In Other News: "I'm Back!" (And Christmas!!)

Hey y'all! 

       My lack of posts is glaring me in the face, but be assured this is not for lack of suitable pictures! The only logical solution for this photographer to pursue would be to post more photographs!
       Yep, I was just doing my English homework... Anyways, I think the problem has been that I have too many photos; they have been sitting in folders on my pc for a month (and I keep taking more!) so I will have several "Themed" posts coming up... 
This should be interesting! Today's post is: C H R I S T M A S !

We just put up our tree and I LOVE it! It's real so it has that beautiful pine-y, woods-y, snowy smell; and it looks gorgeous! Don't believe me? Here's the photos!

Decorating the tree! With the colored lights blurring and the interesting shadows (I accidentally set the aperture at like f/5 so this is a lot darker than I would have liked) this pic does look neat. 

This looks blurry for some reason, even though its not *shrug* It is very noisy, I know!

As everyone must have seen somewhere before: Christmas lights pictures!

I really like the bokeh on this one; it's the Christmas tree lights! These two are my favorites of the post! The colors are Christmas-y and bright, without being obnoxious-ly neon and blinding:)
 I know, I'm using a lot a dashes today... 

When we lived in Tennessee, we got some "Tennessee Volunteers"
Christmas  ornaments. 

Almost done...

I'll leave you with this lovely bokeh. And that, my dear followers, is the end of this post.

Wooo! Can't wait till Christmas!

Catch-Up and FMTSO!

     Okay, now that you're all "awww!" and "Look at the puppies!" I will say I'm so sorry I haven't been posting for a while. School started up some weeks ago and I've been trying to get into a routine for my last year of high school.
     I haven't taken many new pictures so I'll put up some I took earlier this year!
  In the spirit of fall time here are some of the lovely colors outside my house this year:

All glowing and fuzzy gold!
 I tried out a "soft" filter on my camera and
I quite like the effect:) 

Earlier in the summer (it seems so long ago!) my brothers and sister and I went GeoCaching with our grandparents. We had to find one in our town square and these interesting murals caught my eye. I had been seeing them all around our town and other towns around us and I finally had the chance to take a picture (or two:)!

I have no idea who painted them but they're really cool! I love the contrasting colors and the details!

My big puppies! Oh you're so cute! I could eat you up!
(Not literally, of course, but I do love my dogs:)
Notice the muddy paws: not coming inside!

                                                         Now for some textures:

I tried to get the moss and the rotting wood of the old out-house in contrast to the blue sky and living trees. I really love the mood of this shot though:P

This is also from summer:) I'm not quite happy with the bokeh (the points of light blurred out in the background) but the picture on a whole turned out well!

This next photo is for FMTSO: "Yummy." 

I love fresh cherries and blueberries! I originally snapped this last year for a photo contest in my county fair, but I touched up the contrast/hue/saturation today.

That's all eFlashed for today folks!

Watermelon Summer :)

I was eating lunch and looked at this piece of watermelon with the lines of seeds
and just had to get my camera:)

Ah, the cool, crisp, taste of watermelon goes well with the hot days of summer!

My Nikon D5100 takes pretty good macros!

Set these up on my back porch around 3pm and used my tripod to steady my camera.

That's all for now, Flashed!

Around My World

I was out picking raspberries and saw a couple dragonflies zooming around the leaves. I ran back inside to get my camera, hoping there would be one left to shoot. This one was just sitting on a leaf, I snapped about six pictures and this was the best one.

 It's pretty hard to see exactly what to focus on, so I need more practice with macro:)

While I was outside on this beautiful day, I looked
around for other shots. I'm not sure what this
plant/tree/bush thing is, but the berries (not edible)
were really pretty!

Experimenting with macro in my big backyard! Top and bottom pics \/  /\

Linking to Friday Shootouts Blog!

/\ The coolest things happen by accident sometimes! This bee flew by the thorn flowers just as I pressed the shutter! :D

This picture was taken a few days before the others, at a friend's house on North Battle Lake. It is the wheel of the dock, they have to pull the dock up out of the water each winter so the ice doesn't damage it. Just thought it was pretty neat:)

The corn here in Minnesota is tasseling and is very beautiful! The golden corn and the bright blue sky before sunset was a wonderful contrast! Had to on the car bumper to get the depth better:)

That's all Flashed for now!
Eli