Early morning June 2013 walk

Took an hour-long walk around the house very early recently and took pictures of plants and flowers. Here are a few shots of that walk:

Marsh at Sunset - June 2013

I went to this marsh during sunset, hoping for great lighting.  Unfortunately, by the time the kids were in bed and by the time I got there, I literally only have a few shots with the correct lighting and nothing came our particularly nice. Low light made it near impossible to have anything good that was in movement (I think there was a muskrat swimming in the water, a duck later showed up, etc).  I also got hit hard by the mosquitoes - hanging around a marsh/pond after sunset is asking for trouble! Oh well, maybe I'll try again another day.  For now here are a few shots, including some more abstract type images taken at the marsh/pond.  Can you see the two eyes and almost a face in the last image?

Lunch walk at ponds near office

From the office, I can take a 5-minute walk (or a 1-minute drive) and get to a few ponds that are now bursting with life.  When they were first made, there was little there other than muddy water - but I still liked to hang out there.  But since then, over the last 10 years or so, life has discovered this little spot.  I'm not exactly sure why they were built, but they sure provide a nice spot for lunch photography walks. Here are a few shots from a recent walk, in June 2013. All shots taken with my 70 - 300mm lens.  It's a slow lens, but does "ok" when there is enough light - like this bright sunny day!

Bubbles (June 2013)

The kids were making bubbles the other day, so I decided to try and catch a few images with the camera.  Proved to be a bit challenging to photograph, but managed to get a few that turned out.  What's interesting is that there were reflections in the bubbles and a few of them had my house reflected in the bubble along with the sunset.  It was a fun experience, but I only had about 10 minutes of shots, so happy I got the settings right for a few decent pictures.

Spring 2013 Images - Part 4

Here are the last images for May 2013 :)

Spring 2013 Images - Part 3

Here are a few more images from some Spring images... getting close to summer now I suppose, but "officially" these were taken in Spring :)

Spring 2013 Images - Part 2

Here are a few bird pictures taken this Spring... notice the pair of geese in my driveway - they are just as noisy as the domestic kind! Also, the single goose was sitting on a nest.  I have gone back to see if the eggs hatched yet, but I'm hoping for some baby Canada geese soon as I know where that one was found (easy access too).

February 2013

Here are a few images I took in February, but never ended up posting them... as always, with just my Nikon D60 and the basic 18 - 55mm lens... Actually, in February I got a 70 - 300mm lens with some birthday money (thanks to the generous family members that made that happen!!). It's only a f5.6, but still quite reasonable with good lighting and helps blur out backgrounds if you take flower closeups using max zoom.  Cheap way around not having macro gear, but works for the moment.  I will post more Spring pictures soon which will display that well.

Spring 2013 Images - Part 1

I have not posted in the longest time, but have not stopped taking pictures.  Not as much during the winter, but Spring definitely gave me an urge to go spend time with nature and my humble Nikon D60. I will post more Spring images, but I will start with these first.

Here is the entrance gate and the road on which I tend to take walks on my father's wood lot (basically behind my house) on a foggy morning:

On that foggy morning I also got some interesting spider web shots because of the droplets on the webs.  Here is one of my favorite ones:

And to close this post, I also got a decent shot of a dragon fly recently (not the same foggy morning though, this was a lunch walk!):