Photos as I Like It

I love this picture of Marin and Makenna enjoying the ocean even on a cold chilly day in September. Despite the chilly day we enjoyed a cousins BBQ with the Eltings.

This is a small piece of the City of South Pasadena's self-built float. South Pas has a long tradition of building the cities Rose Parade float by city residents and no large companies. It's always something fun and playful.

On my second day in the Port Townsend (extended) area, we drove a little west and first went to the Dungeness Spit, the world's longest natural sand spit. After lunch and a walk along the beach, we headed into the mountains to Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic National Park. From this ridge, only 17 miles, pretty much straight up, we could see a view of the Olympic Mountains on one side and the Juan de Fuca Strait and Canada on the other side. The path downhill to the Spit winds through a small forested area before dropping you out onto a small sliver of land heading straight out into open water (below). After our 17 mile drive into the Olympic National Park, we reached Hurricane Ridge with this incredible view of the Olympic Mountains, where if you look closely in this first photo and the one below you can see the glaciers. A fairly tame black-tailed deer fawn was eating by the side of the road with two other older deer. I used a telephoto lens, but I'm not

It's been awhile since I've posted anything on the blog, and even longer since I've posted something that wasn't for the colors photo challenge. I'm taking a mini vacation in the Port Townsend, WA area for a couple days before I enjoy the usual visit to Bumbershoot over Labor Day weekend. I found a lot to photograph so far on the first day and had a chance to review them and felt like getting these favorites posted right away. The first photo is of the Point Wilson Lighthouse in Port Townsend right near Fort Worden, which is the second two photos. There are actually two buildings in the lighthouse photo, a small office/museum building in the front and the lighthouse behind it, but I liked the merged version. The Fort is where there filmed An Officer and a Gentleman. The last photo is taken from the beach outside the cottage I'm staying. This is right on Discovery Bay, just a couple miles outside of Port Townsend. The sky was beautiful and the bay so calm.

Midnight blue and Navy blue are so close in color, it's a very subtle difference. So, I've decided to go with this photo as a combo for the two colors. Navy blue is the slightly brighter blue of the darker colors in this piece. Midnight blue is the darkest color. The photo is of one of the many pieces in the Art in the Street exhibit at the Geffen Contemporary in downtown LA.

I love the mix of detail and softness in this photo and it overall just has a sense of the color "melon".

A little something different for mahogany. I took this photo of a wall mural at Fairyland , a children's playground in Oakland. Mahogany is the color of the middle fairies pants, and I felt the soft border was appropriate for this threesome of fairies.

I love this shot of a butterfly I took at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Gardens butterfly pavilion. It really shows what my macro lens can do. The detail is just incredible. And, I was inspired by my friend Slade to enter some photos into a contest for the first time, and as soon as I saw this image I knew I had something I wanted to share. If you like it as much as I do, please vote for me in the National Wildlife Federation photo contest .

I really like the reflection of the neon lights on the sign in this one.

I struggled with lavender for awhile, as like Molly I was surprised how pink the lavender crayon is and not what I expected. I tried several different shots and finally decided on this one of my pillow case.

  Makenna asked to do a "photo shoot" at the park last weekend. She was very cute, picking the spot at the park and her multiple poses. I've been looking for jungle green for awhile now, and just realized the color of the jungle gym in this photo is a good match.

I love this series of shots of my niece Makenna from last weekend at Fairyland... Pre-Fairyland, all glamor and ready to go.  At Fairyland, enjoying the rides. Post Fairyland, all worn out.

I stumbled across the annual Concorso Ferrari show on Colorado Boulevard last weekend, and took many photos of this car trying to see if it would work for one of my green colors, but then found the gold exhaust pipes.

I moved recently, and in the process of packing and unpacking all my stuff, I've definitely been rediscovering the things I own, giving me an opportunity to find many new items to photograph for the Crayola challenge. This is a soy sauce dish for use when eating sushi.

I found this candle stand in a jumble of sale items at the local nursery. It all seemed so unexpected and out of context, but I loved the setting and pile of stuff that had nothing to do with a nursery.

I went to the Huntington Gardens this past weekend to test out this amazing new macro lens I was recently given, and these are a few of my favorites. I really enjoy taking macro photos and looking at ordinary objects in a new way.

Taken in the Chinese Gardens at the Huntington Gardens.

I took this picture of stacked crates a couple of weeks ago thinking it might be bittersweet, but I quickly learned bittersweet was really part of the orange family. I like the little bit of yellow peeking through the stack, so was happy to realize this would work for brown. Please welcome a new player to the photo challenge and check out Lindsay's blog .

This is a small section of one of my favorite teacups given to me after my Grandma died. I always loved the teacup set she had and it reminds me of her having it hanging in my house. I was very excited when I realized this would work for one of my photo picks in this challenge.