A sudden infusion of new old posts

Over a year ago, I experimented with creating a separate photo blog called Moments Caught in Flight where I featured a lot of favorite photos I've taken.

The blog did pretty well, but I've found it difficult to keep two blogs going. So, I'm putting that blog on indefinite hiatus and concentrating on this blog. I've used Blogger's import feature to pull all the Moments Caught in Flight posts into this blog, comments and all.

I'm keeping the Moments Caught in Flight blog up. Maybe someday I'll have time and energy to revive it.

It's all I can do to keep fresh content on this blog, even with its multiple personality disorder.

If  you want to browse the posts that I imported, I've given them a special tag:  Import from Moments Caught in Flight. Meanwhile, I'll continue to post photos here on this site and probably use more of the style I developed on that blog.

A Moment Caught: Mr. November 2010

Mr. Thor is going to be a calendar boy. One of these two photos (or a crop there of) has been selected to be the November photo in the BARC 2010 calendar. BARC is the Bernese Auction Rescue Coalition, from which we adopted Thor five years ago.

I'm not sure which photo was selected. I like the vertical one better, but I'm guessing the horizontal works better in a calendar.

These photos were taken in November 2007. I tried to capture a similar series this year, but the fall wasn't quite so pretty. See the photo of Loki and Thor below.

To order your own calendar, which is full of photos of lots of adorable Bernese Mountain Dogs, go to the BARC fundraising page or here.

Still in bloom

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I've forgotten what this plant is called, but I know I liked it because of its alien appearance. I thought I'd killed it through neglect while I was pregnant over the summer and when Xander came home, but after cutting it back, it's re-bloomed.

With cold weather and autumn rapidly descending on us, it's nice to see some flowering action in the back yard.

Autumn arrangements

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I was out on a stroll with Xander when I saw this wheelbarrow filled with fall flowers and a pumpkin out front of someone's house.

My Sleepy Elf

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Have you wondered where I've been hiding? Well, I've been kind of busy with this little guy, Xander, who was born Aug. 8.

This is his 1-month photo. We dressed him in his polar bear pajamas and a hat that Auntie Kelly knitted for him, then propped him up on our LoveSac to take photos. I'm experimenting with my new external flash and still learning to bounce the light correctly.

Xander woke for the second half of the photo shoot, but this is still my favorite photo from it.

An Eye on Dali's clock

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Along the Southbank of the Thames in London, across the bridge from Westminster, is the London Eye, a giant Ferris Wheel that has quickly become a London landmark. Next to the Eye is County Hall, which is currently exhibiting The Dali Universe featuring the works of the famous artist Dali and other surrealists.

Giant Dali statues line the Thames in front of County Hall. I was drawn to this one of the melting clock. I like the way the Eye looms over the statue. I just wish I'd turned on my fill flash to brighten up the face of the statue more.

Skies over Westminster

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I overlooked this photo on my first pass through my vacation photos, thinking it looked like just another snapshot of Westminster. When someone "favorited" it on Flickr, I took a second look. And then I noticed the sky behind Westminster. It almost has a painted-in look to it. Like it was done in watercolors or something. Very cool looking, I think.

I took this about two weeks ago from the London Eye, which is the giant Ferris wheel along the Thames. It's probably the only photo I took through the glass that doesn't show any random reflections.

I'm participating in Skywatch Friday today.
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St. Paul's in Spring

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Yet another shot from our recent trip to London. This one is of St. Paul's Cathedral. I think the flowers are wisteria, I'm not sure, I just know I like the color and contrast they bring to the shot.

I had a really hard time deciding which view of the cathedral I like best. The vertical shown or the horizontal. I ultimately decided on the vertical, because it shows the trailing ends of the flowers. Do you have any thoughts?

The pitchfork tree

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In the courtyard outside the Southwark Register Offices and Nationality Services in London where our friends were married, was this intriguing tree that reminded me of a pitchfork reaching skyward. Naturally, I had to snap off a few pictures. I like the framing and mood on this one, even though it makes it difficult to see the cool-looking mottled texture of the bark.

