I sat there and took shot after shot. I was completely oblivious to pretty much everything around me. Which is why it took me quite by surprise when a police officer walked up to me and told me I needed to leave. Apparently this side of the road was a posted ‘No Parking Zone’.

Oops.

I honestly had not even realized that I couldn’t park there. When I pulled up, there was already someone else there taking pictures, so it didn’t even occur to me that perhaps I shouldn’t be there.

If I had noticed the ‘No Parking’ sign before I parked, would I still have stopped anyway?

Ummm . . . yeah. You bet I would have.

An opportunity like this doesn’t come around all the time.

Would I have sat there for an hour like I did? Probably not. Although I do have a tendency to lose track of time when I’m shooting something, as a photographer I try to be very respectful of privacy, private property, rules, and boundaries.

But in my defense, how could I not stop and take a few (or a hundred) digital stills of such majestic creatures? If only Nature would follow posted signs so that us poor humans could sit for as long as we liked and revel in the beauty around us without having to worry about whether or not it’s legal to be there, right?

Shooting the Eagles – Part 1

One of my wishes as a photographer has been to digitally photograph bald eagles. There is just something about their majesty that has always intrigued me. My husband recently discovered that there is a pond near where his office is located that many bald eagles have decided to call home this winter. Since he was on vacation over Christmas break, he agreed to watch the kids while I took off one morning to see if I could capture any digital shots. He was really hoping for one I could print on my digital printer for him to hang in his shop. I got to where he had directed me, parked alongside the road, and was enthralled. There were at least 25 – 30 bald eagles of varying ages flying around and landing in the trees and on the pond a short distance in front of me. It was one of the coolest things I’ve seen in all of my nature photography attempts. I quickly got out my camera, attached my zoom lens, put my camera on my tripod, stepped out of my vehicle and set up the tripod to start shooting. I then quickly took my camera off my tripod, folded it up, threw it in my van and hopped in the passenger side. That wind was stinkin’ cold! So instead I rolled down my window about halfway, propped my camera on that instead, and shot to my heart’s content.

My favorite artist is Terry Redlin. I absolutely adore his paintings. There is just something about them that draws me in. They are nostalgic and indicative of a time gone by; a simpler time that really seems to appeal to me. I used to have a digital screen saver of some of his paintings, but I lost the disc at some point so haven’t been able to view it in years. I also have a set of seven Christmas plates that I bought several years ago hanging in my dining room. My favorite piece, however, is the print my husband bought me after we first moved into this house over eight years ago. I had always wanted a Terry Redlin print, but had not felt that we could afford it, so one Christmas he saved up some money and bought me one. It was probably the best Christmas present he ever gave me. What I would love to have now is a book of his paintings. That way I could look at all my favorites whenever I wanted to, but in an affordable way.

Christmas Day here around my house is a pretty laid back affair these days. When I was a kid, we were always busy on Christmas Day. We would get up and open our presents (when we were young enough to still believe in Santa Clause), get ready and then head out to my mom’s family’s gathering. Now we don’t have a family gathering that takes place on Christmas Day anymore, so we get to relax that day. I will admit, sometimes I miss having anything going on that day, but I have found that I really like the relaxed atmosphere and non-rushing, non-frustrating day. Our plans for this year are to make the kids wait to get up until 9am like usual, open Santa gifts, let me take lots of digital photos of the kids, eat our breakfast of cinnamon rolls or doughnuts (whichever is the preference because we have both) and oj, then spend the rest of the day relaxing, perusing some online catalogs to see if they want to spend any Christmas money they received that way, watching movies, playing any new Wii games, and snacking on other non-healthy food all day, and watching the kids make customized single pieces of Christmas art. What can I say, we enjoy it.

I enjoy photographing nature and landscapes and even some wildlife from time to time. I don’t have many opportunities to shoot wildlife, but every once in a while I will get lucky and just happen to be in the right place at the right time. One thing that I have wanted to get a shot of for the last couple of years is a bald eagle. I have no idea if I would be able to get a decent high resolution digital photo of one even if I had the chance, or if my camera is even good enough to get a decent shot, but I sure would like to try. The thing is that although there are bald eagles around here in Iowa in some places, I have never seen one myself. That is until this weekend. On Friday, as I was driving home from a clothing shopping trip in Des Moines, I saw one flying by near the interstate on the other side of the road. Then on Sunday, at my mom and dad’s house, I saw one flying over the hills near their property as I was taking out the garbage. It turns out that that particular bald eagle likes to roost in some tall trees that are on the edge of their property. I hadn’t realized that, and now that I have, I will definitely be on the lookout for it. I don’t know if I could ever get a decent shot since those particular trees are pretty far away for my camera, but it’s fascinating to watch them nonetheless. Too bad I can’t make a digitally printed sign that says, “Come here so I can take your picture” and actually expect it to work.

I just love my mom’s Christmas village. Every house, every person, every piece (with the exception of the light posts because she bought those and they actually light up) was painted by hand by my mom over a period of several years when I was a kid. She is such a fine detail kind of person that each piece is exquisite. The quality of work is fantastic. You never see that kind of quality in what you can buy in the stores. And then on top of the meticulous detail that she put into painting the pieces, she also puts a lot of thought into how to make the village setup look realistic. She makes a waterfall, a river, lots of snow, mountains and in the past she’s even done a road. I want so badly to take some cool digital photos of the village, but so far I have never been successful at doing it justice. It doesn’t help that I always forget to bring my tripod so I can’t set up the shot or put my camera settings in such a way that would show off the village to its best advantage. I think what I need to do is make it a point to go over to their house with the intention of shooting the village. Then I could remember to bring my tripod, but not my kids so I could take my time and shoot it right and finally do the beautiful village some justice. And maybe if the shots turned out decent, I could have them digitally printed into a book for my mom.