As seen by me

You might think this picture doesn't look like much, but this blazing ball of fire in the night sky represents one of the most exciting things I've ever seen. I took this photo just after 4 a.m. this morning, as the Space Shuttle Endeavour blasted off into space, headed for the International Space Station. The captain and I just stepped out onto our balcony and watched as the night sky lit up, heard the roar, and marvelled at the sight of the shuttle as it rose up, finally disappearing into the darkness.

I was going to set the camera up on the tripod and try to go manual, with the hopes of getting some knockout photos, but the truth is that I am not at my best at 4 o'clock in the morning -- fiddling with a tripod and choosing appropriate aperture and shutter speed settings is simply beyond my middle-of-the-night capabilities. So I played it safe. All I really wanted was a photographic reminder of an extraordinary event, and I'm so thankful that I achieved just that.

And here are some other photos of what's recently caught my eye. No fancy photoshopping here, just some of what I've seen through my lens over the past few days.

from our balcony, gazing out at the ocean

again from our balcony, spotting a dolphin -- which, I might add, is one of the hardest things to photograph; you see a fin break the water's surface, but quickly it disappears and where it will resurface is a guessing game; I often pick a spot, zoom in, and hope for the best

yet again from our balcony, a gathering of gulls

today, driving through a local wetlands

yes, an alligator -- also spotted today in the wetlands area

My Picasso period was today

Hah! I bet you're expecting some gorgeous Florida photograph. You know, palm trees...ocean waves...sunny skies...something like that. Well, surprise!

Don't worry, it's okay to laugh out loud and roll your eyes. I am.

You see, I have been taking an online course on using my Wacom graphic tablet and this afternoon and evening I made myself use the pen for just about everything. And you know what? The more I used it, the more comfortable it became. I even managed to scribble out that doodle you see above. I know, I know ... it's pretty darn goofy. But I never could have pulled that off with a mouse.

There will be photographs soon, promise. And I'll try not to share any more kooky artwork!

It's February!

Happy February! The captain and I are now comfy-cozy and settled in for the month -- even the grey skies and rain showers today can't dampen our happiness. And to chase away that grey, here's a cheery calendar page I created this afternoon, using a photo I took several days ago in Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery.

Make it your wallpaper, print it out and stick it on your fridge, whatever you wish. Just click on the image and you'll be whisked away to its page on Flickr, where you'll see the "all sizes" button. Choose your size and download ... I hope it brightens your day!

Under a Melbourne moon

Our time in Florida has begun. We arrived here a few days ago and are comfortably settled into our hotel until we can get into the condo. The weather has been spectacular, although thunderstorms are predicted for tomorrow. Tonight we have been treated to a full moon in a virtually cloudless sky and it was a photographic opportunity I just could not resist. You can even see Mars tonight, a shining pinlight to the left of the moon.

Our hotel balcony overlooks the ocean and so outside I went, just a short time ago. Out came the tripod, on went the camera. And instead of relying on the camera's special night settings that never seem to work as well as they should, I trusted my instincts -- and my memory -- and went manual.

I'm not entirely pleased with the series of shots I took but I'm not unhappy either. I love how the slow shutter speed allows so much light that the sky has a blue tinge to it. I'm so glad I brought the tripod along and hope to put it to good use on our winter escape.

If you haven't yet entered, please read my One World One Heart posting and enter your name there to win one of my giveaways. And if you have already entered, good luck!

One World One Heart

I am quite excited to participate for the first time in One World One Heart. Last year I did visit several blogs that had joined in but chose not to play along myself. This year, I'm definitely in!

One World One Heart brings bloggers together from all over the world -- a chance to not only discover new blogs and the wonderful people who create them, but also provides opportunities to win prizes! It's a great way to surf the world and make lots of blog discoveries.

So, I bet you're wondering about my little giveaway. Here's the scoop:

Just leave me a message here, on my blog, on this posting, with a way for me to get in touch with you -- a link to your blog or, preferably, an email address. On February 15th at noon (eastern standard time), I will pick five names and each person will win a set of 10 of my art cards! And here's the best part: the cards are the winner's choice! Each lucky person will be able to choose 10 of their favourites from my photo galleries on Flickr. If you win, you might want to include this one:

or maybe you prefer flowers:

or maybe angels:

or maybe you want an eclectic mix and want to include this one:

As you can see, my art encompasses both photography and digital manipulation. I have always had a passion for photography and love this digital age and the powers of photoshop!

