52 Week Project - Week 12

HANDS

I love little children...and I miss my grandchildren who all, except for two, live far away in the west. Perhaps that is why my eye was caught by the sweetness of the little hand of a child being held in the hand of his grandmother.

 

P.S. - Oh, how I wish I had been able to blog when my children were growing up! I know, I know, I had scrapbooking and journaling, but it's just not as snazzy and fun as blogging...and digital SLR cameras, photoshop, lightroom and photobooks.  Awesome!

Deseret Ranch Rodeo

When you think of Central Florida you probably think of Disney World, Universal Studios Florida, Sea World, and Kennedy Space Center, but it is also home to the biggest cattle ranch in the United States. OK, not geographically-speaking because there are ranches that have more acreage in other states, but still the Deseret Cattle & Citrus Ranch is 300,000 acres. It's the number of cows that makes it the biggest - it runs over 40,000 cows. If you add in the calves born during calving season that adds another 32,000 making for 72,000 cows!

This was a big weekend around here! Not only was it the Cocoa, Florida Stake Relief Society Conference weekend, but also the annual Deseret Ranch Rodeo.

Just to slip this in right away: The 52 week project for this week is "ROUND" so I chose this shot from the Rodeo.

The whole Rodeo is great fun to watch but one of my favorite things is the flag bearers - especially with the little foal following her mama as Janna Smith and Sherilyn Mortensen rode into the arena with the flags.

The "drill team" this year included a group of 20 kids, a lot of them really young - like the 4 year old son and 6 year old daughter of one of the cowboys, who rode in formation to kick off the evening. Mutton busting, bronc riding, calf roping and barrel racing are all popular events.

But the piece de resistance is the pig scramble. All kids 7 and under gather on one end of the arena and then the door on a horse trailer opens up and a whole bunch of little wild piggies jump out thinking that they are finally free - but to their horror they are met by a wave of several hundred children running toward them! It's HILARIOUS as the pigs race around trying to find a way out of the arena while being chased by the kids who are diving, grabbing, yelling, running and hopefully catching a pig so that they can be rewarded with a candy bar.

Just in front of these little pigs is a line of a couple of hundred little kids impatiently waiting for the signal to RUN!!!

Brooke Snow's Photography Classes

It all started when I had a conversation with Jocelyn Memmott about how I really wanted to take a photography class. She got excited and told me that her cousin was starting some online classes - then she told me about Brooke Snow's website. I emailed her, she emailed back - I waited with impatience for the day of registration, signed up for the pilot class and then opened the lid on my brain and poured in everything I could absorb about aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, seeing the light, composition and more!! I'm now addicted to photography - not the point and shoot kind, but the using the camera in manual mode and knowing what all the buttons, dials, and menus on my Nikon mean.

Here's an opportunity for someone to WIN a FREE CLASS from Brooke Snow! Let's all go for it!!

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52 Week Project - Week 10

MORNING

It is a beautiful, bright, clear morning in Florida. I was really hoping for a little fog so I could get a misty shot of the sun rising, but it is not to be today. As I was looking for another subject I noticed that the mulberry tree has berries on it and as I went over to taste one I observed the way the morning sunlight was kissing the leaves and turning them all different shades of green and yellow with its dance of light and shadow.

52 Week Project - Week 7, 8 & 9

The subject for Week 7 of the 52 Week Project is TIME. I thought of lots of possible ideas for this subject including the obvious: a clock or wristwatch....perhaps a pocket watch, a stopwatch or a timer....a sundial, an hourglass, or even dressing a child up like Baby New Year or a friend as Father Time. Eventually I chose to photograph something that shows one of the ways I choose to use the time alloted to me each day. Reading! I love books. I love to read about gospel subjects, I love to read Jane Austen novels, I love to read a good science fiction novel, I love to google and find answers to my questions, I love to read books about subjects I want to learn more about, I love to read letters and emails from my friends and family. Sometimes I let my love of reading get away from me and spend too much time on the computer or in the pages of a great book....it's not that I neglect the things that I need to do or that I don't do anything else. Well, maybe a little, sometimes. :)

1/80 sec., f4.0, ISO 200, 44mm with Nikkor AF 28-80mm lens

This shot shows some of my favorites: some novels I read with my kids when they were growing up, books about photography, books about decorating, books about the gospel - and the scriptures - right now our family is reading the Doctrine and Covenants.

"I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves." ~Anna Quindlen



1/200 sec., f4.8, ISO 200, 56mm

Week 8's Theme is PINK. Since I have limited myself to taking photos on the ranch...I have discovered that pink is not a predominant color here - at least not at this time of year. So I looked inside for some inspiration and found this beautiful rhodochrosite pendant and earrings that I got when I lived in Argentina with my parents in 1972-73. And because, as I mentioned above, I have a curiosity about things, I googled rhodochrosite to discover more about it. "The pink color of rhodochrosite is caused by the element manganese and it is formed when manganese is dissolved by ground water and combines with a carbonate material and then drips off the ceiling of caves and crevices deep underground. It is found in Argentina, Peru, Colorado and Montana, and Quebec, Canada." Whatever it's origin or how it came about, I'm glad that it exists. It is beautiful and it is PINK.


PATTERNS is the theme for week 9. Now, this opens a whole world of possibilities. For these shots I chose to be literal and shot something related to one more of my great pleasures - sewing. With the two shots put together, a pattern of patterns emerges.


1/13 sec., f11, ISO 1600, 35mm ~~~ 1/60 sec., f3.5, ISO 1600 34mm

Notice how the change in aperture from the photo on the left, which is at f11 and therefore focused all the way through the shot, to the photo on the right taken at f3.5, which causes the patterns outside the focus field to have a blurred effect.

Just for good measure, I've included some shots of the mama cows with their new calves. Calving time is a fun time since the calves are cute and play with each other.