Weekly Photo Challenge: Changing Seasons

Posted on December 12, 2012 by treshabarger

A Burr Oak tree with a few leaves in the late autumn

Just a few brown leaves left

We have mostly two seasons in central Texas: a long, hot summer and then some winter. There are a few nice days in the autumn and spring thrown in, but usually we are at work inside an office building when that happens so we miss most of those two seasons.

The leaves don’t change colors gradually, they mostly turn brown all of a sudden and with one big twist and shake, they drop, much like the Whomping Willow in the Harry Potter stories.

We do have some true winter signs, like winter berries. (I don’t know the name of this bush.)

A bush full of red berries for the winter

Winter berries, for the birds

An iPhone weather app showing temperatures

A drastic change coming on

One of the hard-to-get-used-to things here is the change in temperatures. One day the low is in the 70s and the next day the low is in the 20s.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Changing Seasons

Weekly Photo Challenge: Reflections

Posted on December 5, 2012 by treshabarger

In heavy fog, the morning sun reflecting off a building in downtown Austin, Texas.

In heavy fog, morning sunlight reflecting off a building

Heavy fog and morning sunlight

Weekly Photo Challenge: Reflections

Weekly Photo Challenge: Thankful

Posted on November 28, 2012 by treshabarger

So many possibilities for this week’s photo challenge, Thankful.

I owe a great thanks to Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg and his printing press, invented around 1440. Without it, I wouldn’t have been able to read 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff or the anthology When I Am An Old Woman, I Shall Wear Purple, edited by Sandra Martz. The title is a line taken from the poem Warning, by Jenny Joseph. These books are only two of my favorites. Thank you, thank you, Herr Gutenberg. (I’ve posted a photo of my messy bookcases before; I don’t feel the need to do so again.) The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin has one of the original Gutenberg Bibles. It’s an amazing piece of history.

Photo taken from my cubicle window

I am thankful to have worked near the Texas Capitol building. I find it quite beautiful.

And not last and not least, but I’ll stop listing things I am thankful for or we’d be here all day and all night, I appreciate digital cameras. When I started blogging, I couldn’t have guessed how much I liked taking photos and posting them. It sure turned out that way. I wouldn’t have discovered this if digital cameras hadn’t come along, and that’s point-and-shoot cameras, specifically, available to the casual, amateur photographer like me. Hubby has a “real” camera, where he can decide on all types of settings. I’ve tried it and it’s really not for me. Here’s one of my favorite photos that I took.