I will be the FIRST to admit I suck at landscapes.  Ok so I’m not so bad at photography in general …but when it comes to creating a landscape photo I pretty much shoot what I like and compose the shot later by….yikes….cropping!  Hey, I admit it!  I love landscapes, love to look at everyone else’s landscape photos for inspiration but for some reason none of it sticks and I end up doing it my own way in the end…must be the stubborn Aquarius in me!

I figured I’d share some of my past (and favorite) attempts at landscape photography…

This is a recent one, shot last week at sunrise.  I didn’t add a gradient, all I did was just boost up the colors that were already there a bit in photoshop.  I kind of like the way it came out…and I guess flickr did too…because yesterday it made position #20 in Explore.

*Canon XTi and Canon 18-55mm kit lens

Another fairly recent shot at sunrise.  This one is just about straight out of the camera with a little color boost in photoshop.

*Canon 50D and Canon 100-400mm f4/5.6 USM IS L

This one I really like taken of Bell Rock in Sedona, AZ, I actually thought about adding those flowers to the foreground…more thought than I usually give my landscape images!

*Canon 50D and Sigma 10-20mm

And another one I did give some thought to of the Virgin River in Zion National Park.  My butt almost got wet taking this one, and good thing I remembered my iphone was in a lower pocket of my pants and moved that baby up to a hip pocket!  I wanted a bit of a longer exposure so you could see the flowing of the river, but I didn’t have my tripod.  So, I just had the camera hanging around my neck and actually pulled down on the camera and braced with my neck and shot this without looking through the viewfinder…using that pulling/bracing action to keep the camera as steady as possible.

*Canon 50D and Sigma 10-20mm

This isn’t really a landscape but it is one of my FAVORITE images of all time.  I went into Upper Antelope Canyon with my tripod and ended up not using it.  This is hand held.

*Canon 50D and Canon 18-55mm kit lens

I didn’t put much thought into the composition of this one at Paine’s Creek (Cape Cod, MA), but I did put the thought into bringing my tripod and using a longer exposure.  Snapping several shots as the sun sank into the bay, but also staying and waiting till the sun was gone to get this image above.  This area is special to me, we used to visit here every other summer when I was a kid.  So I wanted a really nice image of it for myself.  It was also wonderful to just sit in the sand with my mom and take it all in.

*Canon 50D and Canon 18-55mm kit lens

Well, I’m continuing my time on the ‘wrong side’ of 35 today by turning 37.  Where did the time go?  I think for my birthday I’d like a trip back in time to the 1990’s please!

If You Were Born Today, January 24
Multi-talented and diverse, you are an interesting person who can draw upon both creative and logical sides of the brain equally. Others find you funny, great for advice, and extremely perceptive. Always interested in how people tick, you are a natural psychologist. You are security-minded but although you don’t like too much change, you do require stimulation in your day to day affairs. Many of you hold more than one job. Famous people born today: Desmond Morris, Mary Lou Retton, John Belushi, Oral Roberts, Neil Diamond, Nastassja Kinski, Warren Zevon.

I’m stealing this idea from Misti’s blog

My favorite Christmas movies…

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation – “Holy sh*t, hallelujah, where’s the Tylenol?”  Best. Movie. Ever.  If you’ve ever wanted to have the perfect family Christmas, and it’s turned into a stressful (yet funny) disaster, this is for you.

Elf – if you’re a fan of this movie and don’t answer your phone at least once with, ‘Buddy The Elf, what’s your favorite color?”, then you should start!

It’s A Wonderful Life – for YEARS I didn’t see this movie, until my husband talked me into it one day…and I’ve been hooked ever since!

The Santa Clause – I LOVE this movie.  We watch it every year.  The second and third movies were okay, but they just don’t hold a candle to the first one.  ”You could dye it….and you should diet!”

A Christmas Story – I’m actually pretty tired of watching this movie, I can only stand to see it once on Christmas.  But my dad LOVES it.  So I love it

Love Actually – Everything about this movie is great, I love all of the characters and interactions going on all at the same time.  It’s such a feel good movie!

The Family Stone:  A little odd ball of a movie, but I love it.

We are so close to Christmas…I can’t believe how fast that came around this year!

I’m not overly excited about Christmas this year for some reason…it could be because my parents aren’t going to be around.  They drove up to be with my family in CT because my aunt is going in to have surgery to donate a kidney!  Everyone up there is in my heart and my prayers.  We’re going to call up there tonight with my iphone to do some face time chat with the fam, I think that will be fun and nice to ’see’ everyone before the big day.

We are also not giving too many gifts this year and already discussed it with everyone so they don’t buy for us either.  It’s a crappy economy and they know we love them, and we know they love us, so we don’t need a lot of presents.  My husband and I did get ourselves one thing…a soft top for the Jeep.  We’re putting that on this week and the first chance we get we’re going topless!  Probably a little off roading on Christmas day is on the menu.

I just wanted to add a few more past Christmas photos to the blog for you