Clouds...and Light...oh my!

Since this summer was such a complete scorcher we were unable to get out for our evening walks.  I can handle 100 degrees at 7:30pm to walk but 104 is a bit much for me.  So the past couple evenings we have been walkin' the walk.  Last night the sky treated us to a particularly stunning show.  The clouds were beautiful, the light amazing.  And the sun rays!  Glorious sun rays!  It really made me regret that I didn't have my camera with me, well not the 'big' camera anyway.  But as the old saying goes 'the best camera is the one you have with you'. So I made good on that and snapped away on my phone. I really don't know where I would be without the camera built in to my phone.  Some of these were taken with Hipstamatic ( a really amazing little app for those that love taking photos-they say Hipstamatic makes your life appear 95% cooler than it is...so I advise giving it a whirl) and others with just the plain camera.  Enjoy!  I know I did.

My favorite dishes...

I have a set of dishes that I love.  They sit in a cabinet on display and I see them many times during the day when I walk past.  They are antique, simple, and beautiful.  My husband bought them for me before we had even thought about getting married.  He had heard me talk about these dishes in an antique store for a while and gifted them to me on Valentine's Day 1998.  They are very special to me.  However, we have never had a meal on them.  Since they are antique and have a pretty gold detail I'm a little worried about lead.  But I will say that I still enjoy them all the same.  I have employeed the sugar bowl and I use everyday with my morning coffee.  Lately I have even been practicing photography with some of the dishes.  They photograph so beautifully with the window light in my dining room.

The sugar bowl was the only piece that had some damage to it-that little chip up by the handle.  But I just love the cracked glazing and to me that little chip in the bowl just makes the set all the more perfect. 

Everything is hot and dead here...

So it's been an incredibly hot summer and dry to boot.  Finding something in nature to photograph is becoming quite a challenge.  I decided not to fight it by looking for the standard beauty and rather find the beauty in what is around me.  Sometimes a shift in traditional thinking is all that is needed to uncover what you may not have noticed before.

I took these photos on Sunday when it was 108 degrees.  I was a tad bit bored and my husband suggested going out for a bit alone and taking some photos.  I couldn't think of anything to shoot-it was HOT, midday sun..and did I mention hot??  But I grabbed the camera anyway and gave it a go.  The field by our house has a few scraggly surviving sunflowers.  So I pulled the car over, hopped out and crunched my way through the dry earth to capture these strong and beautiful plants.  Ahhh...beauty.