December 31

My last photo of the year - scrapbooking the New Year in on my new table.

Ideas for 2008

As Project 365 comes to end for 2007, I spent some time today checking out some links to help jump start me in 2008. I found some really neat sites.

The first spot I found was on Scrapjazz, a really neat scrapbooking site with tons of information on scrapbooking and photography. The article talks about how shooting your photos at an angle really changes things up.

The next article I found was also on Scrapjazz. I REALLY like the ideas I found here. The concept is to find an object in real life that represents a letter & spell out a word or find a letter for each letter of the alphabet. How cool would that be??? The article is called "Picture Your Words." If you take on this challenge & do the alphabet, you get 26 days done right there!

I found the next set of challenges at BetterPhoto.com where there is an intro to photography assignments that were really neat. The first assignment listed has your take at least 30 photos of one subject & gives a list of some potential subjects to make your focus. Add this to the one above that has your shooting the alphabet & now you're up to at least 56 days!!! I'm not sure how helpful the other assignments listed here may be, but I found them to be interesting enough to include the link.

This next site is an assignment for high school students. Once at the site simply titled Photography Assignments, click on the link at the bottom that says "Photography Assignments" oddly enough. There is a list of 10 photos to take underneath the form shown there. This assignment is based on the photography of Eliot Porter.

I then stumbled on a site that has a bit of a photography course built in to the ideas for photos. While some of the first lessons are a bit elementary (how to put batteries in to the camera & turn it on), it is a site designed for children. The later lessons (3 & up) have a bit more help built in. This is called A Beginner's Guide to Digital Photography and it is that. I liked that it discussed the Rule of Thirds which is a very helpful rule to know when you like taking photos.

I really like how this was titled Straight Photography Assignments - nice & simple. There are twelve ideas listed on this site. They are all done very well with photo examples & then a bit of text to help you understand exactly what is being done. I'll be using this one for sure.

This site is for a place where a camera group posts their assignments with photos. They allow anyone to look around. They have 59 different assignments posted. Plenty there that's for sure!

Lastly I found this at the AARP website (huh - didn't notice that one before! LOL). The article is called Fun with Digital Photography and six different ideas on there.

I hope that gets everyone thinking about how they want to work on their Project 365 for 2008. I know it's certainly helped me get excited about the project for the new year!

December 25

The aftermath....

December 24

No family gathering is complete without food and lots of it!

December 22

I made chocolates for gifts. This is the bark before I put in the nuts. It's white & milk chocolate swirled together. YUM!

December 17

December 10

My two best friends at our Christmas "party."

December 9

December 5

My oldest son took this photo. Then they promptly knocked the icicle down. So they could do this....

December 3

Our first big snow of the new season. I wonder if nature has forgotten it's STILL fall! Oh well - my boys are loving it!

December 2

The lovely aftermath of birthday cake.

November 30

Homemade birthday cake for the birthday girl - a few days early - at my parents home.

-photo by my 11 year old son

November 27

With three boys what else could I do????

November 19

What a couple of hams!

November 9

October 30

I'm so far behind that I'm going to post two photos from yesterday!

I took this photo at a typically wet area of our property. There was this beautiful dark green moss on everything - trees, logs, rocks - it was wonderful.

I attempted to get a shot of the moon in the daytime. It's there but look close.

October 19

I took this photo about three-quarters of the way in to my journey to visit my friend, Deb, in New York. We stopped at the top of the mountain rest stop for a stretch. I looked left & this was the site that took me in. How amazing. You can see another photo of a similar view from this mountain at Deb's blog, Bits and Pieces.

October 14

Can it get any better than this in Maine in the fall? This was taken on the road I drive to my parents house. I went to visit on Sunday. This is a VERY steep hill & this is taken from the top. Just beautiful. Fall colors everywhere & this is past peak season for the leaves!!!!

October 13

This photo was actually taken by my oldest son. One of the dogs had treed this porcupine (trust me, that's what it is ::grin::). B came running in to get my camera & take a photo. I told him to be sure not to get TOO close. LOL

October 10

Fall colors are everywhere. The clouds are obscuring the mountains behind. I love this view whenever I drive this way.

September 25

My what big eyes you have!!!

September 24

This kid is just so photogenic that I can't help myself. We were back at the park again today & I snapped this one. Too cute!

