Day Zero Two Six: January Photo Challenge: BUNDLED

 

Day 15 of the First Thirty-One over at Fourtuitous.com!  Today’s challenge was “Bundled”

I’ve gotten really good about taking my camera with me whenever I go out and about these days.  Because of the crazy weather yesterday, everything was covered in hoarfrost today (why couldn’t you have been covered in frost yesterday? WHY?) and I went for a walk to the post office and to grab a bite to eat at a little organic diner we’ve got in town.  So I took photos!

But first, my Photo of the Day:  About once or twice a year, I settle in for an entire morning, and make homemade beeswax candles.  My haul for today is this set of a dozen drip candles (plus six shotglass candles), all bundled up and ready to go.

Canon Rebel XS. 1/40sec, f / 4.0, ISO 400.

A few more shots from making candles this morning:

Canon Rebel XS. 1/13 sec, f/ 5.6, ISO 400.

Canon Rebel XS. 1/50sec, f / 4.5, ISO 400.

And now a few from my walk this morning.  It turned out to be a pretty nice day!

Canon Rebel XS. 1/400sec, f / 14, ISO 400.
(trees covered in hoarfrost)

Canon Rebel XS. 1/250sec, f / 11, ISO 400.
(taken through my sunglasses, not edited)

Canon Rebel XS. 1/100sec, f / 8.0, ISO 400.
(om shanti, om)

…and that brings me to this.  I went to Two Sisters for lunch today, and these pretty flowers were on the table I was eating at.  So I snapped a quick pic in the sun, and for the LIFE of me, I can’t decide which edit I like the best.  What are your preferences?

Day Zero Zero One: Happy Solstice!

As Autumn moves into Winter, the snow falls gently from the skies, as though to remind me that today is the longest night of the year.  For centuries, people have celebrated this day, across civilizations, under names which are as differing as the tides.  Candlemas, Yule, Jul…the Winter Solstice.  Tonight is the Longest Night – when the Northern hemisphere is plunged into the darkest of depths, only to emerge at the dawn with something faint, yet tangible.  Hope.  Hope for a new solar cycle, and a hope for warmth in the coming days.  Represented by beginnings, I bring you this.

This blog.  I will still post in my regular travel blog during trips, over at paienne.blogspot.com, but here, here is something new.  I deleted Facebook at the beginning of 2012, and I’ve fallen out of touch.  I’ve become reclusive, and secretive, and I’ve stopped doing something I love – take photos.  So, I guess in a somewhat-related 365 project, I’m going to try and post a photo-a-day.  Some days, like today, I will post more than one photo.  Some days, I suspect I will struggle to post just one.  There may not always be commentary.  But then again, maybe there will be.  That’s the beauty about new projects – they’re so fresh and young, and they haven’t fully formed in the mind of their author!  As Winter turns into Spring, it is my hope, that so too will this little place to put my photo memoires …my photo memories.

Canon Rebel XS. 1/30 sec, f / 3.5, ISO 400.
Our Yule log completed! Wrapped with fabric ribbon, cranberries, cinnamon sticks, cedar, and pine. Our birch yule log is tied with the wishes of our coming year.

Canon Rebel XS. 1/30 sec, f / 4.5, ISO 1600.
The burning of the Yule log to represent the coming year of light!

Canon Rebel XS. 1/100 sec, f / 7.1, ISO 400.
The moose came back this morning. This little beauty has been eating my plants all year. I’m surprised she can find anything to sate her hunger, this late into the season.

Canon Rebel XS. 1/10 sec, f / 4.0, ISO 400.
And the stockings were hung, from the wall with tacks, in the hopes I could stop Santa, dead in his tracks. Cedric pounced from the tree, with nary a thought, as Old Saint Nick, dropped the presents he brought. He jumped and he thumped, that poor head of his, and he swore and he threatened to beat us with fish, which is precisely how Cedric got his Christmas wish.

Canon Rebel XS. 1/60 sec, f / 5.0, ISO 400.
The wreath on my ruby red door. I made it from cedar, hemlock, and pine boughs I collected myself, and constructed it from a metal hoop and some hot glue. And cranberries, of course!

Canon Rebel XS. 1/25 sec, f / 5.6, ISO 400.
Bokeh Christmas lights, just to see if I could do it. I still don’t entirely understand this as an art form.