So, if you win, the choice is yours.....10 cards! You could choose one image and get 10 identical cards, or you could choose 10 different images and get 10 different cards -- whatever you prefer!

As well, on February 15th I will have a little digital goodie to email everyone who leaves a comment on this post. So.....let the fun begin!

Savannah windows

Savannah is one of my favourite places to visit. The captain and I always enjoy the bountiful fresh seafood and I always take hundeds and hundreds of photographs. The "historical district", which is where we stay, is incredibly picturesque. Yesterday we walked around for a few hours; these photographs are just four of the many images I captured. If you ever get the opportunity to visit Savannah, make sure you come. You certainly won't regret it.

The Signs of South Carolina

Those who know me well know that I am addicted to signs. I've always been attracted to anything to do with words and letters, so sign photography is just a natural extension of that.

We are now happily settled into our hotel in Savannah, GA, one of my favourite places. We plan to stay here for a few nights before heading down to the Sunshine State. These are just a few of the signs I snapped today as we drove through South Carolina; we had no set schedule so we spent a lot of time off the interstate. The result is the opportunity to capture photographs like these. The top photo was taken while the captain and I had a quick walkabout, while the other two were taken from the car.

Top: Gaffney, South Carolina
Middle: Union, South Carolina
Bottom: Columbia, South Carolina

Oh, and those who guessed that our wedding dance was Elvis Presley's Can't Help Falling In Love got it right.....I think Leslie was the only one with the correct guess!

Got any quarters?

I love roadtrips. You just never know what's going to happen or what you're going to discover. Like today. This morning we decided we would take I-75 only as far as Knoxville, TN, then veer east on I-40 to drive through the Smoky Mountains. That was the plan and all was going well, until we saw the sign that I-40 was closed completely at a certain point and we would have to detour. We are always up for an adventure and the detour wasn't too bad, costing us perhaps 45 minutes or so. We are not on any particular timetable so we didn't care. It was interesting to drive through the Smokies on a different route too. However, the clouds were SO LOW at one point that we were in them -- talk about having no view!

After that skyhigh adventure, we decided to call it a day here in Asheville, NC. Since we had a very large lunch at a chain restaurant in Georgetown, KY, called the Golden Corral (a buffet with, I swear, every food known to mankind, including -- joy of joys -- red velvet cake), the captain and I decided on a small dinner. Waffle House was nearby, so in we went. And what do I spy but this very cool jukebox. In Waffle House!

The captain and I thought about sharing a dance or two -- our wedding dance is one of those songs, y'know; can you guess? -- but in the end I just took photographs. Of course.

Greetings from Ohio

Yes, as Willie sings, the captain and I are on the road...again. Sunshine state, here we come!

Sunday snapping

Is it possible for Nancy and I to go anywhere without whipping out a camera? Um, no.

These pictures were taken on McCaul Street in downtown Toronto. The subject: a starry, rusty sculpture of sorts. We were only making a quick shopping stop this afternoon but we will never pass up a photographic opportunity.

One interesting sidenote: both of the star photographs, above and below, have minimal photoshopping. They didn't need it. I did have a little fun with the bottom image though; a little color burn never hurt anything!

If you feel helpless about Haiti....

No snazzy photo, no fancy photoshopped image. Just a couple of links I'm asking you to look at:

1) Ree Drummond over at The Pioneer Woman is having an unusual contest. No prize for the winner, but a big donation to help the people of Haiti. Please enter the contest, as she is also personally donating ten cents for every entry (and she already has thousands). You can see the details HERE.

2) Nina Bagley at Ornamental has a beautiful red necklace up for bids, with the highest bidder winning the necklace and the money paid going to help the people of Haiti too, to which Nina will add some of her own $$; Nina is also throwing in free shipping. You can see those details HERE.

Thanks for looking!

