9 January, 2011

I've been wanting to get some good shots of my fiery acrylic in the snow for a few days now. Alas, we haven't had any good snow until today. I was not able to get the photos that I was hoping for, but I did get a couple closeups of the ball in my left hand's cradle.

(Don't you love all of the dings and cracks in my poor ball? It's been through so much.)

This morning, I decided that it was time to bring my three month hiatus from contact juggling to a close. I can hardly expect to master the art if I don't practice!

8 January, 2011

Yardwork.

7 January, 2011

Had to take my dog to the vet for the ear problem she's been having the past few days. Experiences at the vet's office are always traumatic for my mutt; this time was certainly no exception. Which is why this photo is not spectacularly creative. (The glaring sun that prevented me from seeing the screen is the reason it's accidentally in black and white. Still, I think it turned out alright.)


Fortunately, the dog's condition should clear up with treatment (yeast infection in the year). Me, the vet, and the mutt all made it out of the visit intact, so I call today a success.

I am, however, a bit worried for my camera. I accidentally slipped on some ice as I was headed for the sign and instinctively chose to save myself and drop the camera. The camera is showing no signs of trauma, but I've seen technology develop problems months after the initial drop. Hopefully my little companion is alright.

6 January, 2011

Ran a few errands today. My sister and I spotted a display of magnifying glasses at Barnes and Noble. Picking up two magnifying glasses, we decided to see what it would look like if we looked through a magnifying glass at a point that was already magnified. The results are below.

(Click here for a larger version.)

5 January, 2011

I basically just felt like trying some bokeh for today. Alas, I cannot manually set my focus, so I just have to go with whatever my little camera can do. Someday, I'll get a nicer camera.

4 January, 2011

We ran several errands today, including a trip to Bath and Body Works for their shampoos.

3 January, 2011

The highlight of my day was getting to take my dog on a car ride this afternoon. It was a good training opportunity and a spectacular time to refresh her emergency recall word.

2 January, 2011

Took down my Christmas lights, switched my dog back to her everyday collar (in place of her Christmas one), threw away some outdated catalogs... In short, I managed to be semi-productive.

1 January, 2011

I spent the evening of the first at Mangy's house. There's nothing like an evening of playing games and chatting with friends to start your year off right.

Accidentally keeping with the "theme" of last year, I photographed one of the games we played together. I got the privilege of finally learning "Yahtzee" from my group of friends. My final score would have been much better if I could have just rolled the large straight that I needed. (Unfortunately, someone kept stealing all of the large straights. Not gonna mention names, of course.)

Highlights of 2010

Now that I have successfully completed a year of Project 365, I feel like giving something of a recap of the year. Over 365 pictures and so many memories later, I still find it positively thrilling to be able to look back at my year. To see all the things my family, friends and I did. So, without further ado, I give you my favorite shot from each month.

January, being the beginning of the year, was not exactly my most artistic month. My little camera and I were still becoming acquainted. Though I had owned it for about six months, I hadn't much of a reason to constantly use it before Project 365. Also, I had never had a reason to get extremely creative and artistic with my photos before 2010. Nevertheless, my photo from
January 31st was definitely the most skillfully done during my inaugural month:

February was actually rather full of archery photos. It's obvious from looking at my pictures, though, that I hadn't quite gotten into the swing of things yet. However, I was still able to choose a photo from February 12th to star in this post:

March was obviously when the creative juices actually started to flow. I had a tough time deciding on only one photo for this month. Ultimately I wound up opting for the photo from my March 3rd post:

Much of April was spent at home, so there certainly was not an abundance of photo opportunities. Though I must say, the picture I took on April 28th is still one of my favorite pictures of my mom's dog, She-Luv:

May proved to be the second challenge of the year. Two of my favorite photos from this year were taken that month. After some debate, I chose my May 15th shot:

(In case you are interested in seeing my other favorite, click here. I'd like to justify my choice by saying that the "reject" was completely accidental, so I've never been quite as attached to it as my black and white, which was completely intentional and even required a couple shots to get it just right.)

June was a month of many good photos. We were very busy with special events, hikes, gardening and the trip to the Sand Dunes. It was a pleasure to look back over the month and see all of the wonderful things we did and the fun ways that I captured them with my camera. However, despite all of the photos there that have made it onto my highlights list, one photo stands head and shoulders above the rest. And that picture is one from my June 27th post:

Though we went to the Renaissance festival twice during the month of July and got so many fantastic photos, the picture I took on July 16th remains my favorite of the month. I love the peace and beauty that it conveys--especially considering how annoyed I was at myself for my unsuccessful attempt at getting the router up and running.

Though August was not a particularly eventful month, I did find a several shots that were easy on the eyes. During that month, our sunflowers were in full bloom, which afforded us so many photographic opportunities. A couple noteworthy events occurred during that time, also. However, my favorite photo from the month is from the rather ordinary day of August 15th:

Something remarkably interesting would have to occur during September for me to post a photo of something other than the Balloon Classic. Though I admittedly took a couple artistic shots of random bits of my day throughout the rest of the month, the hot air balloons remain the most exciting portion of the month. All of the photos that I took on September 4th turned out rather well, but this one took first place in my mind:

October doesn't seem all that long ago and I suppose it really wasn't. Again, I found many photos that I thought deserved recognition, but my photo from my October 22nd post eventually won the place of honor:

Picking a favorite from the month of November was a bit different, since the month is still rather fresh. As has been the case with a couple months, I found myself debating between two photos. This particular photo of a dog toy backed by the playful paws of Joy-ful from my November 18th post won out, though.

Another tough choice. Especially since the month has just ended. However, artistically, I find this shot from my December 28th outing with Telpe, Flynn and LH most appealing:


Thank you all for tuning into my blog for 2010! If you have any favorites, I would absolutely love to hear about them. Hopefully you will be willing to join me again for this year.