Thursday 13: A VERY Random Edition

Since we’ve had so much snow, and I’ve been staying inside so much (because I HATE snow), I don’t have much for a Thursday 13 this week.

So, it seems like a good time to share a very random assortment of pictures that I’m fairly sure I haven’t posted here before.

1.    Of course, I’m going to start off with a cat picture.  I think Mortimer looks adorable here.  

2. This was at a vacation rental that we stayed at in 2023.  I think these hand mirrors are antique (or at least vintage).  They were displayed on a wall in the bathroom, and I thought it was a great idea.  It seemed like a fun way to display a collection without really taking up space.

3.    I enjoy taking pictures of the sky, and I thought it was beautiful this particular evening.

4.    I’m not sure what these little white flowers are called, but I think they’re pretty.

5.   This hibiscus was at a vacation rental we stayed at in 2022.

6.  This was on vacation in 2021.  It was insanely humid that day, and the camera lens fogged, but I liked how it made the picture look kind of mysterious and moody.

7.  Theodore loves it when we get a suitcase out of the closet. 

8.    So does Mortimer.

9.    This was sunrise on Kiawah Island on our 2024 vacation.

10.  This was the first time I successfully built a cooking fire entirely on my own after Hurricane Helene.  I’m not the outdoorsy type, so it felt like a major accomplishment.

11.  This was when a possum stopped by the critter corner.

12.  This was one of the few beach pictures I took on vacation last year before we got sick.

13.  Finally, here's a flower picture that, according to the date stamp, I took on February 29, 2024. I'm trying to remind myself that the snow will melt and spring will eventually arrive! 

Are you also eagerly anticipating warmer weather? 

 

Thursday 13: The Bonsai Tree Edition

This week’s Thursday 13 comes from running out of storage on my laptop.  We’ve set up a trail camera to see the groundhogs eat, and those videos are taking up a lot of space on the laptop.  (If you want to see the groundhog videos, here’s a link to see them.)

So, I started looking through the files on my computer.  I have so many pictures and videos!  I’ve been slowly uploading things to my Google Drive, and in the process, I’m coming across things I meant to post before. 

These are from a trip to the NC Arboretum in the spring of 2022.  Better late than never, right? 

We usually manage to go when it’s too cold for the bonsai trees to be outside, and we only get to see a limited display inside, but this time, we timed our visit better and got to see all of them outside.  So, here are thirteen pictures from our visit to the bonsai tree exhibit. 

This one was my overall favorite.  I love how it's covered in little pink flowers.

Here’s a closeup of the flowers.  I think they look like tiny azaleas.  

I liked how these two looked like tiny little forests. 

 I liked how these two leaned over.  It seems like, normally, only very large trees lean like that. 

The exposed roots on this one were interesting.

Here’s a closeup of them. 

 Here’s another one with pink flowers. 

Finally, four more that I thought were pretty since I’m showing you thirteen of them.

How do you store and organize your videos and photos?  Do you ever forget about them once you save them to your computer?  

A to Z Blogging Challenge

It seems like March lasted for about five minutes.  It’s hard to believe it’s already April!  I knew March was practically over in the sense that I rely pretty heavily on calendars, but I still found myself a little surprised that yesterday was the very last day of March.

For many bloggers, April means the A to Z Blogging Challenge.  If you’re not familiar, it’s where you blog every day in April with something that corresponds to the day’s letter; A on the 1^st, B on the 2^nd, etc., and Sundays are your days off. 

I started this blog, way back in 2012, by participating in the A to Z Blogging Challenge.  I can’t believe that was ten years ago!  Wow!  I looked through some of the old posts and saw that there are some people I still interact with regularly via Blogger, which I think is pretty cool.  I also realized that my blogging has come a long way.  We had a very slow digital camera way back then and an even slower desktop computer.  It took so long to get a post up!  And adding pictures was such an ordeal, so I very rarely had any.  That has definitely changed!

I don’t have the best track record with the A to Z Blogging Challenge; I finished successfully in 2012 and 2015.  I didn’t participate in 2013, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, or 2021.  I started but didn’t finish in 2014 and 2017.  But, the ten-year mark seems like a good time to jump back in, so here I go.

Since I’ve signed up at the last minute, I don’t have a theme, and I don’t have very many posts planned out.  I have a few drafts and ideas for things I’ve been meaning to post for a while, but definitely not 26 posts.  So, I’m open to ideas if there’s anything anyone wants to read about or see more pictures of.

