Sylvia's Simple Shots

I captured this shot of the summer hare this morning.   I came loping across the grass into the shrubbery and I caught the movement in the corner of my eye.

It was on high alert but stood still for a bit and I managed several shots.

Love this one because the eye is great, the tree on the right is out of focus but frames it well.  

The photo has a cohesive color scheme in the warm grays and browns.

I finished this book - Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood on the weekend. I found it interesting though disturbing in some ways.  It chronicles the life of a painter artist Elaine Risley who is in Toronto for a retrospective of her work.  

Her early childhood was spent in northern Ontario traveling from place for her father's work as an entomologist.  They settle in Toronto when he gets a more stable job.  Her memories are not good.  Being the odd teen in a group of girls was hard. Clothes, hair, school politics, friendships and boys were all avenues she had to negotiate with rough patches at times.

It was a different kind of read filled with insecurity, lots of questions, angst, and disconnection.  I suppose it is part of adolescence and young womanhood which shapes the woman she became. 

I have been investigating the Asian food aisle at the grocery store for a while.   

I was searching for what I call glass noodles.  I was introduced to these at a potluck in high school where a dish contained them. The contributor was a school teacher of Asian heritage who came to teach at our school for a couple of years.   Loved the food. 

After, several purchases that were disappointments, I found them on my last grocery shopping trip.

I thought they were rice noodles but no so.  They are made with bean starch.

I cooked up a wonderful shrimp stir fry and these were the perfect accompaniment!

 These will be on my regular shopping list.

 

I have been doing some artistic photography work.  I was getting some pieces to enter an art competition.  I will blog the entries in a couple of weeks.

This piece was created with a process called Bottled Light.  I have blogged about it in this post. 

I loved the thread of green going across the composition and some of the complementary colors.

I love the jewel tone colors in this composition. The object I had the light go through was a blown glass ball.

I used another technique called In Camera Motion where you move the camera with a long shutter speed to allow the capture of the patterns of movement.

The lights and darks are captured during the movement. 

This is a piece of dark fabric with bling on the surface in spiral patterns.  By shining the light onto it, the bling reflects the light and produces light areas.  You can see hint of the spirals in the bottom third of the art.

I called this piece The Waves. I really like the patterns I created with my movement.

 It was great fun to be inside as it rained most of Saturday but the earth is grateful and putting out all kinds of green.

The challenge for Flickr Macro Monday is object with Zed in it's name.  I think this challenge will produce a lot of variety of subject matter today.  You can check out my Flickr Photostream (SMDPics) to see the shot I submitted.  On the left is the bezel on my cell phone.

I am sharing with Angie who hosts Mosaic Monday #130 and Mersad who hosts Through My Lens #288 .

I hope you have a great week and Be Safe Be Kind.

Recent Photos

One morning this week I headed out early and further a field with the car in search of a park I had heard of on TV.

It had rained for 2 days before so there was heavy dew drops on the grasses along the path. I wanted to capture it all as it was so wonderful looking.  I took a lot of photos.

I captured this one which had a sun burst in a rain drop on the bottom left corner and another above and a little more left, bokeh of water drops further away, and a spider web in rainbow colors!






It was cool so I wore my raincoat which passed the test earlier in the week when I took my 1 hour walk without getting wet.




I have been learning new photography techniques. Last week oil on water and this week In Camera Motion.

After some research on line I set my aperture to 1/4 second and headed out to try some out.  I focused, started moving the camera and pressed down the shutter button.  The faster you move the more out of focus the photo.  I created waves in this one.

I finished my next Kate Morton book last week.   This is her first book.    I found the beginning a little slow but the middle and end were worth the wait.

The House at Riverton set in England between the wars. It is the story of an aristocratic family, a house, a mysterious death and a way of life that vanished forever, told in flashback by a woman who witnessed it all and kept a secret for decades.

Grace Bradley went to work at Riverton House as a servant when she was just a girl, before the First World War. For years her life was inextricably tied up with the Hartford family, most particularly the two daughters, Hannah and Emmeline.

In the summer of 1924, at a glittering society party held at the house, a young poet shot himself. The only witnesses were Hannah and Emmeline and only they -- and Grace -- know the truth.

In 1999, when Grace is ninety-eight years old and living out her last days in a nursing home, she is visited by a young woman who is making a film about the events of that summer. She takes Grace back to Riverton House and reawakens her memories. Told in flashback, this is the story of Grace's youth during the last days of Edwardian aristocratic privilege shattered by war, of the vibrant twenties and the changes she witnessed as an entire way of life vanished forever.

The novel is full of secrets -- some revealed, others hidden forever, reminiscent of the romantic suspense of Daphne du Maurier. It is also a meditation on memory, the devastation of war and a beautifully rendered window into a fascinating time in history.

I finally got a decent photo of a Yellow Warbler.  Their song is always with as I walk in the morning.  But considering it is about the size of a large thumb and the trees now have leaves I had given up getting a photo.

I finally spied him just singing away.  I managed about 16 photos before he flew away when someone else came down the path.

I wished he did not have the shadow on his face but at 12 feet in a tree I take what I can get.

He will be making it to my 2020 photo calendar later this year.

I did find The Magpie's Nests art installation in the Rossdale Linear Park. They are bronze and painted steel. The artists are local to the province.  Excellent art!

Parking is limited to residents. As it was before 6 am I decided to take a chance and took a few shots.  I did not stay long and it is a small park on a great walking path.

My favorite is the white sphere.  I love the shape.

Sharing with

Angie at Letting Go the Bay Leaf who hosts Mosaic Monday #31.

Mersad who hosts Through My Lens #195.