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Posts from the ‘Photography’ Category

I didn’t even cry at the Zombie Walk

But I did sort of run away once.  Of course, by sort of, I mean definitely. And by once, I mean three times. But still!

My cousin Krystal is part of a non-profit group called The Mean Mommies of Fredericksburg, and they do a lot of volunteering.  This is the second time they’ve put on the zombie walk but I didn’t go last year.    Although I have my suspicions that The Mean Mommies is just a cover for this group of friends to get together, be loud and drink wine, I can’t deny that they do good work.  More than 800 people showed up to the walk this year, up 200 from last year, and they all brought canned goods and cleaning supplies to benefit the Fredericksburg Area Food Bank, Hope House, SECA and SERVE. That’s a lot of donations!

My friend Toni and I didn’t dress up, and I was a little nervous about being one of the only living people there, but there was plenty of other live bait around.  As for zombies, they were represented from one extreme to the other, from a little face makeup to full out creep-fest. And I couldn’t believe how some of them stayed in character – really, truly – the entire time we were there.  More than three hours these people moaned and shuffled around the park, occasionally walking up on someone and just staring (no biting, thank goodness) before they moved on.  Impressive!  The other thing that surprised me is all the kids, even young kids, that were totally into the whole zombie deal, not afraid at all.  They were really having fun!

Actually, everyone had fun.  Here are some pictures!  I couldn’t decide, so there are a lot:

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I’m glad I went!  And thanks to Toni for going with me.  She somehow got wrangled into being a judge for all the costume contests, and she was a really good sport.  By somehow, I mean that I said, “Toni will do it!”.  Also, if she wasn’t there I most definitely would have left sooner, because one of those times I would have run all the way back to my car.  All-in-all, it was a fun afternoon of zombie watching and a lot of nervous laughter on my part.  All for a good cause, too.

Autumn Reveals Herself

The first cool morning

and autumn reveals herself to me:

she pulls her cape ’round,

crimson,

gold,

orange,

bottomless depths of evergreen,

and brown.

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Practice makes…oh, dear

I’ve been doing my photo class homework, but I’m kind of stuck in one gear.  We learned about aperture settings, and I’m supposed to be practicing up and down the aperture scale.  But as I review my pictures, I’ve noticed that I am a one note woman.  2.7, 2.7, 2.7…

So 2.7 is the lowest aperture that my camera will go to.  This setting makes the depth of field very shallow, so the background is more blurry.  If you follow my blog, then you probably already know that I love my close-ups.  Now that I have some more information and can manipulate those shots a little, I can’t get out of that mindset – the closer the better.  Argh!  (That’s pirate for, “Pay attention to what you’re doing and start practicing instead of just shooting tons of pictures of things simply because you like it!”)

Anyway, here are some pictures I took last night and this morning.  These are the same fruit trees that I mentioned in the Week In Review.  The petals of one have mostly fallen off, almost overnight.  The spiders seemed to have built their little nests overnight as well.  I came out of the house Tuesday morning and they were just everywhere.

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A different view of sunset

I’m still getting used to this whole time change thing, and it keeps coming as a surprise to me when I see the sun heading for the horizon at 4:30 or so.  Today was no exception.  

Since I was off, I had all the blinds pulled up to let in however much light we get anymore.  It was nice, because throughout the day, the sky was a pretty interesting mix of dove grey cloud and blue atmosphere, with the sun peeking out every now and then.

Late this afternoon, Louis and I were sitting in the living room.  I was working on some blog maintenance, and he was on the couch watching a movie.  Really, he was sleeping, but when you look at him, he always pretends that we was just resting his eyes for a moment.  All of a sudden, the room was lit with a bold splash of golden afternoon light.  It was bright enough and sudden enough to surprise us both, and we literally jerked our heads up and looked at one another in surprise.  Which was kind of a weird experience, seeing as he’s a dog an all. continue reading…