Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: wood

(+ 2 insets) The forecast promised a very cold morning and I crossed my fingers for frost before I went to sleep last night. Just because it's cold enough for frost does not mean it will be frosty! However, I had a good feeling that it would be fabulous this morning and I was right! Peeking outside after hopping out of bed, I was rewarded by a sparking shimmer on everything! Pumpkin and I were both very impressed and talked about it at length while I took my shower. Ok well, maybe Pumpkin only laughed at me and whistled with the water sounds but I'd like to think she was suitably moved by the frosty world outside! :) I spent about 45 minutes taking pictures and I was so happy I'd prepared my camera beforehand. All I needed to do was dive into my warm clothes and bounce outside and right into a glimmering wonderland! Some of the subjects that I captured were metal screws, nails, wire, barbs, hinges, springs...the mail box, frozen droplets on the mail box, leaves, wasp galls, ice at the edge of the pond, frosty weeds poking out of the pond...the list goes on and on! Let's just say I came back to the house with over 400 pictures so you get the general idea! My feeling is that we won't have a lot more frosty days so if I want pictures, today's going to be one of my last chances! I was so excited to look over my pictures and boy did I get a BUNCH of winners! I also got a LOT of garbage shots. Ugh. I may need to take a monopod with me because I was got so many blurry pictures. A flash can definitely help capture an image without blur but it's not a miracle-worker. The smaller the subject, the harder it is to get a crisp picture by hand-holding your camera. MEH! It's a good thing that I took multiples along with aperture sets of each subject. Sometimes I'd get 9 garbage pictures and only one good one! And unfortunately, I failed completely on some very nice subjects. Better luck next time, right? And I can't cry too hard...I got several dozen nice pictures that I'll need to process! This is my day to post my Happy Fence Friday picture so I looked through this morning's photo shoot I and found one that would work just fine! It's barbed fencing wire that's wrapped around a post. The frost isn't very prominent but I really liked the colors and interesting visual. It was on the outside of our property next to our gate and the red color caught my eye. I've also included an inset of the entire width of the wire wrapped around the post...plus a guest I didn't notice until I saw it on the computer! Finally, I have another picture of frosty barbed wire that I took a few weeks ago. :) Pam, I did a look-see for "frost" on your photo stream and found a series of frosty artwork that you'd created. I especially like your Frost Flowers Circle Scope which is marvelous eye candy! (Steve loved it too!) By the way, it was fun to read about what you'd done for jobs. I have many times wondered if it would be fun to work as a dental hygienist but a technician would be more interesting I'm sure. Not at all surprised that you designed jewelry and done graphic design as well--you have a wonderful eye! And of course, I can see gardening being a big draw, it's great fun! *BIG HUGS* MY DEAR!!! Explored on 2/22/19, highest placement, #1.

(+7 insets!) (please view large!) Last night I poked my head out our upper deck door and couldn't believe what I heard. Frogs singing. It's below 30 degrees out there and there are so many froggies singing at the pond that I can hear them loudly all the way up here! I told Steve and he didn't believe me until he opened the door and listened. We are amazed. Those frogs just don't care if it's ski season for them, they're determined to find dates for Winter Froggy Prom! I woke up today and looked out to see a lovely dusting of snow over everything. How beautiful it was. And COLD! It's not supposed to get over 40 degrees today, and when I stepped out for my walk it was 27 degrees again, brrrrr!!! At the beginning of my walk I took a picture of the snow in our meadow, the golden glow of the sun trying to warm the world up. You'll see this as a panorama inset which I thought turned out very nicely! It was so pretty to see the snow lightly blanketing everything as I walked up and down the driveway. I was only doing three laps today because it's just too cold, but I also knew that I needed to brave the cold for another 15 minutes. The fact was that I really did need to take pictures. Snow is forecast for several more days this coming week but I've noticed that reports are usually wrong. So, if I wanted pictures, I had to take them right away. Even now, at 8am, I could see that the snow was already melting. I didn't have a moment to waste! I was ready to go in five minutes, swapping my shoes with my rubber boots and adding knee pads. I already had my macro flash on my camera in preparation, so out the door I went, bee-lining it to the burned shed as I'd planned. My my my...all the cool pictures! I scoped the scene and immediately found a screw with a snowy hat! Snow balanced on a burned hole in the plywood! A lovely whorl of knot-centered plywood with a dab of snow balanced precariously on an edge...a rusty nail sticking out with a frozen droplet on it...many other wonderful things to take pictures of too, it was fabulous. I will need to go back for more, many interesting opportunities but not enough time! Time...fifteen minutes came and went...and I was away in my photographic dream. I knew I'd passed my time-limit when my toes started yelling at me. But...I heard the gentle call from the sporophytes rising out of the moss on the nearby Oak trees...and I couldn't resist them. I strayed from the shed and drifted into the woods...so many lovely pictures to take...so many wonderful scenes to find. My toes were hurting more with each passing moment but...there were little mounds of snow on the moss with sporophytes topped with droplets! How could I not take pictures? Finally after about 45 minutes my feet refused to go anywhere but towards the house, yelling and screaming all of the way. My hands were also cold, though the rest of me, bundled up nicely, was comfortable. Immediately upon entering the house the boots flew off and I stuck my feet on the heater. If they had a voice they would be groaning with pleasure to feel that warmth directly applied to them. I know, I know...I should be ashamed of myself for being so mean to my poor frozen feeties! Well, they warmed up just fine...it took fifteen minutes of frying them on the heater but finally they were warmed up again. Heh. I'm horrible. But what can I say? Sometimes I am but a mere puppet controlled by my passion, without a choice in the matter! :) Today I'm sharing a bunch of pictures from the burned shed--I hope you enjoy the show! (I got some wonderful sporophyte pictures too, but they will have to wait for another day!) Pam, I bet you know all about what it's like to lose yourself in your passions. I can see the "creative crazy person" in many of your presentations...when we make things like this I think you have to lose yourself in the moment! It's a wonderful feeling though, isn't it? To just "become" part of the passion that drives you...it's a delicious thing. Kind of like being on a different level or dimension...I don't know. It can't really be described in words but all creative people know what this is and we all crave it! I hope that you are able to get some creativity into your life, Pam...the conditions have to be right but I sure do hope you have them or get them sometime soon! *BIG HUGS FROM SOUTHERN OREGON* Explored on 2/7/19, highest placement, #2.

