Inkin' & Thinkin'

Through The Lens Challenge - Sky

Wouldn't you just know it?  As soon as I post a sky challenge, the sky decides not to cooperate?!  Go figure!  LOL!  Luckily, a few of my friends were able to get some great sky shots...here we go...

Gayle's Photos:

Myoriah's Photos:

Stacey's Photo:

Sydney's Photo:

Here are some I took this week:

Can you see the dogs kissing in this first one?

These are a few I took this last year between home and my parents' house:

And this last one is my most favorite ever sky photo I've taken so far:

So what shall we shoot at this week?  How about REFLECTIONS?  That's the topic for this week's challenge...have fun with them.  Think outside the box...there are mirrors, puddles, lights, glasses, sunglasses, rear view mirrors, side mirrors, lakes, use your imagination!  I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Through The Lens Challenge - Signs of Spring

I should post a picture of me looking crazy this week!  LOL!  We had spring break last week and the weather wasn't particularly awesome so we spent a lot of time indoors.  When the kids walked out the door to go to school today, the house and I took in the silence.  I usually love spring break and having the kids home.  We usually travel or at least have some fun activities, but this year that didn't happen and for whatever reason, my kids were on uber whine/pout/tease/tantrum/fight patrol this week.  Needless to say, I am ready for some silence.  Now I just need to send Andy back to work and I'll get some of that.  Looks like I'll have to wait until Friday.  ;)

Enough about me though...let's get to the challenge.  This week's topic was the first signs of spring and the photos are so varied and awesome!  Yay!

Gayle's photos:

Myoriah's photos:

Stacey's photos:

Sydney's photos:

Tammy's photos:

Erin played along on her blog as well...pop on over and check out her pictures!

Here are some of my pics:

And the top reasons at my house...the keens come out

the bikes come out

the softballs and mits come out

capris and time at the park with friends

the soccer field is clear enough to play on

and the wind is blowing like crazy! 

Yay spring!  I'm so happy to see you!

Thank you so much to you ladies who send in your photos...I love seeing and sharing them!

Our challenge for next week is the sky.  It seems like the sky here has been so dramatic lately and the clouds roll in as fast as they roll out.  The sunsets and rises have been beautiful and I can't wait to try to capture some of that.  I can't wait to see what you capture!

This challenge is open to anyone.  All you have to do is email your photo(s) to me by Saturday night to be included in the Monday morning post.  You don't have to be a pro and neither does your camera.  We'd love to have you play along so grab your camera and go for it!

 

Duped by Technology!

My friend, Gayle, had sent me her photos for last week's Through The Lens Challenge and for some reason, they went into my spam folder.  I probably would have never found them if I wasn't looking for another email I was expecting but never received.  So, without further ado, and many apologies...here are Gayle's lovely photos.

Note to self...check your spam folder every now and then. 

Through The Lens Challenge - Bare Branches

Holy smokes!  I am l-a-t-e this morning!  It's spring break here and that means the kids are home, Andy's home and after staying up late last night, we slept in this morning and then it's been a slow start to top it all off.  But, now I'm here and I can't wait to show you what everyone did with this challenge this week!

This week's challenge was BARE BRANCHES.

Myoriah is joining us for the first time this week andI love the curves in her photos!

Stacey sent in these beauties and I love the color pops and subtleties.

Sydney sent in these beautiful glimpses of our county...I love the tree house (or is it a hunting blind?) and that water shot is awesome!

Tammy sent in these photos and I love this first photo with the lone leaf hanging in the breeze.

I had a hard time with this challenge but here is what I came up with in the end...

And here are Gayle's photos that ended up in my spam folder for some reason.  I'm so sorry, Gayle!  I love the sepia tone and that bright green!  Beautiful!

So, what are we going to do this week?  How about THE FIRST SIGNS OF SPRING?  That's the topic.  Go and seek out how the season is changing in your neck of the woods and capture it with your lens.  Please remember to get your photos in to me by Saturday night.  Enjoy the journey!

A Reminder & Some Geese

If you're participating in this week's Through The Lens Challenge, you need to send me your BARE BRANCH photos today.  I can't wait to see what you came up with this week.  This was a little tougher for me than I thought it would be.  I hope you were able to get some great shots! 

If you have some ideas for future challenges, I'd love to hear them.  I have a good list going but I'm always open to new ideas. 

I thought I'd share a couple of goose shots I took yesterday.  I love how their reflection shows so well in these pictures.  It is so beautiful to see in person.

and this is how the day started yesterday...

I hope you have a great day today!

Through The Lens Challenge - Week 2: Ice

Who knew that ice could be so exciting?!  I took over 100 pictures of ice this past week and I love it!  I found that my neighbors didn't bother to stop staring as they wondered what in the world I was taking a picture of in my driveway or on the sidewalk.  I found that drivers were craning their necks to see what I was shooting as they drove by.  It was pretty funny!  I can't wait to share what everyone sent in this week either!  So let's get to it!

Sydney sent in this picture and told me about how much she loves the last bit of ice melting off the edges of the rivers and creeks.  I love that too!  Spring is pushing in!  Yeah!  Get down to the river and take some pictures!  You won't be sorry!

Gayle sent in these two pictures and I love how they turned out!  I really like the needles and rocks frozen in the ice and how the water is frozen to the pump...very cool captures!

I was thinking about trying to capture some ice in a glass but after seeing Erin's pictures, I decided to not even bother.  LOL!  I love the shadows, bubbles and the reflections in these photos.  Bravo!

