November's wintry air, sky and color remind us that life is certainly and perennially seasonal. "Around, and around, and around we go . . ." on the merry-go-round we call our earthly existence. We're reminded that although we go through many changes as we get older, it seems the earth renews itself every year and will continue to do so after we are gone.

Anyway, our Monthly Challenge themes were Bare Trees, Thanksgiving and Transportation - a real hodge-podge. Let's see how we fared.

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Old Davy will start us off on a humorous note with a few Thanksgiving photos of corkscrew cuisine. I might make this an assignment some time: Make a cartoon of one of your pictures. It's a lot of fun and easy to do if you have a 'Brush' tool in your photo software. You can caption it if you have a 'Font' tool, as well. Try not to let this poor dead and soon-to-be-toast turkey gross you out. He really isn't feeling a thing. Nikon D90, 12-24mm lens.

The teenie weenies are the rage here with the girls - me, not so much. I ate two and put two back in the crockpot, I think. Those are the happy faced ones! Nikon D90, 12-24mm lens.

After taking pictures at Cosumnes River Wildlife Preserve Thursday morning, I grabbed a few while driving home. If your window glass is pretty clean and you don't have any reflections and don't look through the viewfinder, and just hold your camera out and guess at the best place to point it, who knows what you'll get. Caution! This is an unsafe and probably illegal procedure. I don't advise it for anyone else! You can shoot your eye out if you're not careful.

This next shot is of my favorite row of poplars on Peltier Road on I-5, about 15 miles north of Stockton. With November being so warm all the leaves hadn't fallen yet, but a few trees had dropped most of them. This picture was pretty blurry at 70 mph, so I played with it a bit, added unreal colors and tried to make it as striking as possible. Nikon D5100, 55-300mm zoom lens.

Another grab shot out the window features my Transportation theme entry. A lot of people had to work on the Holiday. Nikon D5100, 55-300mm zoom lens. This is a great lens. I'm so glad I have it.

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Don's Transportation theme photo sports a restored classic. This is his neighbor's '36 Ford. Very nice shooting angle and background color, Don. Nikon D300, 18-200mm zoom lens set at 18mm (my guess).

Don's final photo is of a bare birch tree, with "Just a few die hard leaves hanging on." Good composition and angle. Winter will soon knock off those remaining leaves.

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World traveler, Ginnie, rounds out our entries for November. "Meg, Cath and Stacey were in charge of food this THANKSGIVING.  It was great.  My only contribution was turkey and gravy. The Martha Stewart method works best for me: turkey covered with cheesecloth, basted every half hour with melted butter and white wine. Yum.  No flash, just the halogen light from the hood, had to lighten it up a bit."

Ginnie drove all the way to the Grand Canyon to find a Bare Tree for our Challenge. What a girl!!!! Great shot! Good contrast and composition. And check out the color array. Very nice.

Another Canyon capture tweaks the Transportation theme a bit. Just say your spirit can be easily transported to praise God for the wonders and beauty of His creation. You can also say that one step too far and you can be easily transported to the next world. Yeow!

Ginnie's last photo is a freebie. I've lost her email that explains all about how she got this picture, so maybe she'll tell everyone more about it. It was taken out the window as they were driving by the big solar array at Carrizo Plain. Pretty cool - or should I say hot?

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Now that was fun, wasn't it, boys and girls? I know how busy everyone is in December, so we'll have a hiatus/break so everyone can focus on the reason for the season - God's wonderful gift of His Son, the Lord Jesus. Messiah, Savior, Redeemer, King of heaven and earth, in spite of the evil we see around us.

Merry Christmas to all and Happy New Year. May God's blessings be on you and your family this holiday season.

Old Davy and Barbie

We're cycling back into another winter - a bit slowly, but it's inevitably coming. Rain, clear skies, red noses and bare trees await us all. October is a transition month, with colors starting to blush, the summer growing season finishing, and a magical return of your winter wardrobe. With kids back in school and vacations over, there should be more time to jaunt here and there for photo opportunities. Key words, "should be."

I was glad Ginnie and Jack were able to vacation on the east side of the Sierra with Monte and Stacey. The color displays are wonderful right now, both there and on the west side, too, as you'll see. Thanks, Ginnie for sharing these. The first was taken of glowing Aspens on the June Lake Loop. Postcard perfect for a Fall Color theme.  

Aspen distribution can be seen on this map - for those of you who would like to check things out.

Monte and Stacey also enjoy the Sierra and can be seen in the back country with full packs quite often. I don't think they roughed it too much on this trip, but I may be wrong. This is a nice shot with subjects in the shade, the tree canopy framing them, and the special golds, reds and yellows adding to the feeling of being there with them.

Ginnie also captured the changing color of one of my favorite trees in Yosemite Valley - the Cook Meadow sentinel elm tree. This is one of the most photographed trees in the world, and it's extra special when Half Dome looms large in the background. Don and I were shooting from the same spot last February - with snow on the ground!

