A walk in the woods, peak color

CJ and I took Scarlett for a walk in some woods nearby.  The timing was perfect, late afternoon light and plenty of leaves still on the trees (enough on the ground to build a new collection though).

Somehow, Scarlett didn't make it into any photos this time around.  But at least she was somewhat behaved...

Another leaf

I think I took a similar photo last year, although it was further down the block. The neighbors are starting to think I'm kind of weird, photographing leaves on the part of their lawn where all the dogs pee and poop. But the fall light on the leaves in the grass works pretty well I think.

Good weekend, good photos

We had a pretty decent weekend where nothing went wrong, we managed to enjoy the sensational weather, and even the dog behaved herself. Go figure. On Saturday we went on a hike in an estuarine reserve in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and while we didn't see any cool migratory birds, we did have a nice time in a nice piece of woodlands whose leaves were just starting to turn colors. We also saw some pretty marsh scenery. Heck, when it's 70 and sunny, anything looks beautiful... and it is.

Oh, and a special note of thanks to the spider whose web held up the leaf in the first shot!

On the merry-go-round

I've been working hard to keep up with everything at home and at the office, and sometimes it's harder than it should be... As a consequence, I haven't really kept up with this blog, which is too bad because when I started it I swore that I'd keep it going despite what may happen. Oh well. Life is starting to look up a little bit though, and we are starting to get out a bit more. And CJ enjoyed the carousel, even though she wasn't too keen on getting her picture taken...

Family photo

It's been a rough few weeks again, as I've hunkered down and worked hard at the office. But after a week of rain last week, we went for a family hike and managed to get in a nice family portrait before the dog went nuts, overstimulated by everyone out and about, ruining a nice day.

What's interesting is that photoshop crashed twice while I was trying to make the magenta highlights a little less intense. It was a minor fix, but weird that that it crashed the software twice...

Four images after Irene visited

Hurricane Irene came and went this weekend. Overall, the house faired pretty well and the trees made it through without much damage. My butterfly bushes, however, didn't do so well.

The winds knocked them all over. But it was nothing a little hard work couldn't rectify. Here's hoping there was no permanent damage.

After the landscaping work, I took Meg and CJ to Great Falls, where the water was high but not as ridiculously excessive as you would expect after a major hurricane passes through. Of interest was a great blue heron that I captured with my new lens:

I'm not 100% certain it was a heron, and will try to find time to confirm later today...

Family portraits (sort of)

On Saturday, we went on the first hike we've taken in what seems like forever. It's the first time I was in any kind of woods since March, really. It's been that kind of year.

Anyhow, we somehow missed a large number of rainstorms and got in some nice tree-hugging. And almost everyone smiled for their portrait...