Headbangers Odd Shots

I am the one who scheduled the theme of Odd Shots for this week's challenge. I was remembering back when I did a weekly meme on the theme. I guess I got out into the world with my camera more often then.

 

I was watching for some odd shots as we were out and about this weekend. Sometimes you see them when the opportunity to take a shot is not there.

 

There was the altar server on Sunday when we were visiting the parish near the lake. His robe was short enough that if he had been one of my trainees I would have told him it was time to move up a size. Below the hem were his lime green socks. I tried to get a picture with my phone, but I am not good with the phone camera, nor with sneakily taking pictures in church. I missed the socks as he processed out with the priest and lector. Perhaps he was recognizing that it is Ordinary Time and the liturgical color is green. But more likely he is an avid Seahawks fan.

 

Other possible shots I missed because I was headed down the freeway at 70 mph. That is not conducive to photography and by the time you notice you are way beyond the image. We passed some of the fattest wild turkeys on our way home from the lake. I had never seen such fat wild turkeys. They might not have been the oddest shot, but I would have liked to have saved it. This morning I saw a blue heron on a snag on the river. Awesome shot that would have been, but maybe not odd.

 

I did see another odd shot the other day while driving. The wind was fierce (fanning the many wildfires raging in our state.) A man was walking along the side of the freeway carrying a large panel of plywood. Why, I wondered, is he walking along the freeway struggling with that piece of wood in the wind? Then I saw his pickup up ahead that it had blown out of. SECURE YOUR LOAD!

 

So, having failed miserably in getting any recent odd shots, I ran through some of my files looking for some good ones from the past.

 

fun shadow image--I would hate to meet in a dark alley.

My friend Mary got this fortune cookie when we went to lunch one day a few years ago. She was 85 at the time. Mary passed away a couple of weeks ago at the age of 90. She will be missed.

These bikes always look odd. Have you encountered any of them on your own wanderings?

The wind turbines can create some imaginative images when cropped just right.

A restaurant we always lunch in in Leavenworth collects the dollar bills left as tips. In their former location the bills covered the walls and the ceiling. When they moved, the bills were gathered and there was approximately $12,000 which they then contributed to the medical care of the mother of a former exchange student from Ukraine. Awesome odd.

 

But this one is probably my favorite of old odd shots. The yield sign, for which someone obviously did not yield.

You can see more of my odd shots if you click the odd shot label at the bottom of the post. I wonder if the other headbangers found anything as odd. You can follow them from my sidebar links.

Looking Up

I gathered these photos earlier today and just realized I had better do the post because we are off to the doc again early in the morning.

Looking up during the Prosser Balloon Rally

Looking up in London



Looking up inside one of those huge wind turbines

Looking up at the playground.

The preceding photos were gathered from files of the last few years. Those below were done this weekend at Cousin Camp.

Sasha shows his climbing abilities up a tree.

Masha looks as tall as the trees as she stands on a stump in the campsite.

 

The original from which I am creating my header. Looking up into the trees.

 

 

Other headbangers are linked in my sidebar.

Macro

I was the one that proposed the theme "Macro".

Fungi the size of a pinhead on a log in the Grove of the Patriarchs.

Macro is, loosely, extreme close-up of small subjects.

My last two cameras had a macro setting accessed by pressing a toggle button on the back of the camera.

lunch

My newer one does this automatically--switching between auto and macro depending on how close you are to the item you are focusing on.




I find it weird. I think I prefer the older method.






Most of the other headbangers have fancier cameras than mine. DSLRs with separate macro lenses. Their entries for today will be found linked in the sidebar.






Whether taken with a true macro lens or a pocket digital, it is a lot easier to make macros -- or nearly macros--with today's cameras that it was in the days of film.

Here's lookin' at you!

 

 

To prepare for today's theme I took the new camera out into the yard. -- well, after I tried to get shots of the ants that have been plaguing me lately. The photos above were made with my earlier cameras. Here are some of today's shots.

coreopsis

lily

yarrow

rose

Grape vine tendril grasps the support wire.



Water

We have used this theme before. At that time I wrote quite a bit about the role of water and/or its lack in the history and culture of the Western United States. You will find that post here last July.

Today it will just be pictures with captions.

You will find the other header challengers (we call ourselves headbangers) listed and linked in my sidebar.

When light hits water

Do you see the water? Sometimes too much at a time.

like this

When it is absent it is a very different scene.

When there is enough it flows marvelously.

When it is still, it reflects marvelously. And sometimes it is blue.

and sometimes green.

Sometimes we use it to change the landscape.

Marvelous place for cousins to bond.

And sometimes only a drop reminds us that the value of water is like diamonds.

Summer is Here!

I made a quick trip through the summer files to find some images representative of summer.  Here is a selection of what I found.


Summer is very busy when you live in America's Fruit Bowl.

For some reason, the images I post below jump to above. Typical summer crop in this agricultural area.
 

Summer at Tipsoo Lake

 

and summer out on the lake (not Tipsoo)

Everything grows like weeds in the summer.



Stonehenge is an icon of the summer solstice. This is our Stonehenge down on the bluff above the Columbia River. It is a memorial for local military lost in WWI and was built by Sam Hill.





 

We have a weekly challenge to post a new header according to a theme. The challenge members are linked in my sidebar.

Children's Toys -- a headbanger theme

We are empty nesters.

We have been empty nesters for quite a few years. Our youngest child will be 35 this fall.

Our grandchildren all live some distance from us, and because of schedules we are much more likely to visit them than they are to visit us.

I have been retired from teaching for about seven years. I taught first grade for a number of years, but the last several years I had older kids.

Not a lot of toys around our house, so I went looking for the pictures of two summer events from the last few years for some great toy images.  Cousin Camp and Vacation Bible School.

Each summer for quite a few years we have had a camping trip with at least one of our kids and their families. These trips evolved into Cousin Camp, with several of the families coming together in the planning of the event. We always have plenty of  games and toys for the outdoors.

fun with light sticks

lawn checkers

playground toys

simplest toys are often  best

chess game

bubbles



paddle boat

 

Over the last few years we have done Vacation Bible School and guess who has usually been the official photographer. Here also some of the simplest toys are the best.

crayons

parachute games outside

big ball

parachute and big ball inside--it was 100º outside.

hula hoop

sidewalk chalk

 

Pretty good for empty nesters.

Hmmm. I think only one of our headbanger challenge group still has kids at home, so we will see some creative thinking in the submissions this week. You can find their blog links in my sidebar near the top.