Tower Bridge at night

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A touristy shot from our recent trip to London. This is the Tower Bridge all nicely lit up at night. I took this from outside the restaurant where we ate dinner one night. A place called The Butler's Wharf Chop House. Excellent meal with an excellent view.

Super mammoth olives

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Another photo from Borough Market in London. This one of bulk bins of olives. I don't know why, but there's something about bulk bins at produce markets that seem so picturesque. I don't even like olives, yet these bins call to me.

I had a hard time deciding which of these two photos I like better, the still-life one shown above, or this one with the merchant packaging up some of the olives, which has some action. Usually I go for the action shots, but I think I like the colors and framing better on the photo shown.

Borough Market

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A long overdue update! Yes, I'm still here. I've been busy doing everything but photography lately. Thanks for sticking with me and checking back.

Over the weekend we made a whirlwind trip to London to see some good friends married. We arrived Friday morning and left Monday morning. Not enough time to even adjust our body clocks.

Friday we were a couple of jet-lagged zombies as we strolled around our friends' neighborhood in Southwark, which is on the south-east side of the Thames across from the old city of London.

It was a familiar area, as we have visited previously. One of our stops included the Borough Market, which is a famous fresh produce market with a long history.

This photo is the roof above an older part of the market. I think what I like about this photo is the way it juxtaposes the elegant Victorian scrolls against the more modern looking sign and the decay being held back by the netting.

Green shutters

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While we were in Utah for vacation recently, we went to this little shopping area called Gardner Village, which is near Salt Lake City. Gardner Village was made up of lots of historic old buildings. This shop really caught my eye with its green shutters. I think I love the contrast of the whimsical shutters against the weathered log house. Now, if you have to ask me what the shop sold, I can't be certain. From looking at a map of the village, I think it's yarn.

Blue skies above

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This was the sky last week while I was on vacation in Utah. We were outside a restaurant at the Canyons Resort near Park City. I love the way the white birch trees play against the perfectly clear blue sky.

I'm participating in Skywatch Friday today.
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Waiting for Spring

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It's been a few months since I skywatched. Today felt like a great day to jump back into the game.

When the temperatures decided to take a very spring-like turn and hit the mid 60s today, I simply had to get outside. I went over to a park near the office (Lake Park in Des Plaines, IL) and walked around. Nothing is in bloom yet, but it was nice and sunny out, and there were a lot of people enjoying the break from winter.

Here's the marina area of the park, where boats have been parked for the season and are waiting for consistent warm temperatures. My guess is it'll be a few more months before either of these feel the water.

The sky is not the most dramatic, but I should get points for timeliness. It was only a few hours ago.

I'm participating in Skywatch Friday today.
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Hibernating

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Apparently, that's been me this winter: Hibernating. Now that there are more hours of daylight in the day, I've been feeling the creative urge more. I actually have the camera in my car again, waiting for that next photo-op.

Anyway, what is this photo we're looking at? It's a Simba stuffed animal slowing emerging from the melting snow in our backyard. He was left in the yard by my dogs, who seem to think that all their stuffed animals *want* to be outside. And because all the snow we had in January, Simba ended up getting buried for several weeks. The weather finally warmed up last week and I was able to retrieve him, throw him through a cycle in the washer and dryer, and return him to circulation.

I've written more about Simba's adventures on my other blog, the Beacon. There are lots of photos, if you want to investigate.

Blue skies in January

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Something about January leaves me uninspired to take photos. It's the second year in a row where my photo-taking has noticeably dipped. Maybe it's because things are so cold and uninspiring outside. Lots of dreary, overcast days.

So, this week, when the skies turned blue, I headed out over lunch to investigate a big, old Dutch-style windmill that I pass on the way home from work. It's in Mount Emblem Cemetery in Elmhurst, Ill.

We'd had a couple inches of fresh snow the day before, so I figured it would be really pretty in the cemetery. It was.

