Merry Photo Christmas!

Another year has come and almost gone, and here it is, Christmas again. You may have guessed already that I love Christmas, especially the colors and lights that brighten up this dark time of year.

Lately, I've been experimenting a lot more with my camera, especially with shutter speeds and ISO settings. I thought it might be fun to share a few of my camera experiments here on the blog, as well as a couple seasonal images, too.

I'm intrigued by what my camera does when I set a long exposure and move the camera while I press the shutter. The other day I made several photos using this technique. Here are my favorites—I call them my Christmas fantasies.

Pretty cool, huh? I love the long strings of color! For those of you who are photography nerds, the first photo was taken with a .5-second shutter speed and an f9 aperture, and the second had a .8-second shutter speed and an aperture of f16. The ISO setting for both photos was 3200.

This time of year, I also love experimenting with bokeh, a Japanese term meaning blur or haze. Bokeh is a fairly common background feature of any photo with a short depth of field, but around the holidays, it's really fun to play with intentional bokeh and Christmas lights.  Here is one of my favorites, which I took last Christmas.

Here is my favorite bokeh photo from this year, a combination of clarity and blur.

Experimentation is fun, but sometimes I just want to capture some of the magic and memories that surround this wonderful holiday. This little wooden man has hung on the Christmas tree every year since I was five years old. He was a gift from Santa in my stocking that Christmas and went on the tree immediately. He brings back many sweet memories of Christmases past...

So here is my wish for you this Christmas: may your holiday be filled with color, light and happy memories!

Blue, Blue, Blue, Some Green and a Bit of Pink

Before spring is officially over—only a little over a week until summer begins—I want to share a spring adventure/day trip that Mr. D and I went on a few weeks ago. I happened to see in the newspaper that a special event was happening at the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden on Saturday, May 17. We have been out to the garden twice before, but never on this special day.

And what was the special day, you ask? It was Blue Poppy Day! The garden contains a meadow planted in Himalayan Blue Poppies (Meconopsis). These relatively rare plants are a perfect true blue, and so beautiful! Here, for your viewing pleasure, are some of the blue poppies that I saw and photographed:

Aren't these blue beauties spectacular? Definitely worth having a whole day to celebrate their appearance.

The Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden also has a delightful fern garden, and Mr. D and I spent part of our time wandering there, and enjoying the green of the new ferns.

I'm sure you are wondering if there were any rhododendrons blooming, given the focus of this garden. Well, there were (many!), and here's one:

I know we will return to the Rhododendron Species Botanical garden in future springs, and I will share more of the wonders of this place with you when that happens.

In upcoming posts: Three more hikes, and new socks!

Photo of the Week: Purple Waves

245/365: Purple Waves, a photo by jchants on Flickr.

My Wandering Whippoorwill shawl. Here are all of the details:

Pattern: Whippoorwill by Carina Spencer

Yarn: Hazel Knits Artisan Sock in the Honey and Primrose colorways, Hazel Knits yarn club selections for February 2013.
Cast on: July 30, 2013
Bind-off: August 31, 2013

I love these two colors together! Of course, I'm a purple girl, you knew, that, right?  I don't usually wear gold, but I'm trying to branch out a bit in the colors I wear. I knit this shawl for the Hazel Knits July-August knitalong. This was also part of the My Sister's Knitter Get It Done KAL. (Hi, Andi!)

I am also going to use this project for the Yarniacs podcast Colors of Fall KAL. The idea is to knit something in one of the Pantone Fall 2013 fashion forecast colors. The purple in this shawl is very close to Pantone's Acai. One of the requirements of the KAL is to style your photo with the clothing and accessories you would combine with your project to make an outfit, so here are a couple bonus photos:

This has been a fun challenge. I may have two more projects knit in Pantone fall colors that I can share with you. One isn't finished yet, but is getting close, and the other just needs a photograph. Watch for another post coming soon!

Photo of the Week: Metallic

111/365: Metallic, a photo by jchants on Flickr.

The undulating colors of the metal facade of the Experience Music Project at the Seattle Center.

Tiptoe Through the Mud...

To the amazing tulips! Mr. D and I took a day trip last week to RoozenGaarde, a bulb farm in Mount Vernon, Washington. It was rainy, wet and muddy, but it didn't matter. Take a look and see what I mean.

The Color Census

This is Day 1 of the third annual Knit and Crochet Blog week (3KCBWDAY1), and this is my first time participating, since I wasn't even blogging when it happened last year. I have a pretty busy week ahead, with out-of-town guests arriving on Wednesday, so I probably won't blog every day, but some of the daily themes may actually show up in the coming weeks. I wanted to post on the first day, at least, so here I am!

Today's theme is color, a topic which I love, and as both an avid knitter and photographer, something I think about a lot. You may remember one of my musings on color from last summer, right after I attended Sock Summit, when I posted this photo:

The yarn in that photo was almost all of my purchases from the Sock Summit marketplace, and the distinguishing characteristic of that yarn was that it was all in the red/pink/purple family. Only two of my purchases did not fall into that color family:

I've been thinking a lot about those purchases, some of the other yarns in my stash and projects that I have made, and I decided to conduct a color census in my yarn stash and projects. Here are the results, including a representative photo or two of typical yarns or projects in each of my preferred color families.

Red/Pink/Purple:
Stash: 51
Projects: 42

Violeta, Hazel Knits Artisan Sock

Robin Shawl, a She-Knits design

Blue:
Stash: 37
Projects: 16

Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock Lightweight, Azure Malachite

Simple Things, a Mary-Heather Cogar design

Green:

Stash:16

Projects: 20

madelinetosh tosh sock, Cedar

Crow's Feet, a Linda Welch design

And here are those poor orphans that don't seem to get much love from me.

Brown:

Stash: 8

Projects: 2

Gray:

Stash: 6

Projects: 0

Yellow:

Stash: 5

Projects: 1

Orange:

Stash: 3

Projects: 2

Do I feel bad about not knitting much with the "orphan colors" that have the lowest results in the census? No, not really. It makes me happy to knit with colors that I love, and like to wear, so that is all the justification that I need. But guess what? My current sock project on the needles isn't red, it isn't purple, it isn't pink, it isn't green, it isn't blue...

Autumn Colors

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.  Albert Camus

Farmer's Markets

I love farmer's markets. All those veggies, flowers and fruit, not to mention the food and crafts. It's a  feast of color!

I've been making pictures at farmer's markets for the past couple years. Here are some of my favorites, from the Bellingham Saturday farmer's market (tomatoes); the Pioneer Courthouse Square Monday farmer's market in Portland (berries and bread); the Edmonds Saturday market (the market scene above and the poppies and hand-painted silk scarves); and my local farmer's market, held on Sundays in Lake Forest Park (sweet red peppers).

Let's go to the market!