This shot was taken in my backyard in early August. I don't see anything particularly special about it, but for some reason I liked it then, and I still consider it postworthy - if only because it reminds me of summer. I hope I have the chance to take some photos this weekend. I'll be heading to Saskatoon for a while, and I don't know if I'll bring the camera. It's tempting, since I'll have a few days free to roam around the old stomping grounds. On the other hand, I probably already have too many things that need to be taken as carry-on, and the weather forecast on the prairies doesn't seem conducive to photo walks. Maybe living out east has just turned me into a cold weather wimp.

I've been really bad at posting here lately. Hopefully I can change that. This is one of my favorite Iceland photos... though I spent most of the trip trying to capture it. Farms and houses in rural Iceland are distributed seemingly at random. The explanation I read for this was that when the Vikings settled Iceland, there were no natives there, and therefore no need to guard against enemies. People simply settled wherever they wanted to - usually in the most beautiful places and places that afforded some natural protection from the elements.

I wanted to capture a particular sort of bucolic scene with sheep grazing in the foreground, red-roofed white farmhouses, and something quintessentially Icelandic in the background. It was more difficult to take this picture than I imagined it would be. Many of my attempts are marred by power lines, fences and boring or blown-out skies. Most of these shots were taken from the car window as we were driving by. The sheep and houses were sometimes so far away they looked like specks. Motion blur was also a problem.

This is my best Icelandic farm scene photo. I have my sheep and my farmhouses. The mountain in the background is unmistakably Icelandic, and I have some beautiful ominous clouds! I didn't touch the colors in post-processing. Much of southern Iceland is green in the spring, and when the sun shines, this green is very, very bright.

Here's another tulip shot from the botanical gardens. Not much to say today... just getting through the few remaining days until vacation. Who knew time could move so slowly?

I took a quite a few shots of these little blue flowers. Most of them were marred by the two Bs: blurriness and boringness. Here I was lucky enough to get one flower in crisp focus against a foliage background that was somewhat complementary.

I call this photo "Feeling Blue". It's an aptly named photo to be posting today. I find myself slogging through all of the mundaneness and garbage that remains to be done before the trip to Iceland... and I know that when I return, all of the mundaneness and garbage will still be here waiting for me. Ho hum. I developed a theory a while ago that drycleaners don't actually do anything with clothes besides press them and wrap them in a sheath of flimsy, rustling, child-suffocating cellophane. When you pick your clothes up, they aren't any cleaner, but you feel better about them somehow... Vacations are probably similar in a lot of ways.

This is another photo with an unorthodox crop. The problem with photographing things in my front yard is that there is too much clutter - brick walls, the neighbors' recycling bin, driveways with shiny cars in them, etc. I like this photo because the flower looks like it's suspended in mid air between the two stems.

Today I uploaded this brown-eyed susan picture to remind myself that we actually have had some sun this summer! Today was another rainy day, but nice and warm. Tonight there has been the most amazing thunderstorm... The sky is a weird yellow/purple color, the rain coming down in sheets and there is a tornado warning in effect! I'm too busy to take the camera out, and even if I wasn't, I'd be worried about getting it wet. Hopefully I'll get some good lightning shots before the summer is over.

I got home from work at about 8am yesterday and took advantage of some of the best light I have seen all summer. When I uploaded the photos, I was disappointed in all of them. Today I must be in a less critical mood because I managed to identify 5 or 6 good ones. I'll post more in the coming days. This hosta leaf is about all my poor laptop can handle tonight.

When I visited Costa Rica, I kept trying to take photos of giant red leaves illuminated by the morning sun. the result was the same every time - completely washed out with blown highlights. This time I finally managed to get it right.