(+2 insets!) A couple of days ago I went out with my camera and got some frosty pictures down by our front gate. On the way back I decided to take a quick detour to check out our old well house shed. Roughly a 5-foot cube, it lay on its side in a ruined heap. This was one of the many casualties of the terrible wildfire that erupted on our property a few years ago. The fire engulfed our whole shop and half of our hillside but our home was saved and nobody was hurt. Lately I've been glancing over at that well house as I walk up and down our road in the morning. I've avoided taking pictures of anything related to the fire but my overwhelming feeling of remorse is slowly lifting and I wondered if there were pictures to be found there. Walking over to the shed, I realized that it was a treasure trove of macro pictures! Charred wood, exposed and rusty screws, nails, hinges...oh my, but the dozens of cool subjects I saw got me so excited I could hardly stand it! Unfortunately I couldn't stay more than a minute or two because of the cold. I was on a 15-minute timer and needed to get back inside before my toes and fingers were in serious pain. I did take a couple of pictures though, and I thought this image of charred wood would be fun to share today. I'll be doing a proper photo shoot in the next week I hope! (I'm also sharing a panorama of our burned hillside in silhouette during a gorgeous sunrise and another Table Rocks sunrise) Pam, have you guys ever had wildfires around your place or close enough to become quite concerned? It's no fun, let me tell you. This wildfire happened one afternoon when a ground squirrel climbed up the power pole and somehow got electrocuted, fell into the grass and started the fire. Steve found out as he was driving home and called me at work as I was leaving for the day. We were so afraid for our animals...but when we got home, we learned that our house was save and our animals were all ok. Thank goodness for our awesome fire department! I hope you are doing ok today! Sending *HUGGGGGS*!!! Explored on 2/3/19, highest placement, #1.

(+6 insets!) Today isn't just Monday…It's MACRO MONDAY! This ipernity group took the past two weeks off for the holidays but they are now back on schedule with a new project: "New Year's Resolutions / Good Intentions for the New Year". I thought about our plans this year and how I might incorporate them into macro images. I came up with three ideas! First is our resolution to continue our healthy lifestyle--namely to continue our Ketogenic way of eating along with daily exercise. My macro could be my pile of rocks which I use to mark each lap of walking up and down my driveway for my daily exercise. Second is our resolution to get our back deck finished, which has been a fairly sizable project because there is a deck outside our master bedroom as well as the main deck. I thought the perfect macro could be showing the wood planks with droplets on them for added interest. Third is our resolution to get our RV travel underway so we can begin having adventures out and about! Our truck purchase was integral to our plans so I thought that some macros of the truck would be perfect. As it happened, it's been raining so droplets on the truck are a no-brainer! I planned to take pictures yesterday but ran out of daylight so I got out there before it began raining today…and well, I went crazy. Hundreds of pictures later I forced myself back inside and copied them onto my computer. Holy moly, what a lot of cool pictures…as you may know, I'm coo-coo about abstracts so these close-ups were really fun to look at. One of my favorite aspects to photography is meandering through my pictures, cropping them and discovering the gems. I got really lucky today...too lucky I think! :D It was really hard to choose so in the end, I processed a handful of them to share! Let me know what you think! Pam, today has been all about droplets for me, so I checked out your droplet shots--so many pretty flowers covered with drops! I especially loved your Orange Day Lily pictures…such stunning flowers and even prettier with droplets!! I hope you are doing ok today, my dear. I hope all goes well with your tests... I'm thinking warm thoughts about you as I always do! *BIG HUGSSSSSSSSS*!!!!! Explored on 1/8/19, highest placement, #2.

This is a close-up of a stump I found while wandering around on my property. I love the intricate pattern and interesting texture.

I want to apologize for being completely offline lately--my current projects and other stuff has me totally tied up. I apologize, and look forward to getting back to my regular schedule! :) Because I was buried in work and a million other things today, it was after sundown before I had a moment to take pictures, so I decided it was time to feature a cool pair of carved Angelfish that we display in our livingroom. I love the character of these two and whenever I see them I am reminded of the amazing Queen Angelfish I have visited when scuba diving! John Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900) was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political economy. His writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. Ruskin penned essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art was later superseded by a preference for plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, and architectural structures and ornamentation. Wikipedia: John Ruskin Explored on December 16, 2013. Highest position, page 6.

This nail is embedded in the decaying wood of an old tree house built many years ago. It has since fallen down, tree and all, but I love all the interesting textures that abound here.

These wooden beads are 1/2" squares and meant to be strung onto sisal strands (a natural rope fiber) and used as a chewable toy for our parrot! The blocks are colored with vegetable food dye so they are non-toxic! :)

This photo was taken on July 2, 2011, while on the MeetUp hike to Lost Falls, near Ashland, Oregon