#40 Vacation

Yikes!  Only 12 weeks left in 2012...  Tempus fugit, as they say - especially when you're having fun!

Since hubby and I spend our winters in Florida (No! We are not on vacation there; we live there!), the last real vacation we had was in 2009 when we visited the Maritime provinces of Canada - New Brunswick, Nova Scotia (and Cape Breton Island), and Prince Edward Island (PEI).  We were very fortunate with the weather, only a couple of days of rain, and I was able to get some lovely pictures of what are fantastically scenic places.

Our daughter, who lives in Florida now, has always wanted to visit PEI and so for Christmas that year I made her a collage of a variety of aspects of that province, which I'm sharing with you here for the theme "Vacation".

Really getting down to the hard stuff now...  I may even have to get the camera out and take some photos just to fit the remaining themes!!!  What a novel idea...

#39 Youth

Okay folks - here's the question for the week:  Is there anything in the rules that say "Youth" has to be represented in human form?  No?  Great - then here's my post for this theme.

(You'll notice that I'm back on schedule - for the time being, at least!)

Here in this neck of southwestern Ontario, there are a lot of Amish and Mennonite families who grow vegetables that they sell at the end of their farm lanes.  We discovered one particular farm that we keep revisiting each summer because the folks there are so very friendly and remember us each time we go - besides the fact that their veggies are delicious and so reasonable!  Maybe we stand out because when we first went and asked for carrots (everything is freshly dug just for you when you go), the lady of the house set off into the fields, barefoot, with her pitchfork to dig them.  We were aghast and Tony (my hubby) offered to dig them for her, which he did.   Ever since, when we see them they remind us of that episode.

This year, they had this little calf tied to one of their barns - a "youthful" bovine (not sure which gender).  I hesitate to think what their plans for him were and didn`t like to ask but felt he filled the bill for this week.

The halcyon days of summer are gone but shots like this bring them back, in all their warmth and glory.

Happy Autumn to you all.

#38 Vistas

My excuse for lateness this week is house guests following a very busy week-end.  Pretty lame I know but that's all I can come up with.

So here's my submission for "Vistas" - a photo I took on Saturday on a photographic outing with my local camera club to the 40th anniversary of the Nanticoke Generating Station in Ontario.  It was quite an interesting day but unfortunately no indoor photography (turbines, machines of all sorts, grunge and interesting "things") was allowed.  The day was cool and sunny for the most part, except when we were taken by bus to the wetlands that have been created for the site to be environmentally friendly.  Then, of course, the sun went in when we were finally allowed to leave the bus for a bit.  The farm in the distance is what caught my eye but the whole image was dull and lacked any sparkle so I put my own punch into it.

There was an online tutorial this week on how to simulate long exposure skies and so I used that first and applied a Dramatic Topaz Adjust filter to it.  That farm in the distance faded into the trees so I added a ray of light coming out of the clouds onto it.  Finally, I recomposed the foreground to get rid of some of the middle ground that lacked the interest of the rest and applied a Dramatic Topaz Adjust filter to it too.

I like the result and hope you find it a pleasing vista as well...

#37 Health

Another one of those difficult themes I've been putting off.  Thankfully, another blogger gave me the inspiration for this one. 

Nature is full of wonderful things, not the least of which is good food - that is, food that is good for you.  None of that processed, de-nutritionalized stuff; this is the stuff that we can grow in our own gardens, large or small.

Cucumbers and tomatoes are low in saturated fat, and very low in cholesterol and sodium. Both have lots of Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K and Potassium and are also full of the essentials that keep us healthy.

So before I sat down to a plateful of them, I decided to shoot them and share here.  Bon appetit and good health to you all!

Confusion reigns...

Sorry about the post that just showed up - #30 Summer.  When I was posting "Duty", I noticed that there was a #30 Summer post saved as a Draft so assumed I had forgotten to post, and did it again.  Now I see that Summer was #29 and I did post it, so there was some duplication.  Wondered why I was getting comments on something I had posted awhile ago. 

For Ron, who asked to see more photos of the house in question, here are some...

Oh and by the way, I'll be back there at the end of September so will post the lady's take on Autumn later.

 

PS - I deleted #30 Summer since it's already here as #29.  Confused?  Stick around, you soon will be!

#36 Duty

I think I'm getting this "thinking outside of the box" thing now...  Having taken photos of firemen and ambulance men on duty at the air show recently, I felt that those images would be too ordinary.  Worked on this one yesterday and suddenly thought - "Here's a vehicle that's seen a lot of duty!"  So there you have the thinking behind this post.

There were only a couple of vintage cars at the air show and unfortunately I never saw anyone near this one to ask about its provenance so you'll have to take my word for it that it's pretty old.  Can see now that it's a Ford but that's about all I can tell you about it.

I used Topaz Adjust 5 HDR effect and added a new sky instead of the blank white one that was there in the original.  Also added some sparkle on the chrome just because I could!