Regal El Capitan towers over the Valley floor and color. Ginnie spotted five climbers on the rock face - all having a great time wondering who talked them into their crazy adventure. If you haven't been to Yosemite, put it on your bucket list now! And be sure to take binoculars so you can get a true perspective of how massive this rock is when you see climbers dotting along.

UPDATE: Apparently, only the first of Ginnie's posted photos was for the Challenge, so we're adding three more that have found their way to my Inbox.

She writes: "Jack and I recently met brother Monte and sister-in-law Stacey at June Lake for a weekend, then drove home hitting Bridgeport then backtracking to Tioga Pass to spend a night in Yosemite.  The fall colors were spectacular!  Especially the aspens on the eastern side of the Sierra.  There were dozens of photographers out complete with tripods and high-end looking equipment. All of these were shot with the trusty D40."

She took the next photo in Yosemite that fits the Backlight theme.

"The Number shot was taken in Bridgeport while waiting for Jack to scope out Ken's Sporting Goods.  I was surprised to find a phone booth, thought they were all taken out.  On retrospect should have taken a picture of the gas pump where we had to fuel up....$5.09 a gal."

This is a nice use of reflective color and a tight crop. These pictures are proof that you don't need a super-expensive camera to get great shots!

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Yours truly had fun with the Numbers theme. I've collated five pictures into one, which somewhat lessens their impact compared to viewing them one by one in a large format. But this way I can call it just one photo and move on to another! Besides, they all have something in common: they were all shot at the Dahl House in Paso Robles. A few of them have been Photoshopped to death. The one at the lower right corner is a white ruler that I spiced up the color on. And his house number sign really has black numbers, so I de-saturated the color, then painted the leaves and berries with the Fill Tool, then picked some pastel colors that would balance and used the Fill Tool on them, too. We'll see if Don likes it enough to paint the real ones to match. Forget it - Janet might, but it looks a little too foo-foo for the old man.

For the Fall Color theme, I'm choosing a sunset shot I took last night at the Isenberg Sandhill Crane Refuge just northeast of us. The cranes fly in to winter here in October. There were a few heavy duty photographers there when Barb and I arrived a little before sunset. One of them, Mike Corlew of Folsom had a Canon rig on a Gitzo carbon fiber tripod. He had 'borrowed' from Canon Corp. a new $12,000 200-400mm lens with a built-in 1.4 teleconverter that you could just switch on and off. His camera probably cost him $5000. So I talked to him awhile because the cranes hadn't started flying in yet. Actually, they didn't start until the sun had set and it was getting dark. Mike also races (or 'raced') hot air balloons, not an inexpensive sport. In fact, he called it the world's most expensive, non-recognized sport. But, I digress.

I started shooting when the long lines of birds started coming in from the south and east where they'd been feeding all day. You could pick them up at probably a mile away and follow them in. Since there was so LITTLE light, I set the ISO on my Nikon D5100 to 1600 to try to keep the birds in focus. Almost impossible, but I kept shooting probably over 100 pictures. I told Barb afterwards that I'd be lucky to get one or two good ones. I was right. Nikons crave lots of light. I used my monopod - big mistake. I had thought the fly-in would be before the sun had set and I wouldn't have any problem hand-holding some panned shots. I was wrong here, too. So I used Mt. Diablo in the background as a stationary focus point and waited until bands of birds would fly in front of it. The monopod worked okay in that situation.

Interesting that the three guys with the big gear all left without taking any pictures! Ha! I couldn't believe it! A few of us with little cameras, spotting scopes and binoculars (Barb) stayed until dark. The mosquitoes were impressed! I'll post the other pics on my website - all 6 of them!

Here's my favorite shot of the month, taken before sunrise at the same Refuge. So this fits the Your Best Shot theme, I guess. Monopod used here, too.

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Senor Don brings up the rear here with a couple of Backlight theme shots. Don, you've employed the sun for the backlight on the leaves, but there is a strong light coming from the front as well, like a flash. Note the shadows behind the water jug and on the pail in back of it. Looks like either an off-camera flash or some direct sunlight reflected from a window. What's the deal here? Did you use your 60mm macro for this and the next one? Nice.

Don says, "Walking around the house, I snapped one of Janet's plant projects and Cali (Aka Missy) was craving attention, so I did a no view finder point and shoot. I was quite surprised by the result....a little cropping and viola. As for my best shot, I haven't taken it yet."

It's surprising how great some grab shots can be. Missy's portrait is also a fine example of backlight. The auto-focus feature on the lens was indispensable here. Even though the sky is washed out, the exposure is purrfect for her face and whiskers. Very cute. Can you recommend her dentist? She has nice teeth!

And for our last picture of the month, Don has combined both the Backlight and Numbers themes into one with this photo of his Harley's 'dash' lights. I think you can almost throw in the Fall Color theme as well with those orange numbers. Very striking, Don. I like the close cropping and extraneous lights in the background.

