to plant a flower garden. I had already planted this phase of the garden last year, so I felt like I was helping in at least one way. Now, whenever I see bees pollinating my flowers, I get a bit excited and try to capture it on (digital) film.

I spent the weekend with friends camping a bit north and west of home. While there, I took a few minutes to look for neat things to capture on digital/film. So, as a depart from the norm, I bring you a photo from the trip. There are many, many more to be seen on Flickr (just click the picture to go there).

I’m told that this is a picture of Milk Weed, and that milk week is quite poisonous. By poisonous, I mean that it can really cause you to break out in a nasty, nasty rash. It also happens to be a favorite source of food – nectar – for many varieties of butterflies.

To me, it looks like a giant ball of tiny columbine flowers.

I can’t keep track of all of the flowers in bloom in front of my house. I love it.

In case you wonder, I do adjust colors and lighting on many of the pictures that I take, but only to try to present the colors that I saw with my eyes when I took the picture. For this picture, though, I only cropped the image. That’s it.

You might not believe this, but I’ve been actively trying to post pictures to my blog for about 2 weeks now… and something has been broken the entire time.

This is just one of many snaps from my front yard. More and more flowers bloom each day. I’m trying to photograph each one, but I’m falling WAAY behind.

Last Saturday morning was a very foggy morning. As a result, the foliage in the front yard gathered LOTS of moisture/dew on it. I took a few minutes to snap some photos, and this one was one of my favorites.

This lavender bush (is it a bush or is it just a plant??) isn’t sprawling as much as I would like it to, but it is smelling wonderful and showing some small, purple flowers.