Boy, what a funk I’ve found myself in today. Today is the official beginning of autumn. Coincidence? I think not! As much as I’d love to blame the start of fall for my mood, in all fairness, it really wasn’t at fault. For most of the day, the weather was nothing but lovely. This mood that I’m in, however, will allow me to present my feelings about the end of summer with unvarnished truth.
I think regular readers of this blog already know about how I feel concerning summer’s demise. How apropos to find gray clouds blotting out the sun as I searched out the subjects of my photos for Scott’s assignment. The sky mirrored the feelings in my head and my heart today.
The golden warmth of a summer day that warms my soul and my toes will soon be whisked away as we barrel head on toward the cold and drizzle of the months to come.
Memories of summer packed away, awaiting better days.
No one is splashing, swimming, floating, enjoying the pool any longer as my raft lies abandoned, dry and deflating and awaiting closure.
And my boys of summer. As sad a story as there could be. Their season nearly over before it began, officially eliminated from play-offs, just playing out the month. My Red Sox bear hides his face.
I promise I’ll snap out of it. This funk won’t rule this blog, or my life for long. This post was my contribution to Scott’s assignment “End of Summer.” There is still time for you to participate – posts are due by midnight your time on Wednesday, September 26th.
Did anyone else have this song playing through your head when you thought of the photo hunt this time around? You definitely will if you click the play button while you read through the wrap-up of all the awesome participants who played along this time! Thirteen of you submitted photos for the hunt, including many first-time players.
The very first submission was from a first-timer, and she posted the August photo hunt before it was even August! Lynne from Beyond the Brush featured two photos with words that back up the position of being at the end of the earth as well as a fascinating shot from a place many of us may never get the chance to see. I’m glad you found me for the hunt, Lynne!
Sybil over at Eastern Passage Passage was another early-bird photo hunter with a very different take on the hunt. She presents an ethereal looking end of the earth with each of her shots enveloped in fog.
Ellen of Taj MuttHall has posted an amazing series of photos with a wide variety of considerations of the ends of the earth. As she says, she shows us places that look like there is nothing beyond them as well as locations that look like the earth could literally be coming to an end.
Isa’s Threads of Life shows us some beautiful Swiss Alps and a variety of other locations. I love the para-glider “sailing away to end of the earth” as well as her take on an extreme, showing the fearlessness of youth.
Could there be a more mysterious place to find the end of the earth than the place once known as the dark continent? Truels takes us away to Africa to contemplate the far reaches of the Serengeti.
Robin of Life in the Bogs always brings a magical touch to the photo hunt, and she did not disappoint this time around. She sweeps us from one end of this continent to the other with gorgeous shots looking down on clouds in the Rocky Mountains to distant looking vistas of Nova Scotia.
Beauty, life and our whole selves are considered in Kathy from Lake Superior Spirit’s entry. Kathy is a writer who always challenges me to think differently about the world around me, and her hunt does this with both photos and words.
Scott of Views Infinitum put a new spin on the photo hunt and tried to mess with our minds a little bit by taking us to the Twilight Zone! Go check out a pretty cool look at a “distant alien planet”!
Long time reader but first time photo-hunter Holly of Photo by Holly, hunted in her archives to a favorite vacation, a Carribbean cruise. She had to endure some scary rough waters, but got the chance to take some shots that looked like she could have been sailing off the end of the earth!
Another first-timer Kristen found her way over to the blog and shares a photo on Flickr. She explains that she doesn’t feel she’s ever been to a place that feels like the end of the earth, so she shared a shot of her young son exploring the boundaries of his little world. Very sweet, Kristen!
North America, Europe, Africa and now on to Australia! This has to be my most intercontinental photo hunt yet! Joanne from Home Life Online was inspired to pop out of a little blogging respite to participate in the hunt and I’m glad she did! Joanne and I have been “bumping into each other” in the blogosphere on mutual blog-friends’ blogs but never really “talked” to each other. I’m glad we have now with a look at the land down under and some beautiful sweeping views of a place that would definitely be an end of the earth.
Carol’s “wandering mind” takes us to places that look like you might not make it back if you weren’t careful! Lonely roads, a crater and the badlands give us a somewhat sinister feel for the end of the earth.
My own photo hunt was here, where I took you to three places dear to my heart: Cape Cod, Hills Beach in Biddeford, Maine and my own home town.
Finally, Dawn, my original inspiration for this month’s hunt, shows us a great variety of ends of the earth at her new blog address! (Dawn’s had some server issues recently so if you’d ever so kindly update your links if you are a follower of Dawn’s she’d appreciate it!) Thanks again, Dawn, for kicking my mind into gear that morning back in July!
I hope everyone enjoyed the August photo hunt. How fitting that a photo hunt theme “ends of the earth” really did take us to places at all different ends of this planet of ours. I hope you’ll have the chance to visit all of our photo-hunters a leave them a little love in their comments sections.
Today is the due date for this month’s photo hunt with the theme “Ends of the Earth”. I just finished my own photo-taking yesterday, so here I am creating my post on the due date. It was back-to-school week here, so it has been busy, but I have just started taking peeks at the photo hunts that have been submitted so far. If I haven’t been over to see yours yet, don’t fret – I will definitely be coming around to see them this weekend, and I hope to have a wrap-up post completed before the long weekend is over.