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So another month fades into the annals of history and our feeble memories. I'm glad we can preserve some of the excitement in our picture sharing.

Our November themes will be:  Thanksgiving, Transportation, and Bare Trees

Remember: Your pictures can be up to 1500 pixels wide, 500kb in file size, Black and White or color, software manipulated or Plain Jane if you want.

Happy shooting to one and all.

Another month has flown by as the geese and cranes fly in for their winter stay.  The weather is changing, leaves are turning, and photo nuts are clicking away, hoping to get that perfect 'fall color' shot.  September was a transition month with not too many seasonal things happening.  It was hot, cool, rainy, sunshiny, cloudy, and pretty much ho-hum.  The photo challenge themes were "Cemeteries, Shadows and Weathered."

Let's see who did what, where and why as we peruse the latest and greatest photo fare for the month.

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We'll start with Old Davy's limited entries.  Thanks to lots of work, being sick and a general busy-ness, the old man didn't do much target  shooting.  Oh, well - life goes on, bumps and all.

This first shot was taken on Clements Road as I waited for the sun to rise behind some storm clouds.  If you've seen this set on my website, most of the pictures are in color, but I wanted to see what fortune I'd have converting to black and white to accentuate the contrast between the trees and sky.  I filled the lower portion of the picture with black, eliminating all the detail, and worked with the contrast and brightness to make the clouds really stand out.  This was taken with the Nikon D5100 and 55-300 telephoto lens. Settings were f11, 1/640th, 55mm, ISO 400.

My second shot is another black and white.  Taken indoors with the D5100, ISO 200, 1/30th, f?, and the 55mm MicroNikkor lens.  Walking into the living room as the sun was setting in the backyard, these shadows caught my eye, so I ran to get my camera and arranged the crane on the opposite side of its normal position to get the shot.  I wasn't really happy with the orange-peel wall texture, so I used the blur tool in Elements 9 to soften them, then really tweaked the contrast and brightness to maximize the contrast.

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Let's all welcome Brian to our team.  (Group clap here!)  Brian is a budding photog who sent me two pictures that fit our themes of Shadows and Cemeteries.  He says this of his first picture:

"The first picture features me in the Marin Headlands near the Golden Gate Bridge. We only had one flash so it was a long exposure. I was hit with the flash first, then clambered through the iron bars-flashed-then passed the flash to my friend who lit up the last doorway. I thought it hit the themes of shadows and weathered nicely."

Brian gets extra credit for this team effort photo that involved a lot of planning.

Brian's second picture was taken by his friend and fits the cemetery theme.

"The second picture features an early morning of Soldier Hill(?) near Lafayette Bart. Although not an actual graveyard, the crosses represent soldiers lost in the war which I thought went well with the theme of cemeteries. This picture was simply done by using a flashlight. My friend Aaron took this one."

Great composition and contrast that really set the mood.  Nikon D40x was the camera of choice.

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Don's recent trip to Montana afforded some great photo ops to fit our themes.  Thanks for keeping us in mind, Don, while you could have been enjoying yourself!  Ha!  He says:

"We spent a few days at the Runamok Ranch in Montana with my 1st cousin Rod and wife Susan. All 3 of this month's themes were there and then some. There was so much, I didn't know which way to point the camera. What more could I ask for?  I'll start with the small family cemetery on the ranch. Baby Simon died 2 weeks before birth due to umbilical strangulation and is buried here. The morning sun was casting a shadow of his cross." 

Here are his other photos:

"With 18,000 acres [on his cousin's ranch], there is a wealth of weathered things to photograph. These are my favorites. There are many old structures that are deteriorating since being abandoned. The log cabin is one of these. You want weathered? Check out this wagon wheel. And lastly, I think I heard this wagon begging to be in the Pioneer Day Parade. It's certainly from the pioneer era."

Don shoots with a Nikon D300 and 18-200 Nikkor lens.

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Ginnie's fabulous fare include some artsy views of shadows.  The lower, violet portion of this sunset (looking east) is the shadow of the earth rising under what's left of the sunlight.  Pretty cool.

Nice composition and shadows made by this crystal close-up.

"Our Friday painters group had scheduled to meet east of Paso at the intersection of Cripple Creek and El Pomar Roads. Got there at 9AM right along with asphalt trucks and workers who were repaving El Pomar. The painters left and I took pictures of an old weathered farm shed and some cows.  Was a bust."

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Thanks to everyone for another outstanding month of entries.  What will October bring?  A change in seasons hopefully, along with more opportunities for capturing your world through the lens.

The themes for October will be your choice of:  Backlight, Fall Color, and Numbers.  Nothing too exciting here. Sorry.  If none of these suit your taste, just send in Your Best Shot.

Happy shooting to all, and to all a good night!