So what about you?  Are you participating in this year’s A to Z Blogging Challenge?  How long have you been blogging? 

Some More Folly Beach Pictures

Since the Folly Beach pictures from my last post seem to be the more popular ones, I thought I’d share a few more.

Folly Beach, SC is one of my absolute favorite places and is our usual yearly vacation destination. We skipped going in 2020 due to COVID, so we were very excited to be able to go in October of 2021.  We opted to skip indoor activities like museums and house tours and spent most of our time on the beach.  It gave me a lot of great opportunities to play with the camera.

I love the shell tree.  I don’t know why or when people started hanging shells from it (there were no shells on it when we were there in 2019), but I think it’s such a cool idea.  It’s just so pretty and cheery.

The weather we’ve had for the past few days makes me miss the blue skies and sunshine.

 

Fun With Photo Editing

I freely admit to being one of the least technologically savvy people on the planet.  It’s also no secret that things sometimes go pretty wrong for me with my phone.  So it really shouldn’t surprise me that I just discovered a feature on the phone, three years after I got it.

Better late than never, right?

My big, happy discovery over the long weekend has been that I can edit pictures on my phone.  It’s actually pretty simple to do, and once the changes are made, it saves the edited photos in a separate album.

It has rained incessantly for the vast majority of the weekend.  There are lots of flood advisories, and a neighboring county even had a voluntary evacuation in some areas.  So I’ve spent most of my time inside over the weekend.  That gave me lots of time to play with some of the editing features on the phone.  I still have a lot to learn, but I’ve had fun trying different things on different pictures.

I love how much you can change a picture just by adjusting the lighting or color.

Here’s the original picture I took of a tree in a park about two months ago:

This is the tree in documentary style:

To begin with, I thought documentary style was just another name for black and white, but it does actually look a little different when you choose the black and white option.  Here it is in black and white:

Next  I played around with the saturation.  This is the tree with the saturation maxed out.  I like how bright and vivid it makes the colors.  I think the grass is absolutely gorgeous in this version of the picture.

While I was experimenting with maxing things out, I decided to play around with the warmth.  I think it makes the picture look like it was possibly taken during the fall rather than the spring.  It just has a very autumn look to me.

Next I played around with the fill light.  I adjusted the light to make it light and bright.  I think this version of the picture definitely looks like it was taken during the spring.   I think it makes it look like it was taken earlier in the day, and on a brighter day.

I tried the option to have the picture as a negative too.  It's usually not one of my favorite options, but it's nice to know I can do it if I want to.

Last of all, I decided to try the picture out in sepia.  I usually really like the sepia finish.  I like how it makes pictures look old.  I liked it for the tree, but it wasn't one of my favorites.  I think this particular picture just loses something when it's not in color.

I think my favorite version of this picture is the one with the saturation maxed out.  I like the vivid colors, and I think for this particular picture it really adds something.  The version with the fill light adjusted is a close second.  Again, I think that has a fair amount to do with this actual picture.  It makes the tree look bright and airy; very springy.

Even though I don't think they were the best versions for this particular picture, I love having the sepia, documentary, and black and white options.  I want to do some experimenting with some of my pictures from Charleston, SC in those finishes.

The negative and the one with the warmth maxed out were my least favorite versions of this picture.  The negative finish isn't usually one of my favorites, so that wasn't a surprise.  I did think I would like the warmer version better than I do though.  I think my biggest issue is that it took a spring picture and made it look like a fall picture.  I prefer spring to fall, so it makes sense that I wouldn't like the fall version as much.

Do you have a favorite version of the picture?  What about a least favorite?

Thirty-Day Photo Challenge: Day 3

Today is Day Three of the Photo Challenge, which is “Happiness”.  This one is a little hard for me.  Happiness is somewhat intangible.  How do you take a photograph of something that is intangible?  It’s not like taking a photograph of something solid like a book or food. 

I turned to Wikipedia, which defines happiness as “a mental or emotional state of wellbeing characterized by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.”  It goes on to state that some define happiness in terms of living a good life.

That makes the challenge a little easier, here are some of the things that make me happy and make me feel like I have a good life.  I hope you’ll share yours in the comments.

Blue Skies

Birthdays

Cooking

Rescue Transports

Butterflies & Flowers