Tammy sent in these next four photos and I am so excited to see the signs of spring in them!  Melting ice is a very good thing as Martha would say.  LOL!  I also love how she captured the dripping in this first picture! 

Sarah sent in these super cute shots of her kiddos eating icees.  This makes  me want summer to get here a little faster.  When was the last time you had an icee?

My sister decided to play along too and I'm so excited about that!  I am so thankful that she took these pictures at her house and not at mine.  Oh my goodness!  I can't believe the snow level they have still.  Wish you were here, Brenda!

Yeah...that is a door peeking through...that's a touch o' snow for sure.

You know I love these two photos because my nephew and niece are in them!  LOL! 

Now I promise not to show you all 100+ of my photos but there were quite a few that I liked in the end so I'm going to share those.

I told you I had fun with that one!  LOL!  Thank you so much to the ladies who played along!  I can't tell you how excited I am to get your emails each week!  It makes my day!

Do you want to know what we'll be trying to capture this week?  Of course you do!  Our challenge this week is BARE BRANCHES.  Go out and click, click, click that shutter button!  Enjoy it and see what you can capture!  Please remember to get your photos in to me by Saturday night so I can add them to the blog post if you'd like to share.  See ya next week!

Just A Reminder

For anyone interested in participating in this week's Through The Lens Challenge, you have until tomorrow night to send me your photo.  This week's theme is ICE and I'm loving it!

I hope to see your photo(s) soon...this means you, Brenda.  LOL!

Through The Lens Challenge

Oh my heck!  I am so excited to share these results with you!  I'm not too excited about my own photos but I am so stinkin' excited about everyone else's!  So here we go...remember, the theme was birds.

Lexi took my camera out and started playing with the exposure values and captured these awesome under and over exposed shots which I just love the artsy feel of....I'm very proud of her!

Andy my friend, Stacey, sent me these most amazingly fabulous photos!  I'm so impressed!

Can you see that this eagle is carrying something?  So stinkin' cool!  I have never ever been able to capture an eagle.  Ever.  Every time I see one, my camera is at home or the eagle flies before we can get the vehicle stopped.  Some day I'll get lucky.

My friend, Gayle, sent this photo in and I can't get over the detail.  She always gets some of the most amazing photos.  Lucky girl!  Love this!

 

My friend, Tammy, was having the same issue I was this week...the birds heard about the challenge and decided to go incognito!  LOL!  I love that she just went with it...sometimes that's how you have to roll when it comes to photography!  She could hear them but she couldn't see them.  I will admit that I stood in my front yard circling the hawthorne tree this week because I could hear them by the dozens it seemed but I could not see one stinkin' bird in that tree to save my life.

My friend, Sydney, took this great little photo.  I love how the little bird looks like it's looking into it's nest.

My friend, Erin, was in Yellowstone last year and got these great photos!  Bravo! (Another eagle makes me jealous!  LOL)

I love the reflection in this last one. 

If you ever get the chance to visit Yellowstone, you should definitely take it.  It's so beautiful.  Our favorite time is in September when the elk are so active.  It's awesome!  On that note, Erin's photos reminded me that I got some pretty decent shots of birds when we went into the park this winter.

These next few photos are of some Ravens who were pick pocketing some snowmobiler's packs while they were out exploring the trails.  These are some smart birds!

Yep...that's scarf #2.

This is the second pack it was into while we were watching. 

Oh yeah, that's a wallet.  Even though the guides told us not to put people's things back into their packs, Andy and I decided that a wallet was a different story and shooed the bird away and put the wallet back in the pack. 

And my favorite of the day...

Thank you so much to all of my friends who submitted photos this week.  I hope you continue to share and to enjoy the challenge! 

There were a few questions last week so I thought I'd just address them here...

#1:  Can you submit more than one photo?  OF COURSE!  The more the merrier!  However, please don't send me 100 because that just takes way too long to upload.  LOL!

#2:  Does the photo need to be from this week?  I would love it if you took new photos each week because that's kinda the point of this challenge...to try something new each week and to use your camera each week.  However, if you have an awesome shot from the past...don't hesitate to share it.  We'd love to see it!

#3:  How creatively can I interpret the topic?  As creatively as you want.  This is a creative challenge....interpret as you will.

So this week  the new challenge is ICE.  Have fun and be sure to send me your photo(s) by Saturday night if you want me to share them here on my blog.  I can't wait to see them.

B-b-b-bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word

A-well-a everybody's heard about the bird
Bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a don't you know about the bird?
Well, everybody's talking about the bird!
A-well-a bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a bird...

Don't forget that if you're playing along with this week's Through The Lens challenge and you want to share your photo(s) with us, you'll need to email me your photo(s) or link up in the comments section today.  I can't wait to see what you've captured and to show you what everyone else has shared.  It's so exciting I can hardly stand it!

Through The Lens Challenge - Week 1: Birds

Okay, so I had a million thoughts go through my head this past week about what the first challenge would be.  I didn't want to make it too difficult but I didn't want to make it too easy either.  So I was thinking that since the birds are bringing spring back to us in NW Montana, maybe we should capture some birds this week.  Of course, this isn't limited to wild birds...if you have a pet bird or a stuffed bird or a bird inspired piece of jewelry...interpret as you will.  That's the fun of the challenge....just go with whatever inspires you to capture it.

So there you have it....Birds.

I can't wait to see what you capture this week.  Don't forget that if you'd like me to share it on this blog (and I hope you will), you'll need to email it to me no later than Saturday night.