Trek & Trail

Friday's Flowers ~ Going Backpacking

30 Jul 2010

Posted by renee

I'll start by saying after a full morning of taking care of everyone else's needs I'm so happy to be sitting down for a few moments to write. Ah... I relish this first hour of the afternoon.

I feel Friday's Flowers drawing to a close. Participation has dropped off in past weeks, summer vacations and other priorities no doubt, and my own inspiration in this area is waning. Fresh flowers are still coming into my home each week but my creative energies are being spent elsewhere and taking photos of flowers seems like a chore. Can't have that now can we?

This will be the second last week and next Friday will be the last time (at least this summer) that I host Friday's Flowers. After which I will draw a name from everyone who has participated since the last drawing and send the winner a bar of my summer soap.

Thanks for you joining along. It's been fun meeting you all.

We're going backpacking this weekend so this week's flower photo is a bit contrived (I don't usually put flowers next to the packing box!) to give you a little picture of what getting ready looks like. I won't lie, getting ready for such an undertaking is a lot of work. But we get better at it each time.

This week we've worked hard in the evenings - all of us - so the packing, which is mostly food prep, doesn't affect my daily routine with the kids, something I find really difficult. It's so hard to regularly (we do this once a month) fit in packing with my full time job of feeding our family, homeschooling and doing all the usual summer stuff like weekly swimming trips, farm visits, berry picking and a little gardening.

my backyard sunflowers towering over the garden path

I think we're improving at getting ready for a weekend of backpacking. The fact that I haven't experienced any stress this time around is an indication that we might be on to something.

This has been a golden summer. Warm and sunny with thunderstorms every once in a while to bring the needed rain.

We're doing our best to make the most of these beautiful days. To live summer and enjoy summer. Even when it means full days of school/crafting, work, swimming, meals and then packing before bed. Because making the effort to go to the woods, with a pack on your back, to camp at a pond and walk along streams is worth it.

How are you making the most of your summer?

~~~

Welcome to Friday's Flowers! If you're just visiting today and want to know what's going on please read this post. Use the linky feature below to share your bouquet blossoms.

Pick some flowers, arrange 'em pretty, take a photo, post it to your blog, link to Friday's Flowers and share it with us.

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Gaspe vacation photos ~ The Sky

06 Jul 2010

Posted by renee

As promised here are the rest of our photos I wanted to share from our trip. Only this time the focus, quite literally is on the sky.

Usually when we camp we are deep in the woods somewhere tucked between some mountains. As lovely as this sounds it's nearly impossible to take stunning sunrise or sunset photos in these settings.

This trip to the Gaspe however we stayed most of the nights on a high point, a little mountain really, camped out in our friend's yard and then the last couple nights with my parents camped right at the ocean's edge in a lovely campground. The sky was spread out before me - day and night. I loved it.

Near the end of our trip, while camping by the ocean I got up very early one morning (3:30/4:00am) to photograph the sunrise. Don't worry I went back to bed but the sunrise was worth rolling out of my sleeping bag.

This sunset was a bit easier to photograph, sometime around 8 pm or so.

This next photo is right around sunset at our friend's farm. They live on the top of a ridge but misty air had risen from the ocean below and rolled over their pasture. It was breathtaking to watch. The contrast on this photo is boosted a bit for effect.

During the sunny days I was captivated by the sky and the ocean.

And here is where I want to share my little photographer tip. Ever since using a polarizer my sky shots have gotten much better. I bought it late last summer and every gorgeous sky/ocean shot I've published since was probably taken with that polarizer on my lens.

I'm not going to go into all the technical mumbo jumbo about how they work, I'm still figuring that all out. Quite honestly, when it comes to many things with photography I don't need to know why they work I just want to know how to use them. If you're of the same mindset you might like this article from Digital Photography School. This short article is a bit more technical (but still understandable) explanation of why and how they work.

I use a Nikon polarizer. I didn't use the polarizer with the sunrise and sunset shots you see here, only with the midday blue sky shots (and any other midday blue sky shot you've seen on my blog for the past year). I love it and think it's a great tool for landscape/nature photography.