Catching up, a.k.a I'm really bad at this blogging thing

So. The holidays have come and gone since I've written anything in here. I am very much out of practice. Finding picturesque pieces of nature is much more difficult in the Oregon winter time in my neighborhood. It's wet a lot, and it's gray and the light is very dim and dreary much of the time. And there's fog. Fog makes things damp that I want to stay dry so I haven't taken the camera outside very much. I am actually suffering from a sort of withdrawal. I hate to wish for snow or ice so I will just be anxious for spring.

Two big things have happened recently though that are definitely worth mentioning. Without going into too much detail and allowing myself to get derailed, I am now the owner of not one, but two high-quality Canon cameras; a very excellent point and shoot, and the DSLR I have wanted since before they were actually available. The Fujifilm MX2900 Zoom I won in an online auction in 2002 and shot with up until October of 2007 was great for a long time. But it had minimal settings other than auto and I outgrew it quickly once I started trying to get the very best images possible out of my camera. These came from that camera and really made me believe I could do great things with better equipment:







Trying to upgrade cheaply and loving the style of pictures that have come out of Canon cameras, I first bought a Canon PowerShot S5IS. I fell in love. Really, it's a very good point-and-shoot camera. Excellent, in fact. I enjoyed the new, larger file sizes and the increased resolution instantly. I loved that it has a manual setting and I can set everything I want from the shutter speed to the f-stops to the ISO all the way up to 1600! That is incredible for a point and shoot camera. Not only that, but it shoots video at very good quality so I was able to videotape my son's winter band concert for the first time ever. Awesome. Love. It's a beautiful thing. These pictures came out of that camera and made me very happy indeed:









But, alas, something was still missing. There is no way I could have ever afforded to pay retail prices for any DSLR camera that had the features I was looking for, and by this time I had really done my research. I wanted a Canon EOS 40D so badly I could taste it (still do but am VERY happy to "only" have my 30D, but I'm getting ahead of myself). I would have settled for a 20D, even. Can't justify a 5D no matter how much my fingers twitch - haha!

I shot with the S5IS for over a month before finding the most incredible deal I could find (and have yet to see a better one, in fact, even though it came body only) on my beloved Canon EOS 30D from a local photographer. I was camera-rich and lens-poor for about two weeks. Two. Weeks! Holy crap. Thank goodness I had the S5IS to keep me from going batshit crazy. I shot over 1000 frames in the first two months of owning the S5IS - it was fall then and I was getting used to having so many settings to use. That really helped me when I finally got my hands on the 30D and the first lens to arrive, the 50mm f/1.8. I also ordered a 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 USMII lens, which arrived about a week after the 50mm. I made myself quit buying gear after I made sure I had everything to make both cameras functional and I have to be done for the foreseeable future. I totally understand the term "lens-lust" now though. Yikes. Some of the first images to come out of the 30D look like these and make me long for spring:







Now if the weather would only improve so that I could get myself outside more. I got brave the other day and decided to wrestle the camera, the dog, and the umbrella and try to find something to shoot. Mostly, I saw this:



I admit I am missing the flowers and sunshine. It is nice to know that with the holidays behind us Spring is not too far away.

Why Oregonians don't move away*

Sometimes pictures speak louder than words. The weather has been incredible the past couple of days. All of the following pictures were taken within walking distance of my house.











See more like these, and some pictures of pretty roses, on my flickr stream.

*in spite of the rain. The entire world thinks it rains all the time here in Oregon, and sometimes I admit it does feel that way. But when the sun comes out we all tend to forget the rain and just enjoy the sun while we have it.

Tomorrow the rain is supposed to move back in so I'll be happy to have these to look at. ;)

Chapples? Nope! Crabapples and Apples growing together.

Here's something I've never seen before. I was out walking the dog yesterday and something about a certain tree caught my attention. I moved in for a closer look and then broke out the camera. This tree appears to be growing both apples and cherries. Or something. Definitely apples, but I have to admit I have no idea what the smaller fruits are.



They're definitely both growing on the same tree, though.



Anyone else ever seen anything like this? It's probably some sort of grafted hybrid, but I always thought that both types of rootstock had to be from the same tree. Or that the fruit itself would be a combination of the two fruits, like a pluot - not that the same tree would grow two different fruits altogether.

Ahhhhh, now this is much more logical. After doing some research and getting a couple of better pictures, I know the smaller of the two types of fruit growing on this tree are crabapples. Below are thumbnails to a shot of same tree with some blue sky behind it, and one of the trunk that shows both types of trees clearly have their own bark characteristics.

The first, at long last

My photographs are All Rights Reserved

New direction, new blog.

I haven't had a blog in quite some time. I have had my interest in photography for a long time. I have only been indulging it seriously for the past few months but I have already seen great improvement.

Mostly my subjects are flowers and other wonders found in nature, hence the title of this blog. I take mostly closeup pictures, because I enjoy the details of the various flowers. I have been known to take pictures of things I am less fond of, such as spiders and insects too. Landscapes, sunsets, and architecture of all kinds also catch my eye and may find their way into my blog. I have an account at flickr which I have had for a few years if you'd like to check it out. I mention this mostly so that anyone who stumbles across this site will know that any photographs seen here are more than likely cross-posted and not stolen. I am also working on creating watermarks to help prevent theft of my work, just fyi. I have already learned the importance of copying and registering each and every photo I post online, so I am well prepared to deal with any potential problems. That said, I am anxious to share some of my pictures with the world and I'm hoping this will be the perfect place to indulge myself. I also hope anyone who stumbles in here will enjoy what they see and feel comfortable enough to leave a comment behind.