After hiking at Inks Lake State Park, my hiking group gathered for a picnic along the shore. This couple came paddling by, looking happy to be out on the lake on such a fine day.
Out on the Lake
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Dinner for Two: Fiction Friday
The Friday Fictioneer Challenge: Write a 100-word story based on the photo.
Photo copyright Dale Rogerson
Dinner for Two
When Mark suggested eating in, Beverly looked forward to some time together. Turns out he had invited some friends over. They watched the baseball game on TV, crowding her off the couch. While they dissected each call, she sat apart sipping the wine she brought along for their dinner date and ate some pizza.
After his friends left, Mark asked her to stay over. The snoring from the living room informed her he fell asleep on the couch while she undressed.
Getting ready to leave (and not return), Beverly put her watch back on, wondering where the time had gone.
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To read other Friday Fictioneer stories based on this photo, select the smiley blue frog. There are 15 stories already posted as I create this post Wednesday morning (and schedule it for Friday morning).
Sometimes when I write a story, I start at the end. When I looked at this photo, the line “she put her watch back on” came to me and that’s where I started for this week’s story.
Colorado County Citizen
The Colorado County Citizen office (Columbus, Texas)
Thursday is for Doors over at Norm 2.0.
Creedmoor Blooms (1)
Our spring is in full bloom here in central Texas and I decided to take some time to photograph what Mother Nature is providing. I counted 17 flowers around the yard but photographing them turned out to be one of those things easier said than done. Here is the first set.
Azalea
My routine was to put on my boots (as the ground was still wet from rain), go out with my camera, photograph the flowers, come back in, take off my boots, load the photographs to the computer, and review them.
Bluebonnet
Oh, it was easy enough to photograph the flowers, but when I reviewed the photos, I started out with about a 50% blurry rate. That meant putting on my boots again, going back outside, photographing some of them again, coming back in, taking off my boots, loading the photos to the computer, and reviewing them. Talk about a ‘rinse and repeat’ cycle.
Evening Primrose with small guest
I did this seven times. Seven times to get photos of 17 flowers. I know it’s not this hard for everyone, but I am mostly teaching myself and there seems to be only one way to learn: The Hard Way.
Honeysuckle vine that found its way to the top of an Italian Stone Pine tree
This is a good time to mention that I wasn’t just taking one photo of each flower. I took several photos of each flower. I changed my distance and position in relation to the flower. I changed the aperture. I changed the ISO setting. I changed the shutter speed. And sometimes I had only blurry photos.
Back outside I went.
I’ve taken beginning DSLR photography classes, read books, read online articles, checked out the Nikon website. Most recently I attended a wildflower photography workshop and came home with about the same success rate: 50%.
Honeysuckle vine on the fence
I learned a lot in the workshop and I learned a lot from my workshop failures, but those I didn’t see until I loaded the 237 photos to my computer at home once the workshop was over. I haven’t had a miracle insight or anything as to why so many of my photos are bad, but I’m getting a clue. I hope. I will continue to work on learning the correct manual settings.
I’ll just keep putting on my boots and going outside.
