127/365 Snowflakes on the window

I've been waiting for the perfect day to try photographing snowflakes. This day was far from perfect, but it at least gave me a chance to give it a try! I'm looking forward to another day and location to do it again.

This photo reminds me of being a kid and finding things around the house to look at through the lens of a microscope. I distinctly remember being amazed to see the difference between sugar and salt on that scale, since they look so similar at a normal distance. Human hair was another object that was always fun to see on a microscopic level.


I find that same feeling goes with looking through a telescope. The first time I saw the moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn with my own two eyes for the first time is something I'll never forget -- and those were sightings through a home telescope. I took astronomy during my freshman year of college, and we got to spend an evening gazing through the telescope on campus -- the largest in the state, and one of the largest in the world. Talk about mind-boggling! Seeing something with your own eyes that you've only read about in science books is pretty amazing.

Do you have a memory like this? Do you remember looking through a microscope for one of the first times, discovering an entire world under your nose? Or have you been amazed to see for yourself what in science books seemed so foreign?

Camera: Canon 40D with 60mm macro lens, 1/100s, f/2.8 at ISO 500 at about 5:30 p.m.

103/365 Moonset

Fall has definitely arrived! It hit all of a sudden, and last week we had several cool, clear mornings during which a thin layer of fog settled over the lowest areas of the fields.

On my drive to work one morning, I glanced 180 degrees away from the sunrise and saw this beautiful moonset happening at the same time. I loved the scene: foggy, harvested field; soft, early morning light; and a low, full moon with a thin veil of clouds passing in front of it.

It was as though I'd driven into a scene from a movie. Perhaps a Halloween-themed movie, but thankfully a scene toward the beginning of the film, when the stage is just being set, everyone is happy and before the headless horseman starts wreaking havoc on the town.

Let's pray I don't drive into THAT scene any time soon!

On second thought, the headless horseman will be visiting Conner Prairie in the near future...

Camera: Canon 40D, 1/60s, f/4.5 at ISO 640 at about 7:30 a.m.

98/365 A beautiful sunset

I can't help it, I love a good sunset. (Just see all the posts tagged with "sunset" for hard evidence.)

I love that every single one is different, and I love that they change by the minute. Getting a great photo means hitting that timing just right, and I love that challenge.

And while some photographers may thumb their noses at sunsets, saying they're cliche and expected, I don't subscribe to that line of thinking. Sunsets are common photograph subjects simply because people love them. How can you not -- at least occasionally -- stop and be momentarily awed by the beauty of a red, orange, yellow, blue, and purple sky?

So, to all the elitist photographers out there -- by all means, don't photograph sunsets. Just send them to me, and I'll gladly take the sunset for you.

Camera: Canon 40D, 1/125s, f/4 at ISO 320 at about 8:30 p.m.

45/365 Stormy sunset

We've had some stormy weather recently, and one thing that produces are some gorgeous, dramatic skies. On this particular night, I was driving home and HAD to stop the car twice to get out and photograph these skies. It was absolutely breathtaking.

All you have to do is look through the weather-related tags on this blog to see how much I love this!

See here?
Weather posts
Sunset posts, which are particularly great when they follow stormy skies
Storm-specific posts
Sky posts in general

This is one of the things I love about spring and summer in the Midwest.

Camera: Canon 40D, 1/500s, f/5.6 at ISO 100 at about 9:00 p.m.

310/365 Blue skies

On the day of this photo, this was the first day of blue sky that we'd seen in ages. And I'm not even exaggerating. It felt like hundreds of years.

Okay, yes, that's a little overly dramatic. But you know the feeling, right? We're all lacking in our Vitamin D intake right now, so when that blue sky shows up, it's monumental.

Unfortunately, it didn't last for long. Back to the reality of an Indiana winter.

Camera: Canon PowerShot SD1000 at about 11:45 a.m.

190/365 Optimism

You may look at this and just think, "Oh, clouds over blue sky."

But for some reason, when I saw this sky on my way home from work, the word that popped into my head was "optimism."

Completely random, but here's how my brain got there:

We all love beautiful blue sky. For a stretch of several days before this, our blue skies had been covered by low, gray clouds. Then I see this, and it seems to me like the blue sky is trying to make a grand return. I felt optimistic about seeing those little swatches of blue sky.

Optimism. It's a great emotion.

Camera: Canon PowerShot SD1000 at about 5:45 p.m.

118/365 Unusual skies in July

Saturday's high temperature in central Indiana set a record. Usually in July, that would mean that we'd hit a new boiling point, but not this time. The temperature barely hit 70 degrees.

Huh? In July?

It was very unusual, but I heard very few people complaining. Being able to spend time outside without breaking a sweat was a nice treat.

And it also brought dramatic skies that caught my eye all afternoon and evening. I loved checking out the various layers of clouds, from light, wispy tendrils at upper altitudes, to rain-heavy masses closer to earth. Wonderful!

Camera: Canon PowerShot SD1000 at about 7:00 p.m.

47/365 Friday morning sunrise

On the subject of the sky, whether it be sunrise, sunset or any state in between, I agree with the Pioneer Woman: boy, do I love the sky.

You only have to click on one of my tags in the list on the right to see how often I'm captivated. Check out clouds, night, night sky, sky, star trails, storms, sunrise, sunset, and weather to catch all of them.

I easily catch more sunsets than sunrises, but let's face it -- I'm just not out and about as often at sunrise. Especially now, when it's miraculously arriving earlier and earlier by the day.

This sunrise caught my eye on my drive to work on Friday. It wasn't overly colorful, but the clouds were interesting, and that really affects the scene. Beautiful!

Camera: Canon PowerShot SD1000 at about 7:15 a.m.

266/365 Bright and beautiful

I noticed the incredible full moon this week before I started hearing about it on the news.

I get up at about 5:45 each morning for work, and on Wednesday or Thursday, I immediately noticed how bright the moonlight was.

It looked as though I could have driven to work in the glow, unaided by headlights, and would have been able to see just fine. The crisp, defined shadows cast by the light alone were amazing.

As it turns out, this is the biggest and brightest full moon we've had in 15 years. It has happened because of the moon's proximity to Earth at this point in its egg-shaped orbit. Full moons occur every month, but this one is especially spectacular.

I don't have an especially long zoom lens, but I nevertheless made sure I photographed it. (I did some generous cropping to get this close-up.)

Camera: Canon 40D 1/1000s, f/4.5 at ISO 400 at about 10:45 p.m.

17/365 Spring Storms

Before I went to college, I wanted to be a meteorologist (and not one on TV). Storms fascinate me even to this day. Every time I went to Barnes & Noble, I made a beeline for the science section and scanned the stacks for any new weather-related books.

When I was in junior high and high school, at the height of my meteorological obsession, March signified the start of the spring storm season. It kicked off with severe weather awareness week at the beginning of the month, which meant a special section about tornadoes in the newspaper I could cut out and savor for the rest of the year. I think I still have all of those!

When I started taking up photography as a hobby, it came naturally for me to turn my camera toward the sky. So this definitely won’t be the last of my weather/sky photos for the year.

Camera: Canon PowerShot SD1000 at 5:30 in the evening.

3/365

After a blah, gray day, the clouds on my drive home were great! Look out for 3-4 inches of rain tomorrow...

Camera: Canon PowerShot SD1000