From the Big Island of Hawaii…

We spent the day hiking, looking for birds and looking at nature. It was fun and it’s late so I’m not writing much, just sharing photos :-).

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We started with the Pu’u O’o Trail hike, which starts off of the Saddle Road. It’s not a long hike, lots of stopping for photos and looking for birds, and taking photos of people (Steve and Keith) looking for birds.

Of the nearly 200 photos that I took today, only a few turned out well. I’m still working on manual focus, aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Maybe, by the end of my 52 Week Photo Challenge class, I’ll be much better. As it is, I’m happy with the photos that did turn out well and the rest are gone!

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This next one cracks me up… who is looking at what?

beckygoldsmith-BigIsland-1-52In the afternoon (after lunch at Sompat’s Thai in Hilo) we went to Volcano National Park and did the Pu’u Hulu Hulu trail this afternoon.

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That’s Amanda, sitting next to a broken lava dome.

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This is a spent Ohi’a Lehua blossom. I’ll have more of these later on.beckygoldsmith-BigIsland-1-34

Amanda got a nice picture of me—many thanks to Amanda! I don’t look as bad in the hat as I imagined that I did!

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This is a branch from an Ohi’a Lehua tree. The look of the tree changes depending on where they are. I am doing my best to take interesting pictures that are in focus and not over or under exposed, manually. I love it when it works!

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We saw several rainbows today and this one, on the way back to our rental house, made us stop to take pictures. The ends of the rainbow were both in the crater. So cool!

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I hope to post more photos tomorrow. I hope that you are enjoying your life right now as much as we are :-).

More from Nova Scotia…

We went out exploring on our 2nd day in Nova Scotia, which was actually a few days ago. I’ve been teaching for the Mahone Bay Quilters since then. It’s taken me this long to go through the photos and get them posted.

We went back toward Hirtle’s beach, through Lunenburg, along many of the same roads as the day before, but on this day it was clearer and not raining. We decided that stopping to take pretty-house-photos would slow us down too much so I did drive-by photos with my iPhone. I am surprised at how well they turned out.

Hirtle’s Beach is very pebbly/rocky. On the way into Canada I jokingly said that my suitcases were heavy but I didn’t have rocks in them. Can’t make that claim on the way home. Surely a baggie with pebbles won’t add that much weight…

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We could not help but notice that there are many modern houses around Hirtle’s Beach. Look close and I’ll bet you spot the ‘Sliding House’ in the next photo. Click here for more info on it.

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The ladies in my classes told me that most of these are summer homes and that there is some dispute over the fact that they have been built in a fragile ecosystem. But, putting all of that aside, I loved each and every one. If I could tear down my house and build again, I would build ‘modern’.

It’s interesting to note that ‘modern’ does seem to also be ‘colorful’, at least on the outside of these houses. That’s often true of the houses I see featured in Dwell magazine.

The hiking trail at Hirtle’s Beach takes you around Gaff’s Point. It was a very nice walk.

When we were in Lunenburg I took a nice photo of the big sailing ships with the colorful shops and houses behind. It is a place that poses well.

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Mahone Bay is a lovely town as well, I just didn’t take as many photos there. But I did take this shot of the 3 iconic and photogenic churches on the road into town. I lectured in the yellow church on the left and I taught 3 classes in the church on the right.

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Sad to say that the congregations of these churches, like so many others in other parts of the world, are shrinking. It’s a real problem when a local church landmark does not have the money or people to keep it going. But that’s a whole other discussion.

My 52 Week Photo Challenge assignment this week was “the road”. It’s nice that I was in Nova Scotia, riding on so many photogenic roads, for this assignment. I posted my ‘road’ photos on this Smugmug page. Tomorrow we are going to see the Bay of Fundy. I hope to have more photos to share soon.

From Nova Scotia…

Steve and I are in Canada! We left Halifax this morning and drove mostly south. It was rainy (just like home) and gray. That made the colorful houses stand out even more. And, boy, are there a lot of colorful houses here!

This sign kept popping up. Reminded me of patchwork…

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And we figured out the the key in the next sign might mean ‘museum’, but what’s up with the @ sign?

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The forsythia is in bloom here. It bloomed at home weeks ago. I have to say that it is much happier here, up north.

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And when was the last time you saw a teeter totter! It is unfortunate that we no longer have them in the states. I used to love teeter-tottering. I suppose that lawsuits made them go away. Canadians know how to live on the edge, right?

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Speaking of living on the edge, here’s Steve tempting fate :-).

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I must have taken 200 photos today. Amazingly enough, I went through them all, deleting the bad, cropping the good, adding some fixes in Photoshop. It took too long but I’m happy I did it today. I am always happy when I keep up with my photos. I know that if I don’t, I’ll have thousands that will just sit there on my hard drive taking up space.

Digital photos are cheap and easy to take, which makes it easy to let them pile up. But I have noticed that the really good shots, the ones that I go back to, the ones I add to my screensaver, the rare ones that I print—those are the keepers. It’s hard to delete the just-OK shots, but I do it. Daily.

The photo challenge continues…

On January 8 I wrote about Ricky Tims’ 52 week photo challenge. I am loving it! We just finished Week 7 which was a black and white challenge. This is my photo:

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I knew I was going to learn a lot, but am happy to report that I’m learning stuff that I didn’t know that I didn’t know. That’s not a typo. It is both exciting and humbling to learn new things, especially when it makes your brain stretch. I can feel mine stretching!

Ricky uses smugmug, a photo sharing/storage site. I followed suit and have a smugmug page of my own where I’ve been uploading my weekly challenge photos. There’s a link to my smugmug page over there in the right-hand column if you’d like to see my photos. I hope Ricky offers this class again next year—I heartily recommend it to any of you interested in photography.

And, as long as I’m talking about links over there to the right, you might want to scan through them. I’ve added some new ones. For example, if you are interested in Japanese fabric, and other fabrics not usually found in quilt shops, check out the link for Marcy Tilton.

And, as you click through my links, if you find any that aren’t working, please do let me know. I try to keep them current but… well, you know. Life gets in the way of doing everything.

The you you rarely see…

I like to images of people, taken from behind. Often the poses are unguarded and, if you know the person, you can recognize them without seeing their faces.

I have lots of photos of Steve from behind. He always looks like himself.

Steve on the Alakai Swamp trail, on Kauai.

This picture  of Judy, Jack, and Chris with their feet in the Atlantic makes me happy. I think that even if you don’t know them, the composition is nice.

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I don’t have many shots of me from behind. In the ones I have, sometimes I recognize myself, and sometimes I do not. Jeff took the photo of me, below, last week at a lovely spot at the Dallas Arboretum. My first thought was that with my hair so short, I could be mistaken for a boy (with a purse) from behind.

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I like my short hair and am not likely to grow it out, but still… it would be nice to be a little more girly from behind :-).