Planes, Trains, & Automobiles

There was an airshow in Goodyear while I was in Arizona. Both my sister and my dad live in the flight path for Luke AFB so we're used to see jets all the time. But the Blue Angels were at the air show and that was a great surprise. None of us had seen them before. We had fun watching them zip across the sky and fly straight up into the heavens and then dive bomb back down to earth. Sometimes, they flew over us so low it seemed you could reach up and touch them. I took pictures, of course. I wish I'd had a longer lens!





I've been to one other airshow before and tried taking pictures there too. It's not that easy to take pictures of planes while they are flying. They don't stand still.

So yeah, a longer lens would definitely help. Taking pictures at an airshow is definitely a challenge. But at least it's fun to watch while you are trying!

This picture is of the Metro train. I took it a few years ago when I took a photography class. The instructor was an a$$. Basically he told us that painters were true artists and photographers only took photos because they couldn't paint. Here's where I rant a little. A lot of his projects had us taking pictures while not looking thru the lens or distorting what we saw. Now, to me, the whole idea of photography is to share my view with the rest of the world. To record how I see. How am I supposed to do that if I'm not looking! Anyway, I do have to say that some of the assignments made me step out of the box and that was a good thing. This is an out of the box picture for me. It was for an assignment on motion.

This was a little easier to compose and shoot but I only really had one chance to get it so I was lucky it came out.

Hmmm...so no pictures of cars yet. I was thinking of going to one of the local old car club events they have every Saturday down the street from me. There are some very cool cars there. Or maybe the races. Hmmm...

Substitue Mom For A Week

According to my niece, Morgan, I am their substitute mom this week. Yep, I'm in Arizona getting my munchkin fix. Of course, they are the cutest kids EVER. Not that I'm prejudiced or anything. Ok, I am. Of course, I am. Anyway, so far, so good. All kids are accounted for and doing fine. Nothing broken on a kid or in the house. The only casualty is the missing Hooters frisbee which we hope to look for again this morning. Some quick thoughts:

Max is a heartbreaker. Everytime he smiles at me or reaches for me to hold him, he steals another piece of my heart. But as soon as he sees his mommy, it's Tia who? He's getting better at letting me take his pictures and even smiles for me. Woo. He's babbling still, no talking. Runs like the wind is a bright and curious little boy.



Madison is the stubbornest little girl you'll ever meet. Hoo is that kid stubborn. Probably because she's a Taurus like her Tia. I'm not too stubborn. Much. But she's quick to smile and hilarious. Sometimes, it's so hard to be "stern Tia" when she says something funny but I'm not supposed to laugh. Right now she is quite an accomplished Pole Slider Downer (just like a fireman) and not afraid of it at all (of which she is quite proud of and rightly so).


Morgan is whip smart, still loves horses, and still wants to be a vet. She's good with money and great about saving for the things she wants. She just bought her gecko a new tank and re-decorated her room in a surfer girl motif. She's not even 9 yet. She asks a lot of questions and always takes it to the next step. Sometimes, I forget that she's still a kid who plays Barbies and gets scared. She has a little bit of the drama queen in her which always made for great photo ops for me. But...sniffle, sniffle, she's starting to get self-conscious about having her picture taken. Sigh.

Flower Power

Flowers are yet another one of my favorite things to photograph. Probably because there is an inifite variety of them in all shapes, sizes, colors. It's kind of like taking portraits of people. Only, it's easier to photograph flowers.

For flowers, it's all about the light. Actually, photography is always all about the light but more so with flowers I think. I love to see flowers lit like this. Almost like a spotlight from above saying "hey look at the beauty that surrounds you and ignore the bad stuff going on in the world."

Sometimes it boggles my mind to think of how many beautiful and unique things there are in this world. It makes me believe there is a hand guiding things along.

Yet, I also find myself taking lots of black and white pictures of flowers. Is a flower still beautiful without all the color?



Both of these shots were handheld in late afternoon light. The sunflower definitely could have used more depth of field but I had to keep a workable shutter speed on it. Should have used my tripod. Sigh. The daisy I ended up putting in this little vase because my cat started eating them and he bit this one off! The shape almost seemed human - head, body, hand on hip. Like it was daring me to take the picture anyway.

Falling Leaves

We don't really have a fall season in our little part of Southern California. But still, there are trees with multi-colored leaves right now. Last night on the way home, I was distracted by them - yellow, orange, red. Just lying in the road. I kept looking at them to see if there were any interesting ones to photograph. Which is pretty hard to do while you are riding a bike. There is a whole section of my commute that I don't remember because I was distracted.

I like to photgraph a leaf because...I'm not sure why. Sometimes I just like the shape of them. Sometimes it's the color. Sometimes it's because they look like mini stained glass windows with the light shining thru them. Sometimes it's their shadow. This one was all about the shadow. It's a copy of slide. I used to shoot b&w slide film a lot.

Crystal Cove

Crystal Cove State Park is another one of my favorite places to photograph. It doesn't get too crowded there and you have the option of views from the bluff or down in the surf. These are some of the photos I've taken there over the years. All of them were experiments. They are also all copies of slides with my D200.

The bottom one was a long exposure at sunset. The shot was bracketed and I liked this one best. It's a little dramatic and the clouds really picked up the colors of the sunset.

The top one is also close to sunset and it's looking into the sun across the rocky shore.

The middle shot is looking straight down into the shallows. Because of all the rocks and tide pools there, this area just has gently lapping waves and I thought the patterns in the sand and the sun reflecting thru the water was cool.

Globe Trekker

One of my favorite shows is Globe Trekker. I guess you can see it on the Travel Channel but since I don't have cable, I watch it on PBS on Saturdays and Sundays. Love this show. I love that they go to not typical places and really get to know the people and the advertous side of that spot on the globe.

Now, I haven't done nearly enough Globe Trekking. My sister moved to North Carolina 12 years ago. It'll be 4 years in January that she's been living in Arizona. Still, that means that for the past 12 years, all my vacations have been to visit her & the family. Or vacations here at home when they come to visit. Not that I didn't love being with them, but it meant that I didn't get to see much of the world.

I think that is about to change. Well, not right away. But next summer I am going to take an Adventure vacation. I mean it. A vacation where I get to learn to kayak and climb rocks and ride a mountain bike. Now that I get 3 weeks of vacation a year and my debt is manageable, I think it's doable. I think I need to do it.