Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: joy

3 more pictures and a note above ! :) It rained most of the day but I kept checking to see if it stopped, and finally it did, if just for a short time. I left the house without the dogs because I didn't want to spend 20 minutes drying them and wiping off mud! And since I was off on my own, I made a bee line for the lower forest, since I won't take the dogs because there's no fence to the main road. As I left the house, I knew it was windy, but I didn't realize that stray droplets were coming down and spraying everywhere, so I ran inside to get a plastic bag to cover my camera while I crossed the smaller meadow, bracing myself against the chilly draft. Immediately upon entering the dark and moist lower forest, the wind dropped down to a slight breeze, and I was comfortable again. Ah, macro heaven! Where do I look first?!! :D I immediately began finding little mushrooms, but they were buried in leaves and were too much work to excavate, so I moved on. I found some beautiful moss-covered stumps with wonderful sporophytes and pretty lichen. Then I found some beautiful Orange Jelly fungus and some itty bitty baby shelf fungus, and also some interesting white fungus that looked like rows of molar teeth! FASCINATING! I took pictures as I went along, and then arrived at a favorite area with many rotten logs and plates of bark. Everything was bristling with tiny fungus, moss, and lichen species, and when I found a large chunk of bark, I dropped down onto my knee pads and carefully turned it over. "OHHHHHHH!!! Look at all the little white mushrooms!!! WOW!!! SO AMAZING!!! All over one section of this bark were dozens of extremely tiny shell-shaped mushrooms in various stages of development. I spent moments slowly gazing at all of them without my glasses, delighted at this stunning microscopic show I was able to enjoy. I noticed that many had miniscule, period-sized dew drops on them, and suddenly I found a droplet on the edge of an absolutely perfect, heart-shaped mushroom! Happily, I took many pictures from various angles and apertures, hoping I'd get that impossibly tiny droplet in focus. When I got back to the house, I discovered that only a few were in focus, but to my delight, the one I was most hoping for was exactly right!! HOORAY!!! :D Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC)was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle's writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality, aesthetics, logic, science, politics, and metaphysics. Wikipedia: Aristotle Explored on December 3, 2013. Highest placement, page 3.

[best appreciated at full size against black] I would like to wish all of you a day full of love, romance and joy! I have made so many friends here on Flickr and it has been such a wonderful experience sharing pictures back and forth with all of you. One year ago today, Steve and I bought my Canon SX130 IS and when I found out how easy it was to take macro shots, I went crazy taking zillions of pictures. Things are better than ever with my new Canon 5D Mark II and I've learned so much in a year's time. Thanks to all of you for your support and comments, your inspiration, helpful advice and friendship. I'm looking forward to the next year with all of you, and hopefully many more new friends too! A big hug to one and all!! :) I've uploaded two other pictures today and I hope you'll visit them too! Thanks to all of you who have visited and have left comments and favorites! I try to go to all of your pages within a day or two and is a highlight for me to see your beautiful photography! :) NOTE! I have finally updated my profile and I hope you'll take a look to find out a little more about me and how important all of you are to my experience here on Flickr! www.flickr.com/people/sfhipchick/ This image was taken in February, 2012.

I was originally planning to make this my 365 picture by adding a heart border that I photographed today, but Pumpkin was the perfect choice, so this is my alternate! This is a Valentine's balloon that I saw in Celebrity Pets, and I knew it would look nice with an added texture. What fun! :) Texture by Jill Black , thank you so much! Thanks to Stephanie Calhoun for being an endless inspiration for adding texture to some of my pictures!!

The other day when Steve and I were in Celebrity Pets, I saw a cute Valentine's balloon, which I thought would make the perfect Valentine's card and also my pick of the day if I added a border. However, when I got up this morning, I saw the image in my mind of our darling parrot, Pumpkin, cuddled up in one of our red blankets and knew that was what I'd do! With the help of Steve doing the cuddling, I got three pictures and they were all wonderful, but this was my favorite! If you're wondering about the hearts, this is how I did it! I have lots of little paper punches in different shapes, including a heart. I found some cardboard in our recycling with glossy red paper on it and punched out about a dozen hearts. This morning I lined them up on white cardstock and used a book to make sure they were straight. Then I took a picture overhead. I opened the file in Photoshop, selected the hearts and pasted them onto their own layer in my image of Pumpkin. I duplicated them until they lined the entire length of the image. I then used some of the "FX special effects filters to create the embossed appearance. Finally, I created a black layer underneath, duplicated the layers to make a top and bottom border, added the off-white rule, and presto! Pretty hearts for my holiday picture! Laozi or Lao Tzu; also romanized as Lao Tse, Lao Tu, Lao-Tsu, Laotze, Laosi, Laocius, and other variations) (fl. 6th century BCE) was a philosopher of ancient China, best known as the author of the Tao Te Ching (often simply referred to as Laozi). His association with the Tào Té Chīng has led him to be traditionally considered the founder of philosophical Taoism (pronounced as "Daoism"). He is also revered as a deity in most religious forms of Taoist philosophy, which often refers to Laozi as Taishang Laojun, or "One of the Three Pure Ones". Wkipedia: Lao Tzu