September 23

I glanced out my kitchen window & saw this little guy hanging around right close to the trailer. I told the boys to stay in & PLEASE be quiet while I sneaked out to get a shot. It's grainy as I really had to zoom in to get the photo. He was posing nicely for me though!

September 22

September 21

To read about this story, click here. I finally was able to get a photo today.

September 18

It took 30 minutes and 25 photos (total of the whole day) to get this photo. It was so worth it.

September 8

My sister gave me two tomato plants to plant. I did. I did pretty much nothing else to them & even tied them up late. Now I have them all FULL of green tomatoes! I'm worried they are never going to start turning red. I've never planted tomatoes. Am I doing something wrong??

September 7

This really cool wild ivy is growing up beside the new edition my hubby built last year. He assures me it's not poison ivy. It's pretty cool looking I think. ::grin::

September 6

Fall is here.

September 4

September 1

I was out with only J today to run errands & do grocery shopping. The Wal-Mart we went to had this new ride installed so I let him try it out. He wasn't all that impressed with it - I think he wanted it to go faster.

August 26

Click here to read about the story I posted on the family blog about this photo.

August 21

Yes, I do still homeschool my children. I was at my sister's house today. My nephew will be starting kindergarten next week. The school does a "Meet the Teacher" school orientation. They send out the school buses to pick up the kids (and parents). They then headed to school & saw how all that would work, met the teacher, & had some ice-cream. Then the bus brought them home.

August 19

My hubby's birthday & he requested apple pie rather than cake. His mom makes THE best. Yum!!!!

August 18

August 17

We just spent a long weekend at camp. Here are three photos from the first day there. Camp is in a remote part of the state. It's a 2-1/2 hour drive from where we live & the last hour is on dirt logging roads & then a 1/2 mile hike in on a path since we can't drive. The views are worth it though.

August 14

This photo is a bit blurry but the bird was simply not cooperating! I was sitting on our porch reading & enjoying the stillness & coolness of the day. I started hearing this picking noise & saw this bird up in the tree just a few feet away. I tried taking the photo from the porch but my camera kept picking up the screening. I had to go outside to get this one so I had to be quite. :-) I was doing well until my dog came to bark at the noise. Oh well!

August 13

This isn't the best photo I've taken, but I wanted to get a picture of a nice full bird feeder. The birds are very active around here & as of this posting (a few days after I took the photo) it's in need again.

August 7

Nothing says summer more than a tire swing - even if it's a plastic one. My boys love this swing. We originally had it hung up with a rope. It broke a few months ago. We then hung it up by this chain. That broke too after a little while of use. It was fixable as well. The boys spend hours out here. Poor B is starting to get a bit too big for it. Notice that there is no grass whatsoever anywhere near it. Needless to say, it gets hours of use by all three boys.

August 3

We have had the threat of thunder storms all day today. As I was driving home these clouds caught my eye. This was about a mile from my house. I actually didn't have my camera with me (gasp!) so I raced home, got the camera, & raced back praying the clouds would look the same. They did. The photo really doesn't do them justice at all! They looked like puffy marshmallows just painted there in the sky. I felt like I could reach out & touch them.

August 1

We have a discount store that sells surplus from other stores. They had these knock-off Crocs for kids for under $5 each!!! I outfitted my two youngest & my nephew & then had to take a photo of their feet. I'm loving the fact that my three year old can now get his own feet dressed. Yeah!

July 25

J spent most of his time at swimming lessons (he wasn't actually participating) doing this...he had so much fun. I loved how close I could get with my zoom. I'm starting to actually like this little digital camera.

July 21

How cool is this? I actually was walking around Freeport without my camera. I got up to the door & saw this & walked back to the car to get it simply to take this photo. This was just way too cool not to get a photo of it.

July 18

This was a view across the lake while my boys were in the water for lessons. I love the cloud hanging out there. I tried to get a closer shot but my camera couldn't focus on the white really well.

July 16

This little guy was waiting on the rock outside our front door when we arrived home today.

July 14

I love clouds & sky photos. Maybe I just like looking up - to my future.

Sing to God, sing praise to his name, extol him who rides on the clouds-- his name is the Lord-- and rejoice before him. ~Psalm 68:4