So, I parked my car, took a few minutes to adjust my camera settings and make sure my polarizing filter was clean, and I started tromping through the snow, looking for the best views of the windmill. It was freezing cold, single-digit temperatures, so I moved quickly and trusted my camera settings. Big mistake. Call it a learning experience.

Turns out, I accidentally set the camera on fully manual, instead of program mode, and all my photos turned out horribly over-exposed. Only this photo and two others were salvageable.

Pretty blue skies, right? But here's a hint, blue skies in the winter often mean the coldest weather, because it's too cold to hold much moisture in the air, or something like that. And when it's really cold outside, don't be in so much of a hurry that you forget to double-check your camera settings...

Looks like I'll be going back to photograph the windmill again.

I'm participating in Skywatch Friday today.
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Z is for... Catching some z z z Z Z Z's

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My friend's Dad falls asleep during a family birthday party. I took this photo on request. Usually, I'm not the one to make fun of others for falling asleep in the middle of a social gathering. It happens far too much in my family.

When I was growing up, it was a long-standing joke in my family that whenever the Hugheses got together, shortly after dinner you could watch them all fall asleep one by one until you were left with a room full of wide-awake spouses. Everyone who was a Hughes by blood would have fallen asleep.

Fortunately, while my sister and I don't fall asleep at the dinner table (Yes, I've watched my Dad, uncle and cousins do that many times), I do have a reputation for falling asleep while watching movies and television, especially if it's a cartoon or if I've seen the movie before.

I'm participating in ABC Wednesday today with the letter Z.
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Y is for... Y.M.C.A.

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Last winter, my nephew had a school production titled "On the Radio" where they worked through several decades worth of songs. When they did the 1970s, they included the Village People song Y.M.C.A. Of course, the students made everyone get up and dance with them.

My camera was still really new to me, so I was experimenting a lot with shooting in the gymnasium's available light. I wasn't so pleased with the individual shots I got, so I made this collage. My nephew is the dark-haired boy on the left in all the shots.

The song evokes a distinct memory for me. I clearly remember the Father's Day when my cousins gave my grandfather the 45 version of this song. As we played it on the living room record player, my cousins and uncle thought it was hilarious, but my grandfather didn't seem to get it. I think the 45 wound up in the 45 collection that my sister and I kept (and I still have).

Why did they give him a copy of the song? My grandfather, Noel Hughes, made his career with the YMCA, working for the Y in Evanston, Ill. In fact, the YMCA was the very reason he moved to the United States, as he came to study at George Williams College, which was run by the YMCA.

My great-grandfather, George W. W. B. Hughes, also had his career with the YMCA in New Zealand and Australia, rising to the position of general secretary, and earning recognition for his work with soldiers during World War I.

Oh, I didn't participate in ABC Wednesday last week, so I'm posting my X entry below. It's a literal take on "X", showing the cross supports of a foot bridge in Naperville, IL.

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I'm participating in ABC Wednesday today with the letter Y.
Click here for more about ABC Wednesday and to view other participants.

Red toy scarves are good nibbles

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Here are Loki (left) and Thor showing off their new toys they received as gifts. Loki's toy is a Santa bear, while Thor's is a moose. The bigger their stuffed toys, the more they like them. And when there are little accessories to chew on, like the red scarves the toys are wearing, all the better.

Unfortunately, besides the accessories on the toys, this photo is a little skimpy on red to be a really good Ruby Tuesday post. But I choose it for other reasons, too -- mainly because it was taken only two weeks ago and it shows both dogs together.

And both dogs are on my mind today for good and bad reasons.

The good reason is it's Thor's birthday. He's 5 years old. Happy Birthday little dude. Let's celebrate many more.

The bad reason is that Loki has a lump over her left eye that she will probably have to have surgically removed on Monday. The lump has me very concerned, but I'll post more about that on my journal blog soon, since it's outside the scope of this photo blog.

Oh, in case you're wondering, it's been two weeks and the stuffed bear and moose are still very much intact. There has been no disemboweling or de-accessorizing yet. Yet.

I'm participating in Ruby Tuesday today.
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