Spring! Lovely Spring!

After such an abnormally nasty winter, it's been a delight to spend time outside these past few days.  The temps have been in the high 60's and it even got up to 80 degrees one day!  More and more flowers are coming into bloom and the wildlife is on the move again.

Here are some of the turkeys we've been seeing on a regular basis recently.  I don't know what it is in that back hayfield that's keeping them coming back, but they're there off and on all day and don't even seem to mind when I take their picture.  Before, they would scurry back into the woods but they're a bit braver now.  Yesterday evening they were all out there along with a small herd of deer and it reminded me of a drive-through zoo with several species intermingling.

While we haven't actually seen a live skunk yet this year, there's ample evidence that they're still around!  They're on the move also and many times get stuck on one of our country roads in the path of an on-coming car or truck. While I have a hard time with any animal getting killed, I don't want skunks around our place either!

Anyway, I may not do so well at keeping up my blog for a while.  And I've been too restless to do much art - the great outdoors has such a siren call that I've been grabbing my camera and spending more time with it than either art supplies or computers!

Maybe it's time to try a little plein air painting!  I'll keep you posted!

Totally Awesome!

Doe With Twins
copyright
Jan Gibson

I just wanted to share a wildlife photo with you that I took with my new camera this morning.

First, a little background so you'll understand my enthusiasm. Our driveway is about a tenth of a mile long and has pecan trees on one side and pecan and peach trees on the other. It's a "far piece" from the back of the house (where I was trying to hide) to the area where the deer were under the pecan trees. Not only that, but it was getting ready to rain so the morning was pretty dark. As any photographer knows, the more extended the zoom, the more light is needed to get a decent photo.

This was a situation that my old camera would have refused to even consider taking a photo and would have laid down without even attempting the shot. With my new Canon, I not only got to take the pictures, but they actually came out fairly well. The fact that they weren't all perfect was operator error along with the conditions and not the camera's fault. However, Christine (from Creative Life Studio), an accomplished photographer, told me that even professionals take hundreds of photos to get that one that's absolutely perfect so I guess I don't feel too badly about these.

No, they aren't perfect, but I did get photos good enough to be used as painting references which has been my goal all along. And, I hope as I keep practicing, I'll get shots that are better and better.

Just doin' the happy dance here!

Introducing Chance

Chance

This is Chance, our male lab mix. He's just a month or two older than Coal and this is the first decent photo I've ever gotten of him! They both hate(d) getting their pictures taken and I probably got this one of Chance because I was ready for him when he came around the corner of the house. I also got it because this camera doesn't have the lag time that my old camera has so I snapped the picture and actually got it before he turned away. Don't pay any attention to his poor nose - this is the result of his last run-in with a skunk when he scraped his nose in the grass to rid himself of the spray. Unfortunately, it will sort of scab over but just doesn't seem to heal. I've tried numerous things including some ointment from the vet but nothing seems to work. I'm putting some Wounded Warrior on it now and hope that will do the trick. You have to be so careful since he'll lick it off but the WW is supposed to be ok even if they lick it. I just wish there was some way to get him to leave any medicine on long enough to do any good! I don't think I can bandage his nose!

Teresa from Blueberries, Art and Life had asked me about macro shots with the new camera. I had to go read the manual to find out about them but I'm pleased to say that this camera has both macro and super macro capabilities. I'm still figuring out the difference but I did take a couple of macro/super macro shots this morning and the feature works very well as you can see below. This is a macro shot. The super macro was a little blurry so I'm not posting it but I think that's operator error and not the fault of the camera!

One thing I found also is that there's an "aquarium" setting. I don't have an aquarium but I've tried to take pictures of various ones with my old camera and they were so blurry as to be unusable. So, I'm eager to find an aquarium and try this setting.

There are a lot of features to this camera that I may never use but it's nice to know they're there. Who knows, I may eventually figure them all out!

New Camera & Thank You

Lantana

Clematis

I just wanted to thank you all for your support and kind words about Coalie's passing. And I wanted to tell you that I finally got a new camera. I have it out on a 30 day trial and if I don't like it, I can take it back.

It's a Canon SX10 IS and so far, I like it very much. It's a lot larger and heavier than my previous camera but I think it takes great photos. The camera does anyway, but I'm still learning the camera! lol

I've gotten some really nice shots of some of our flowers but I'm really impressed with the zoom on this thing! It has a 20x zoom and I extended the zoom completely and focused on a shadow in the area where we had seen the foxes earlier this spring. When I downloaded the photo, I could see that it wasn't a shadow at all but a weed growing in the hay grass. I could even tell that it was a broadleafed plantain! Think of the photos I'd have of those foxes if I'd had this camera back then!

I really think it's me and something I need to learn about the camera, but I cannot seem to get a decent photo of any of the wonderful birds we have here. I did get a good shot of a female bluebird but mostly, by the time I get the camera set, even on automatic, the birds have flown away! I need to learn to get the controls set quickly! It's just that the controls, such as the zoom and shutter, are in a slightly different place than they were in my old camera and working them hasn't become second nature yet. I've only had the camera since this past Sunday and a couple of days were very rainy so didn't get to play with it as I would have liked.

Anyway, if anyone would like to use the flower pictures above as a painting reference, please feel free. I've left them fairly large even though I had to resize them for the web and I did watermark them just to deter other uses. Please don't use them for anything other than a painting reference - they aren't public domain photos.

If you use them, I'd love to see what you do with them! I know Jeanette will be the first to grab one since flowers are a favorite subject for her to paint! lol