Weekly Photo Challenge: Fleeting

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bee, Beginning photography, clover, Macrophotography, nature, nature photograph, nature photography, Photography, postaday

While trying to practice some macro photography on yard clover, I was surprised by the little bee that flew out of nowhere to check out the little blossoms.  This photo of the little buzzer was accidental, and I did try to catch another photo of it in action.  The bee flitted around for a few seconds and then flew away, quick as it had come.

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Sorting Memories

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Dog, Family, family photograph, family photography, Humor, miniature schnauzer, nature photograph, outdoor photography, Photography session, Scarlet Fever, Sunset, winter sky, winter sunset

This week has been sort-through-all-the-photos week.  Some I went through were very old (like the ones in a previous post I made about my dad) and some have been taken as recently as this week.  I thought I’d post some of my “finds,” but keep in mind that I did not say that all of these pictures were filled with the expertise that you have come to expect from a stellar photographer like myself (okay, stop gagging — I was being sarcastic).

I found some pictures from a family photo session of my parents and brother from a little ways back-in-the-day.  I know a bunch of old photos of people you don’t know aren’t usually all that interesting, and these were done in 1991.  But I found them kind of comical and I just had to show them to you.  These were done after my older brother and I had left home and had families of our own, so it is just my parents and younger brother Perry in the pictures.

My brother was an average sweet baby, and then ended up with a bad case of Scarlet Fever when he was very young.  Back in those days Tylenol and Children’s Motrin had not been invented, and high fevers like that had to be brought down any way possible.  So, the high fevers left Perry with some damage to his brain.  Scarlet Fever exists today; they just call it a form of strep and give out antibiotics and fever reducer.  My own son had it as a kid.  But back in the day when my brother was little, it was a much bigger deal.

When my brother was around 5 he was labeled “retarded,” which was the actual clinical label they used, along with “mentally retarded” (ugh).  Fortunately nowadays, they use much less demeaning terms, such as “Special Needs.”  Anyway, that’s the only sad part of this post — flash forward about 25 years and back to how this applies to why Perry reacts certain ways to photo sessions: At an early age, Perry began to realize that he hated the flash from a camera (who can blame him?); he didn’t understand the flash, and so many pictures of him show him reacting to just that.

So, there the family was, at the photography place for a family photo, my dad, mom and brother.  First they started with my brother by himself, because my parents wanted a great picture of just him.

Nope, try again.

Nope, not this time either.  This looks like “My Name Is Earl.” 

On the third try (some sort of record; it usually took more times than three!) a picture of him with his eyes open finally emerged.

Doesn’t he look happy??

Next were the family shots.  As each progressive picture is taken with Perry’s eyes closed in them, Mom’s expression gets progressively unhappy.  Dad, on the other hand, looks great in all of the pictures!

Finally, the photographer gets a shot in which Perry looks great — eyes open, pleasant look on his face — perfect!  Except that Mom has finally lost total interest in even looking at the camera.  Woops.

Well, better luck next year.

Anyway, I thought they were funny (guess you had to be there)!  

Here’s another set of photos (not very good quality ones taken by me) from when I moved a full-length mirror into the living room and Lucy saw herself for the first time.  The mirror is directly in front of where she is staring …

Aw, she doesn’t like the mirror any more and this next look says it all:

“Please get that scary other dog away from me!”

Who could resist a plea like that?  So, I moved the mirror back where it belonged — away from Lucy.

A week or so ago I tried to get a picture of the sky one evening just when the sun was slipping down.  When you live in town it’s hard to get a decent picture of that because of my number one nemesis in photographing outdoors, power lines and power poles.  So, I captured a few pictures, one out my back door and one out my front door, of what little of the sky did not have power lines or poles, or rooftops.

 I’m really pumped to go a little ways out of town and take some really nice pictures of trees and sky — but (sound of whining) it’s cold!  I’ll muscle some fortitude up one of these days soon, because there are really pretty sunrises and sunsets to be photographed (assuming I can get my butt out of bed to do the former).

So ends today’s random photo display — I really do hope you got a kick out of some of it!  

Today’s reminder:

Remember your special someone on Valentine’s day!!  Six more days to prepare something really awesome! 

Related articles

• Scarlet Fever In Children (mademan.com)

An Ever-So-Slightly OCD Day

Tags

baby, baby picture, Bird, label maker, labeling, nature photograph, Obsessive–compulsive disorder, organizing, Photography, Robin, Valentine, Valentine Day, Valentine's Day

Finally, today was an absolutely beautiful day.  No gloomies, no rain, no freezing cold.  It was sunny, dry and cool.  

The little robin we thought had finally flown away and left us seems to have come back and has been foraging around, occasionally hanging out at her nest and wondering why I took my basket of fake plants away from her.  She’s still by herself, but at least she can get warm occasionally in the sun.  I got a few pictures of her wandering around in the grass under her tree, waiting for Lucy to come out and play.

She looks a darn site better than she did earlier in the winter!

Today was mostly packing day — not packing to move, but basically repacking some of the bins in the garage that are packed in a horrible way.  Too many contents get shuffled from one bin to the other and the bins don’t get remarked.  So, I repacked and remarked my twelve or so Christmas bins.  I’m a packrat with a slight touch of OCD, so needless to say it took me all day.

A sorter/packer’s best friend in times like this is a trusty label maker.

This has been my trusty friend through many a day of sorting, packing and organizing (you can tell it’s been around by all the evident wear and tear and dirt).  It can make a long job a lot shorter and easier.  This label maker prints out the label and then has a button to cut it off for you.  The label tape comes on a cartridge that just snaps in and has the ink already in the cartridge.  I urge any of you who try to stay organized to invest in a label maker — you’ll save loads of time and be more organized.  And it doesn’t have to be the most expensive fancy kind — a cheap one will get the job done.

Remember the label makers they had back in the day?  The label tape looked like it was made of shiny plastic and came in primary colors like shiny red, shiny blue and shiny green.  You had to manually punch each letter in separately by turning a big disk to reach each letter, and then press hard!  The backing on the label tape was hard to get off.  The lettering was always white — no color selection at all!  Ah, fun times.

So, anyway, that’s the problem with staying home in the house all day — it ends up leaving you with nothing to talk about except how nice it’s going to be to go to bed in a bit. But it’s been a good day, so if I’m boring to everyone else at least I’ll still have had a productive day!

Precious Baby is getting quite the personality already!  She absolutely must be in the bathroom with her mother — no playing elsewhere while Mom goes in the bathroom and gets ready.  So, Becca found a way to make it workable for both her and Precious Baby.

Whoever invented this little gem has made things better for every working mother whose baby doesn’t want to let her out of their sight!

For some reason, Precious Baby thinks her play mat is funny.

And that is a very lucky thing — it would be a bummer for everybody if she hated it.  I always love it when a baby is good natured!

So, here’s today’s reminder:

Don’t forget Valentine’s Day!  Only 9 shopping/creating/mailing days left!  If you like or love somebody and you haven’t started on your Valentine surprise for them yet, then get with the program!  Lol

Blessings to you as you go through this week!