Day 136 – Leaves

Lilac bush catching the last bit of sun before it fell below the western horizon. Shot hand-held using Speedlite with soft box attachment to provide a little fill.

Grape leaves and baby grapes.

Day 135 – Soaring in the Clouds

I caught this hawk soaring in the sunbeams on my way out to my car yesterday.* Hope you like it.

*I couldn’t post it last night as our internet went out at home.

Day 134 – How we spent Mother’s Day

We got up bright and early and participated in Moms On the Run, a local organization that helps women with cancer to meet their living expenses while undergoing treatment. My co-worker, Rachel (a young mother of two boys), was diagnosed with breast cancer last December and is currently undergoing treatment. While our insurance is good, she is out for several months and at the time she was beginning treatment, her husband had been unemployed. For her, Moms on the Run was a just the help she needed at a very challenging time.

Rachel’s Pirates for the Cureibbean were out in force today.

All the pictures of the day can be found at my SmugMug Mother’s Day gallery (I’m sounding like Disperser!), but here are a few from the day.

This next shot was supposed to be a shot of the crowd. I held my camera up and thought I was shooting straight out. Instead I got these two women. I like the composition with just them and everyone else’s legs and feet.

We did the 5K walk through the neighborhood around Reno High and then through Idlewild Park along the Truckee River. It was a gorgeous day and a beautiful setting.

After the walk, we headed across the river to the Pneumatic Diner, a tiny restaurant that seats maybe 30 people at tiny tables and specializes in vegetarian and vegan fare. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as busy as it usually is on Sunday mornings.

Sweetie had a vegan pecan waffle and eggs.In the picture above you can see a person putting their own fixings on their waffle. Yep, that’s how they roll at Pneumatic. Daughter and I each had the Vegan Bubba with Slab (grilled tofu).

I think we may have found a new Mother’s Day tradition!

Day 133 – Big boy toys and my first paid job – UPDATE

Sweetie is a radio-control airplane aficionado and in recent months has joined a club of like-minded guys. This means I lose him for hours at a time on weekends, but I’m happy he’s got a hobby and friends outside of the home. The club held its first annual Fun Fly today and I was asked to photograph the event. I took a couple hundred photos and am still going through them. Just one from the batch is below. I’ll link to them later when I’ve got them all processed and ready to go.

One of the guys flying his plane.

The other exciting news is that I had my first PAID job today! My friend is starting back to work as a consultant and needed some headshots done. Here are a couple of my favorites. Unfortunately, WordPress in “crunching” my images has made them cooler and more washed out than they should be. I’ve broken down and set up a SmugMug account, and when I can, I will link to the photos. (UPDATE: I have replaced all the photos below with linked-to SmugMug photos. The difference is clear. The colors are as they should be.)

Just so you know I’m not imagining the color difference, the photo below is after WordPress is through “crunching” it.

It wasn’t all serious . . . we had some fun too!

Day 132 – Columbine

The flower, that is.

Taken in my garden this evening using my Speedlite (bounced of the steps to the left of the flower). As this particular side garden is right under our dryer vent, there are a few bits of its output on the flower.