Our Daily Challenge: Stereotype

Our Daily Challenge: Stereotype, a photo by scookster on Flickr.

Courtesy of my "sugar daddy", although he was only carrying twenties at the time. Usually he has bigger bills which take care of my needs. I guess I can blame the economy on this one.

Our Daily Challenge: Marine

ODC:Marine, a photo by scookster on Flickr.

Hard to believe that these white water rapids are not far from suburbia, although I must admit they are man made. I had an enjoyable time watching these two kayakers try to make it back up the rapids from whence they came. Sat there for about thirty minutes and neither kayaker had any luck. One of the two kept flipping over but did it with such relative ease that I figured he was not a novice. Couldn't stay there forever but I'm hoping they had some success.

Our Daily Challenge: Connections and Attachments

ODC: connections and attachments, a photo by scookster on Flickr.

Not one to take photos of people, I attempted to discreetly take this picture yesterday. Of course, I am sure the couple knew I was taking a photo of them even though I pretended to be taking a picture of the surroundings. The couple happened to be under an area that was shaded so I opted for a black and white to at least showcase the theme.

Our Daily Challenge: Medicine Cabinet

ODC: medicine cabinet, a photo by scookster on Flickr.

have container will travel

Our Daily Challenge: Mono filamente

ODC: Monofilamente, a photo by scookster on Flickr.

Monofilament fishing line (shortened to just monofilament) is fishing line made from a single fiber of plastic. Most fishing lines are now monofilament because monofilament fibers are cheap to produce and are produced in a range of diameters which have different tensile strengths (called "tests" after the process of tensile testing). Thank you Wikipedia!

Our Daily Challenge: Shadow

Our Daily Challenge: Shadow, a photo by scookster on Flickr.

Nothing exciting here. Went to Lake Katherine and the only thing I could find were shadows of trees. Took this photo and fooled around in Photoshop a little bit- experimenting with the different filters. This one is called "colored pencil" and it reddened the layer a little. But no matter what I chose the green weeds on the right remained.

Our Daily Challenge: Street Scene

ODC:streetscene, a photo by scookster on Flickr.

Usually leave for work when it's still dark out. A co-worker of mine saw the sun coming up and thought it was worth taking a second look at. Had this vibrant sunrise two days in a row. Too bad the trees were in the way but I like the way the sun reflects off of the telephone lines.  I could have gotten in the car to find a better spot to shoot but pretty difficult since our town is fairly flat and we grow tons of trees.  In fact we have the name "forest" as part of our town's name.  I have to go pretty far west now to get out of the line of trees if I want to get some decent sunrise or sunset.  What a pain.  To think I grew up in a suburb where trees were rare, except in my yard, where my dad must have planted 50 trees along the property line.  So over the years I could tell where our house was from a distance, as we were the only ones in the neighborhood with a forest in their yard.  But now that I am living in the same area where I grew up the trees have overtaken and horizon photography is at it's poorest.

Macro Mondays: Periodic Table

Macro Mondays: Periodic Table, a photo by scookster on Flickr.

Copper
Cu
Atomic Number 29
Brought my macro lens to school today thinking I could find something of use in the science lab. I was able to find some sodium and mercury in its original form but it wasn't as interesting as this copper wire.  We tried getting some good shots of the sodium when it was first cut.  Here's a photo of that:

The pieces are shiny once they are first cut but then the air oxidizes the surface quickly.  So difficult trying to get a shot with auto focus as the auto zoom keeps zooming in and out and I'm not confident enough in my vision to deselect that feature of the camera.  But then Mz Science teacher decided to see if we could capture the reaction when a piece is dropped in water.  Wasn't too sure how close I could get to pick up the action but here's what I caught:

But then I decided to check out the supply of mercury.  Remembering all of the times that I played with mercury on the floor- break a thermometer and watch the mercury roll from one end of the room to the other.  But now we must protect ourselves from the dangers of mercury.  Well ventilated, don't breath and shoot the picture.  So with kid gloves I pour a small amount in a bowl and watched it roll into the center of the dish.  That too was less than interesting.  But here it is anyway:

Wish I had thought to place it on a different background but I was too worried about getting the shot and holding my breath at the same time.  Glad I didn't pass a little gas.  We could have bottled that up too and displayed it as an element.

ODC: Myths and Legends

ODC: Myths and Legends, a photo by scookster on Flickr.

Slay the dragon, Sir Lancelot.

Actually, my thought was that this photo were be included in the assignment called "magic and magicians."  When in actuality there was no assignment entitled that; it was called "myths and legends."  When I realized I was barking up the wrong tree I turned to Merlin the Magnificent instead of Harry Potter spells.  Unfortunately I still haven't figured out a way to get everything clear in the picture.  Used my macro camera and when I focus it's always on one spot, not the entire picture.  Don't know if that's how macro is anyway as I tend to have that problem with my other lens as well.  The object of this photo is from a snow globe that I have.  Years ago my family would buy snow globes from the San Francisco Music Box Company.  I absolutely loved getting those presents; unfortunately, they left our area soon there after so I only have four or five to call my own.  But they are all gifts from the heart that I will always treasure.

ODC.Words

ODC.Words, a photo by scookster on Flickr.

For all of the dogs that we've had over the years, this is the first one that we had to warn intruders about. He's loving and protective but he does has big teeth! We've known that he has a propensity for biting; but as many dog lovers do, we overlooked the bad because he was and still is a part of the family. After an unfortunate incident a couple of years ago, I decided that I'd better put a warning sign on our fence. We've had numerous people enter our backyard unannounced, but never had an actual face to face meet-up. So I got my warning; let the others be warned as well. And if you plan on entering my backyard let me know beforehand!

Our Daily Challenge: Brown

Our Daily Challenge: Brown, a photo by scookster on Flickr.

Another menial job that I leave until I need to do it. I do like shined shoes; just not the mundane polishing act. One more year of polishing these babies and out the door they go. My new mode of foot cover will be flip flips morning, noon, and night.  I only have a couple of pairs of shoes that need polishing on a regular basis.  I tend to wear slides or fabric type shoes that don't require a regular coat of polish.  It's not to say that I don't like shiny shoes and even when I resort to shining mine, I like the end result.  Of course, I could ask the retiree at home to do this job but I think he'd think that would be to lowly of a job- unless he was getting paid somehow.....that's not going to happen any day soon. This brand of shoe was a life saver albeit super expensive.  I had suffered from heel spurs in both feet for years and I came to the realization that the pain was never going away.  It's not easy standing on your feet for 7 hours feeling like you are standing on two golf balls. But I came upon this brand by chance and the pain disappeared eventually.  I guess it could have resulted from the various treatments I underwent, but I will be thankful for these shoes nevertheless.

Our Daily Challenge: Spiky

Our Daily Challenge: Spiky, a photo by scookster on Flickr.

The sun is out, the temp is warm and the grasses need trimming. Ah, so much to do so little time.  Been gone oh so long from this blog site.  I don't know what exactly happened.  I do know that some health issues got in the way and then my motivation died out.  Had a couple of other projects going and wanted to get those completed so that I could get back to my camera.  Maybe the winter had something to do with my apathy. But these last couple of days the temperature has warmed and the sun has come out.  I know that it may be short lived- winters in the midwest are never ending.  But I am hoping that by taking this picture my motivation will return.  Decided to use my macro lens for this picture.  I had something else planned for the "spiky" assignment but left it at school.  So opted for some dried grasses in the backyard.  Eventually will have to trim these grasses back, but for the moment they make decent backdrops.  I even have some bokeh going on in this picture; not sure what that means but I think it's there.