Focus on Life: Cabin Fever - Getting outside!

Revisiting the scene of childhood fun.

We are starting the second month of Sally Russick's Focus on Life 2014, with the theme: Cabin Fever. This week's prompt is Get Outside!

Many of us do indeed have Cabin Fever, which, for those who don't live in four season climates, or simply don't have cold weather, is that time when you are soooo fed up with sitting in the house and watching the snow pile up. You feel like busting out.

And our prompt invites us to do just that. 

But where I live, it was very cold for most of the week, but not particularly snowy. So the opportunities for idyllic country views were fairly few. And I was looking for a bit of action. 

Here are some views of winter fun at a local park where I used to bring my kids, before they started to bring themselves places!

First, I found a couple of teenagers practicing hockey moves.

Or just fooling around on the ice.

Maybe brother and sister.

Orange County New York Thomas Bull Park.

Friday evening tubing.

Down the hill.

Wheeeeee!

Ready to hook up and ride back up to the top!

Again, if I had not been fighting against the clock, I would have tried to use my camera's options. But strangely enough, my camera worked better in the fading light when I used the automatic settings. 

Let's look at how others are getting on this winter:

Grow Your Blog

Welcome to my Blog! 

This year, when I started the second round of "Focus on Life," Sally Russick's photography challenge, I started seeing a lot of these:

I visited the sponsoring blog, Two Bags Full, and found out that anyone with a blog could join in, and find new friends in the blogging community (and the internet in general.) 

Here's how blogger Vicki Boster described it on her blog: My "GROW YOUR BLOG" event is designed to bring more readers and FOLLOWERS to your blogs. The premise is simple-- just visit as many blogs as you wish and sign up to follow those that interest you. In turn, all the other folks will be doing the same thing~ we will all be growing our blogs!

I'm Beti,

and I make jewelry, take photographs, draw, and enjoy my family and pets in the Lower Hudson Valley of New York State. 

If you like what you see, please take a moment to click the widget on the right, and sign up to follow my blog. 

And if you leave a comment below, with your email address, you will be entered to win this pair of cute earrings that I made for the holidays....but with the soft muted colors, they should be spectacular for springtime, too!

To meet and greet more bloggers, visit Vicki's blog, Two Bags Full, and follow the links.

Focus on Life: Minimalist: Words

Do words need WORDS? 

Pondering, pondering, Sally Russick from The Studio Sublime has given us the prompt this week to express some WORDS in our minimalist photography. After discarding my original idea due to the inadvisability of outdoor photography in our current cold snap, I drew some....words. 

My choice stems from the fact that I really do rely on words for almost everything I do. Even drawing incorporates words quite often. 

So, those are my words, the first picture frosted in Picmonkey, another one posterized, and the last minimally processed. Let's see what the others have done: 

Focus on Life: Black and White Self Portrait.

Seeing yourself as others see you - sort of. 

Our Minimalist prompt for this week from Sally Russick of The Studio Sublime, is to create a black and white self portrait. I am one of those people who are uncomfortable with photographs of myself. As I grow older, I seem to become unrecognizable. For some reason, though I am fine with my image in the mirror, I am often horrified to see myself in a picture. 

So...I got out some props, and tried to create a character, so the picture wouldn't be so much "me" and more a creation of mine. 

Given limited time to use the trial and error method needed for setting the timer, then taking a picture, here are some images of the Cherry Hat Lady. 

And here is one that is more like the real me. 

One thing that year two of Focus On Life has done for me is to encourage the use of my camera in ways that stretch my skills. Can't wait to see what next week will bring. 

In the meantime, let's see what the others have done. 

Focus on Life: Minimalist Silhouette

The Bare Essentials

This week's photo assignment on our Minimalist theme is Silhouette.  Sally Russick gave us some suggestions on how to use our cameras to create silhouettes of objects against a bright background, like the sky. I read them, but ran out of daylight to fiddle with my camera. Too bad I can't take a photography sabbatical. 

Here is what I came up with:

Hummingbird Wind Chimes - and some icicles!

Not exactly a silhouette, but a nice contrast. Desaturated in Picmonkey. 

My Favorite! Didn't have to do much....

Take a look at the other participants' masterpieces. 

Focus on Life 2014: Minimalism

Week One: One subject photo

As much as I enjoyed last year's photo challenge, Focus on Life, organized by Sally Russick of The Studio Sublime, I think this year's project will be more challenging and more fun. This year, each month will have a theme - this month's theme is Minimalism, an art and photography concept that concentrates on the "bare minimum." 

This week, we were to choose one subject for our photo. 

I really wanted to capture a single icicle, but we didn't get the right weather until right at deadline. I'll be playing with that idea again, I'm sure. 

I didn't try for the spooky effect, it just happened.

For now, I'm presenting a little taste of what made New Year's Eve special. 

The most unusual angle I tried. 

Let's see what others have found.....