Inspiration from a friend

I like football. I know that not a lot of women do, but I am a big NFL fan. Starting in September, I know that every Sunday night there will be a football game on television, but we have reached the beginning of the playoffs and while there were two games on today, there wasn't one tonight. What to do with myself? I took the opportunity to catch up on my blog reading, then turned to good ol' photoshop. I had the time but more importantly, I had the inspiration to play, thanks to Nancy.

You see, she did a blog post today about playing with backgrounds. This rang a bell deep in my brain and I remembered an afternoon of fun spent in Nancy's basement, ages ago, tearing up paper and playing with tape and paint, making backgrounds on canvas boards. I scanned all of those, so I could use them digitally. Then I plum forgot about them. Until today, when I read how Nancy found some of her old backgrounds that she too had forgotten about.

So tonight, with no football on television to amuse me, I played around in photoshop and ended up with what you see above. While I won't bore you with every little step I did -- and frankly, I couldn't possibly remember every little step anyway -- I will explain a bit of its creation.

The bottom layer is a photograph I took in Ottawa of some roses, which I squared off and then altered a bit, using curves, colour levels, saturation and brightness. I think that was it. I also applied two filters: a canvas texture and poster edges. The next two layers are two different textures I created myself, including the digital scan of a tape-and-torn-text background I created that afternoon at Nancy's long ago. Next is a texture I found at ShadowHouse Creations, followed by a layer where I placed my watermark, then finally, the top layer, where I used an edge I bought at CottageArts. Each layer also has its own blending mode, but I won't test your patience by listing those too!

So, thanks Nancy, for the memory jog. The timing was perfect!

Narcissistic

I like being behind the camera. That's why there are so few photographs of me; I typically am the one taking the pictures, not posing. And that suits me just fine.

But for the first Art Creations Friday challenge of the new year -- a vintage photograph in a vintage frame -- I decided to step outside of my comfort zone and work on altering a photograph my sister-in-law Heather took when we were on vacation together back in '08. A photograph of me. (Actually, the original was a photograph including the captain too, but I've cropped out my own head shot here.)

Instead of using the vintage photo in the challenge, I chose instead to use the lovely frame and insert a photograph of myself, altered to look "older". I cringe at bit at this, but am using it just the same. All in the name of exploring new horizons this year.

Just don't expect to see this very often!

First freebie of the year

Hard to believe, but this is my 300th post. To honour that, here is my first freebie for the new year, a sepia creation originating from a photo I took two years ago, when we had lots of snow in our front yard. Click on this calendar image and you'll be whisked away to its page on Flickr, where you can download it in a variety of sizes by clicking on the "all sizes" button. Enjoy! And while you're there, check out my freebies set too -- I also posted a new texture today.

A Virtuous Woman

I am dipping into my to-be-read pile for my V entry for the A-Z Wednesday reading challenge. For ages, I have been meaning to read Kaye Gibbon's A Virtuous Woman and I just never seem to get around to it. Maybe this is the push I need.

Here's what Publishers Weekly had to say about A Virtuous Woman:
Jack Stokes and Ruby Pitt weave this strong, tightly knit love story in alternating chapters that begin when Jack, grieving over Ruby's death four months earlier, evokes the past. In flashbacks, the two richly cadenced Southern voices explore their vastly differing backgrounds, troubled histories and their unlikely but loving marriage. Born into a proud, prominent country family, coddled and adored, Ruby stuns her parents and two brothers by inexplicably running off with John Woodrow, a migrant worker who savagely abuses her. When John is killed in a brawl, Ruby, too proud to ask her family for help, begins doing housework for the wealthy Hoover family, where she meets Jack, a laconic, immensely capable tenant farmer on the Hoover land. He is 40; she is 20. Both lonely and vulnerable, they regard each other cautiously, carry on a wary courtship and embark on a firmly grounded marriage. The union is enriched by a small, supportive circle of friends, who, like the couple's landlord, Burr, are sharply etched and convincingly drawn.

This is the type of book I really enjoy -- great characters who face their share of troubles, with a love story at the heart of the novel. Good stuff. Now I just have to move it to the top of my TBR pile!