Another shot from my recent weekend adventure. This was taken from one of the parks I visited, over the lake and train tracks that I framed in the photo hunt update for Lines. The clouds that day were sparse, but had that funky cotton candy look to them… where you almost feel you could pluck them out of the sky and have a taste of sugary goodness.

Damn. Now I’m craving cotton candy.

I realized last night that I hadn’t actually posted the current week’s photo hunt theme… but the week before. So, to make good what I said, I’ve not only posted a photo for week 10 (Books), but I’m now posting this week’s photo, for the theme Trees.

I’ve always had a love of trees. I think part of it comes from just a general love of the outdoors and nature. As a kid, I always loved camping, climbing trees, and generally just getting outside. Which is kind of odd, considering the standard image of a computer geek being all cloistered away and not seeing the light of day. I’ve become more like that as the years have passed, but not to my satisfaction. In fact, I’ve promised myself an extended camping trip sometime this summer, hopefully up to one of my old favorites, Cooper Lake. You can bet my camera will be going along with me.

As will my love of trees.

These trees, in particular, are just outside of where I work. They were originally planted in a set spacing and pattern, which you can probably tell a little from the picture. The shade they provide during the summer months is fantastic, and they always turn a truly gorgeous shade of burnt orange and fiery red in the autumn. I like how these, in particular, have all grown at a slight slant.. towards where the sun typically rises. This has quite a bit to do with the lay of the land in the vicinity… but makes a good photo nonetheless, I think.

I originally had a tough time coming up with something for this week’s theme. I just wasn’t seeing a lot of things around me at the time that really made me think “lines”. That was until I took a recent week off to do some general adventuring and framed this beauty of a shot. It’s simple, but effective, I think.

And I’ve always had a thing for trains.

I’m terribly late again this week. Though I do have a somewhat legitimate excuse this time. Aside from work and the usual bits that occupy my time… I’ve gotten terribly ill the past few days. I was doing good recovering from my last bout of flu related illness, when this second wave has pretty much shut me down again.

But it can’t keep me from this blog forever. Sickness, away! I have a photo hunt to do, after all.

This week brings a subject close to my heart. Flame. I’m a bit of a pyromaniac… though possibly not quite as much as my close friend, Vicky. The lantern pictured in this shot is an old family heirloom that I inherited when my folks moved away a few years ago now. It was always something I was fascinated with as a kid, because of that whole brass “shiny” factor, and, well, it produced really gorgeous flames when the power went out. It’s one of the few things I’m glad I’ve been able to hold on to… a little happier slice of my childhood.

Be sure to check out Vicky’s very cool picture of smoldering goodness.

And Nic has joined the ranks as well! Her quite sexy photo can be found here.

I love this photo. You must all be getting tired of the household pets by now, but I couldn’t help myself when I came across this older picture. Nakita really is one of the cutest puppies. Ever. She almost makes me want to get an American Eskimo when I get my own dog finally. Though I still think I’m going to stick with my dream of having a German Shepherd.

Isn’t she cute, though? *melts*

You can find Vicky’s way cute photo here. Some day I’ll get a photo of Nakita playing with the squirrels in the yard. And my head will explode from the cuteness overload.

I’ve had this image in mind for this shot for a while, though I’m not entirely happy with how it turned out. I had forgotten what a mess the window on the east side of the house is, as its sheltered by the fenced off yard and doesn’t get very much attention. The cat pictured here is Diana, and she gets a bit neglected of late. She perches there and tries to live vicariously through the other animals in the yard. It was a bit misty this morning, as well… so it has that whole dream-like rainy day look.

This weeks’ photo hunt update was a tough one. Unfortunately I haven’t had my digital camera long enough to get some nice autumn shots of the leaves turning, so I had to dig into my archives and find something a little less recent. And, for me, autumn has always been strongly associated with Halloween.

Shawn’s little nephew is the one hamming it up in this shot. He can be a troublemaker, but he’s a good kid all in all. The jack-o-lanterns are our labor of love for Halloween 2005. On the left, you have Shawn’s mom’s jack-o-lantern, Shawn’s jack-o-lantern in the middle, and mine on the far right. All of them turned out awesome, and the picture of them glowing happily at night is incredibly cute as well.

Vicky has outdone herself this week, and you can find her picture here. It is absolutely stunning, and I wish autumn was here again already.

As most of you probably know by now, it gets cold here this time of year. And when its the middle of January and the sun makes an appearance, it’s generally something to be appreciated.

The animals in the back yard certainly do.

You’ll have to forgive the misfit cat. She’s not very photogenic. Plus I had to snap this through the glass of the back patio door, or the animals would of gone crazy for the attention. These are Shawn’s pets… well… his mother’s really but she’s seldom here at this point. The dog is an American Eskimo named Nikita. The cat was saved after a run in with a car and is appropriately named Bump. She’s the type of cat I’ll actually tolerate. She stays outside and enjoys her place out of doors.

I just love how Nikita has that glazed over, “damn this feels good” look.

Vicky’s awesome, as always, piccie can be found here. Isn’t he cute?

I know it’s way too soon to be posting another photo-hunt image, but I took this on the way to work this morning and had to share again. This has always been one of my favorite parts of winter, when the frost and snow combine just right to cover everything with that all too pretty sugar frosted covering.

It never fails to make me giggle like a little kid when I get to go outside to a white covered fairy-tale setting.

I’ve made a preemptive strike this week. Though not officially Wednesday here in the states, I thought it was somewhat unfair that my photo-hunt partner had to post everything a day before me. So here we are at week 3, with me posting a little earlier than I usually do.

Today’s shot was too pretty not to share, though.

This was taken today, just at sunset, right after one of the most beautiful snow storms I’ve had the pleasure to experience for a long time. The clouds block the sunlight a bit in this shot, as it would of been even more gorgeous to see the sunlight glance off the snow on the ground, but it was already too pretty to pass up. Imagine about an inch of snow falling not long before this photo was taken as well and you’ll have a rough idea of how magical a moment it was.

Not the best photo, but I’m quite partial to how it turned out.

This photo isn’t what I originally intended, but I’m actually quite surprised with how it turned out. What I had first thought about doing is going up to Dry Falls and taking some photos of the gorgeous cliff structures that are there. It was the first thing that popped into my head, but, unfortunately, was rather difficult to arrange a time to go photograph. The winter months and lack of daylight mean I would of had to go over the weekend, and that simply didn’t happen.

This alternate photo is something I thought up at the last moment… and even if it’s a bit from left-field, I do like how it turned out. I was going for a depth-of-field effect with the photograph, something I was able to accomplish somewhat with the macro setting on my camera, but as I can’t really fiddle with the f-stop settings on my little point and click, it’s not completely how I envisioned it.

I still think it’s a worthy addition to the collection so far, though.

Vicky’s way funky photo for this week is here. I love her photo, even if it’s one from her archives. 🙂