More Flowers

Wind is an evil thing when you are trying to take close up photos! Even a slight breeze makes your flower move enough so that they are blurry in your photo. And the weather here has been so crummy and so WINDY that my attempts to get out in the garden with my camera are generally foiled. It's such a time of beauty though, I am trying to capture all the stages of my perennial flowers before we get plunged back into winter. Now there's a lovely thought. The days are getting shorter already though.......... :-)

June is almost over

and I am drawing a deep breath. Garden is planted, although very high maintenance because it has not rained this month. School is over. Soccer just finished. Bathroom renovations will be wrapped up tomorrow. Phew. Why I decided it was a good idea to take a close-up/nature photography course in the middle of the June chaos, I will never know. :-) The blog just slid way, way down the priority list. I'll get back to posting here soon. I have a ton of photos and a lot of stories to share, and July looks to be a little less stressful.

this month's book selection

I was intrigued with the description of this book on the back cover, and selected it for my book club this time around. It started out slowly for me, but I ended up enjoying it greatly and rereading parts, as well as listening to the audio version when I commute to work. A different style, quite melodramatic, and set in a different time and place than books I usually read. Check it out if you need something new to read.

from the Chapters Indigo website "Barcelona, 1945. A great world city lies shrouded in secrets after the war, and a boy mourning the loss of his mother finds solace in his love for an extraordinary book called "The Shadow of the Wind," by an author named Julian Carax. When the boy searches for Carax''s other books, it begins to dawn on him, to his horror, that someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book the man has ever written. Soon the boy realizes that "The Shadow of the Wind" is as dangerous to own as it is impossible to forget, for the mystery of its author''s identity holds the key to an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love that someone will go to any lengths to keep secret".

Close-up and Nature Photography

I'm taking a course right now with Metro College in Edmonton with my friend Kim Gowdy. I'm slowly learning and getting better, spending a lot of time on my belly in the wet grass. :-) I started out hand holding the camera, but it's pretty tough to get decent photos with a macro lens that way, so I ended up buying a new Manfrotto tripod with a ball head. Love that thing, well worth the money! Here's a few samples from Wagner Bog, a natural area west of Edmonton (sadly the orchids weren't blooming yet), and a few shots from my garden.