In this weeks challenge Sofia has asked us to share our experiences, good or bad, with low light photography. I have always struggled taking photos in low light and have plenty of fails to show for it. Usually, when I succeed it’s just pure luck.
There was a beautiful full moon the night we were sailing away from St. Lucia on our recent Caribbean cruise. The header image is of the full moon over St. Lucia. A little while later I captured the Pitons on St. Lucia in the below image.
The Pitons, St. Lucia
The rest of these images are a few of my attempts of taking photos inside with low light.
Lounge chairs on Viking SeaDining room in Aberdeen, ScotlandAhwahnee Hotel, Yosemite National Park, California
I enjoy feeding my back yard birds and keep a feeder filled with seeds close to my butterfly garden. It’s fun to see how the birds in the yard change with the seasons. During the warm months I keep three hummingbird feeders filled with nectar and grow flowers that attract them. I enjoy sitting and watching the birds and trying to capture them with my camera.
In Fall and Winter birds like Carolina Chickadees, Tufted Titmouse, House Finches, and Northern Cardinals show up frequently. All of these birds can also be seen at various times during the rest of the year. The pair of Northern Cardinals in the header photo were perched in a tree near the bird feeder this week. They like to hang around waiting for seeds to fall to the ground for an easy meal.
Tufted TitmouseCarolina ChickadeeHouse Finch
I start seeing a change in the birds in the spring when the weather starts warming up. The hummingbird feeders go up and I anxiously await the first Ruby Throated Hummingbird. Spring also brings the Painted Buntings to the yard. Both the hummers and the buntings come around frequently all spring and summer.
Male Ruby Throated Hummingbird Male Painted Bunting Female Painted BuntingPair of Painted Buntings
This post was inspired by John Steiner’s Lens-Artists challenge Change
and by Terri’s Sunday Stills Challenge Are you a Bird Feeder? Her post reminds us that February is National Bird Feeding Month.
Travel has taught me that there is beauty everywhere you go if you just take the time to look around. When we were traveling by RV, we always had several major destinations for each trip. At first we just drove between destinations without taking much time to enjoy the places in between.
The more trips we took, the more we enjoyed the out of way places that are often overlooked by travelers. Lake Bistineau State Park, Louisiana was one of those places.
Cypress Trees in Lake Bistineau State Park
I’ve learned that traveling opens up opportunities to try new things, even things that terrify me. Our hike to Delicate Arch at Arches National Park is a perfect example of this. I’m scared of heights and almost didn’t make the hike when I read I would have to walk along a narrow ledge with a shear drop off. With Henry’s help and encouragement, I made it. The payoff was this fantastic view.
Delicate Arch in Arches National Park, Utah
I learned that asking a local is the best way to find out about the area, the history, and the out of the way places to visit that don’t show up in tour guides. One year we spent about two months wandering around Texas when the bluebonnets were blooming. A ranger I met in one of the state parks gave us directions to a scenic drive on a dirt road that we would have never discovered if we hadn’t asked.
Texas Bluebonnets
“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay home.” -James Michener
Travel has taught me I can learn more about a lot about a place by having conversations with people who live there. At the beautiful Russian Orthodox Church in Ninilchik, Alaska we met two women who manage the gift shop and maintain all the graves. They grew up in Ninilchik together and lived with relatives in Anchorage to attend high school because at the time there was no high school in Ninilchik (there is one today). They graduated together in 1950.
Gift Shop for the Russian Orthadox Church in Ninilchik, Alaska
Travel has taught me to try the local foods. We have enjoyed barbecue beef brisket in Texas, pasties in Michigan, Indian Tacos in South Dakota and Arizona, New Mexico cuisine, local seafood in Florida, Washington and Oregon, pork tenderloin sandwiches in Missouri, Dungeness Crab straight off the boat in Alaska, and so many other delicious things we can’t get at home.
Dungeness Crab, Haines, Alaska
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”― Mark Twain
Mark Twain’s quote describes exactly why Henry and I chose to go on our cruise in January. I’ve learned that every day is a gift. None of us know what tomorrow will bring. A single phone call, doctor’s visit, or an unexpected event can change your life in an instant.
St. Kitts
“Life is either a great adventure or nothing: – Helen Keller
The Wandering Dawgs just returned from an amazing Caribbean Islands Adventure filled with many memorable events. Our first ever cruise was supposed to be an Alaska inside passage trip in 2020 which we booked in 2019. Then COVID came along and the cruise was rescheduled for 2021. When that one was also cancelled we decided to try something different and booked a January cruise which included some Caribbean islands and a trip up the Amazon River. A few months ago the Brazil portion was cancelled and our itinerary changed to nine Caribbean islands in 8 different countries, starting and ending in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico required a negative COVID test to enter the country. The first of our memorable events was receiving the negative test results the day before our flight!
Everything went smoothly after that. Our flights were on time and we arrived in Puerto Rico on Monday, January 10 for a two night stay at a hotel in San Juan before our Wednesday boarding on the Viking Sea. The most memorable event that first night was watching our Georgia Bulldogs win the college football National Championship from our hotel room.
There were too many memorable events to feature in one post. Here are just a few of the most memorable.
Walking the beaches of the Caribbean just soothed my soul. Our first beach was in a U. S. National Park on St. John, United States Virgin IslandsEach rainbow was spectacular. This rainbow in Dominica was one of several we saw during our journeySwimming into a cave in Ti Tou Gorge in the rain forest of Dominica was my most memorable experience – Thanks to Henry for this photoOne of the many sunsets we enjoyed. This was from our last night on the ship
Did we love our first cruise? A thousand times YES! It was the trip of a lifetime that can never be duplicated. The weather was perfect, the seas were calm, and each island brought new adventures. With a full crew of 450 and only 150 passengers on a ship with a capacity of 930 we felt like royalty the entire time.
Tina is hosting this photo challenge and she is “suggesting that in addition to our challenge you explore and link to some of the other creative opportunities our friends and fellow challengers make available in the WP blogosphere or any other sites where you post photos.” Many thanks to Tina for encouraging us to participate in other challenges. Be sure to visit Tina’s original post Lens’Artists #181: Double Dipping
All the photos in this post were taken this week near where I live. The caption of each photo contains a link to the original challenge.
The Hibiscus (above) and Camellias (below) are blooming where I live.
For John’s Cellpic Sunday the only requirement is to include a photo taken with a cell phone, IPad or other mobile device. The next image was taken on an early morning walk with my IPhone 7S and then cropped and edited on my computer.
Natalie wants to know how our week has been. My week as been filled with preparing for a trip and getting out to take a picture a day for nine days in a row. Maybe this is the year I’ll reach the goal of taking a picture a day for 365 days. This shrimp boat is one of my favorites from the week.
Terri’s Sunday Stills challenge topic is “The Future is Ours”. A flower bud’s future is to become a flower. We humans don’t know what our future will bring. I posted more about that in Every day is a gift.
Wandering Dawgs 