1/31/15

Well January is going out in a very dreary way but at least we are getting some moisture out of it even if it isn't amounting to a whole lot.  It's nice that it's coming in rain instead of snow for now too.  With all the dreariness outside I like to brighten it up inside so I buy flowers to do that.  Last night I bought a bunch of Tulips and decided to play around with photographing them and this is the result of one of those shots.   I shot these in front of a light table and used a flash on the camera so they were lit from both sides.  I then added a glow to the whole image and this is the result.

1/30/15

Well January is going to go out like actual winter.  it's cold and dreary today and rain and maybe even snow on the way for tomorrow.  Knew the nicer weather couldn't last.  So I am dreaming of summer once again and sharing this image of Sunflowers in a field to help think warm thoughts.

1/29/15

We are on our way back to winter now.  Temps will keep dropping after our weird high of 70F.  That was nice but probably not the best thing.  Anyway, thinking back to summer and flowers and bees.  I captured this bee that was very busy in this Hollyhock flower.  I loved how covered in pollen that it was but still busy gathering more.

1/28/15

It is unseasonably warm today.  High of 70 and then tomorrow it all drops out and there is supposed to be a high in the 40s and next week is even worse.  I just hope that everything that is starting to come up because of this warm weather does not get damaged too much when it turns back cold again.
This is an image I took last Fall on Konza Prairie of the wildflower called Ironweed with a Question mark butterfly bonus.

1/27/15

I took this image over the Christmas break when I was in Missouri.  My in-laws have these Yew bushes and one morning they were covered in sugary looking frost.  I loved the bokeh behind in this image and that's why I am sharing this particular image.  Bokeh  is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in the out-of-focus parts of an image produced by a lens. Bokeh has been defined as "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light".

1/26/15

I had posted a photo a couple of weeks ago of a Tufted Titmouse with a peanut in it's beak.  This photo shows that they actually do eat them.  I had originally bought the peanuts with the thought of feeding blue-jays but so far it's these Titmice that are getting the most of them.  It's cute to watch them breaking the shell open to get at the peanut.  It's fun to watch them come get them too.  The peanut is so big in comparison, a lot of the time they drop them as they try to fly off with it and then have to go pick it up again.

1/25/15

This is an image I got one very foggy morning in Rollag, Minnesota.  During the shift before mine they were watering up ex Soo line locomotive 353.  All the fog gave quite the moody look.  I was just heading back to our camper to get ready for my shift as a fireman when I saw it looming out of the fog like this and had to get a shot.  Rollag has a lot of rain but the fog was different.