You may remember back when I first announced this photo hunt that I mentioned that Provincetown, Massachusetts is the place that I’ve always considered to be “the end of the earth”. If you are unfamiliar with P-town, it is the town at the very tip of Cape Cod, sticking out into the Atlantic Ocean:
I haven’t been back to Provincetown since I bought my Rebel, but I found a few shots that can help give you that end of the earth feeling in my archives. A spit of land like this ( did you know this was actually the first landing place of the Pilgrims in 1620, not Plymouth, Ma, as many think of it to be?) needs lighthouses and Provincetown has a couple.
Long Point Lighthouse
Race Point Lighthouse
I remember wondering once if I could travel east along a line of latitude from Provincetown, what country would be the next land that I would encounter. In my mind’s eye, I thought England or France. I was very surprised to find out it would actually be Spain. Hence the title of this photo looking east across the huge sand dunes of Provincetown:
“Next stop, Spain!”
Since this was a photo hunt, I was not content to hunt only in my archives. While I was on vacation in Maine, I took some photos on a cloudy day of another place that could be an end of the earth. The beach that we visit has a set of breakwaters that contain deep water for entry into a small harbor.
I’ve climbed these rocks since I was a child, and there is a certain feeling of isolation and end of the earth here.
I didn’t want to leave out the other possibility I mentioned for photo hunting in the original post – extremes. The place that I live in doesn’t have much in the way of extremes, but I’ve always thought the top of our little mountain here in town was a very pretty place. Our highest elevation is only 910 feet, but it made for pretty pictures as the sun began to go down.
These shots were taken on Peak Road here in town – apropos, no?
I hope you had fun with this month’s photo hunt. I’m looking forward to coming around and seeing your posts this weekend. I hope you get to enjoy the 3-day Labor Day weekend.
I wasn’t even sure I was going to do a photo hunt for August, when WHAM, inspiration struck. I know it isn’t August yet, but this post needed to be written while the inspiration was with me, and I started thinking that a little heads up on this one could probably be helpful.
Let me back up and explain my inspiration. I was over at Dawn’s blog this morning and I read this post. She referred to Point Pelee in Canada as “the end of the earth.” I immediately thought of the area that I have always thought of as “the end of the earth” – Provincetown, Massachuesetts. It is the very tip of Cape Cod sticking out into the Atlantic Ocean. That got me thinking about geography and whether there is a place that other people consider “the end of the earth” and wouldn’t that be a cool thing for a photo hunt?
Sure it would, but that might not make it easy for a lot of folks to participate in a photo hunt – and that of course is what I like best about photo hunts, having lots of participation. So how could I tweak this “end of the earth” idea to fit a photo hunt?
Here’s what I’ve come up with. Show me the place that is “the end of the earth” for you OR show me some of the “extremes” of your city, town, area, state, province or favorite vacation spot. Take a photo at the highest spot, the lowest spot, the northernmost, southernmost, westernmost or easternmost point. If you can think of another “extreme” that I haven’t included here, please share it in the comments. You choose how many photos you would like to share.
Because of the nature of this assignment and the fact that you may have already traveled to somewhere that you’d like to feature for your photo hunt, please feel free to use archived photos for your post. Assignment due date will be the very end of August, Friday the 31st. As usual, leave me the link to your post in the comments of this post. I should be able to get the round up posted over Labor Day weekend.
I’d love to have lots of participation in this assignment, so if you’d do me the favor of helping to spread the word I’d be very appreciative!
When Scott Thomas recently commented on my “Camping Critters” post about how my ruffled grouse appeared to be moving quickly, I was inspired about what to shoot for his assignment this month about motion photography.
The hummingbird moths have reappeared at the butterfly bushes and their tiny wings are always in rapid motion:
The monarch butterflies are always in frenetic motion around the yard and bushes. I tried to capture a crazy escapade of a monarch around my yard, but the photos didn’t portray motion all that well to me. Here it is when it finally came to rest on a bloom, but with wings still ready to go:
While I was watching the butterfly bushes yesterday, so full of frantic motion of moths and bees and butterflies, I heard that tell-tale call of a raptor up above. It is a different view of motion:
Remember my “conducting duck” from the Camping Critters post? I realized that another shot that I took of him or her had another view of motion:
This is my submission to Scott’s motion assignment. There is still time to get involved in this assignment if you would like – posts aren’t due until Wednesday, the 25th at midnight your time.
No, not that kind of wrap! I kid, I kid! I stole this picture from my sister the foodie blogger because that’s the way I roll. Ha, ha – get it? Wrap? Roll? *Ahem*, well moving on…
I haven’t heard from any more bloggers taking advantage of the extension on the photo hunt deadline, so it looks like it is time to wrap it up. It will be a quick wrap this time around because I only had 4 participants in addition to my own. Was it too hard this time out? Do we need to take a break from photo hunting for a little while? I hope those of you who didn’t participate will let me know in the comments.
Scott was the first one in with a partial submission. He included a photo of a proud grandma for “proud” here and then went on to complete the rest of his photo hunt with this post. “Aplomb” really threw Scott for a loop, so like a student worried about his grade on a test, he went for a bonus to use as a substitution! You know I don’t really grade you, right Scott? But I’ll give you an “A” for effort, LOL! Grandma gets a really fantastic shot in the second post, so I hope you’ll go have a look.
Robin was the first blogger in with a complete photo hunt. Robin won me over with her beautiful photos from Maine, my “home away from home” and some Canadian moose poop! No really! You have to go see for yourself.
Next in was Dawn. Apparently I made Dawn work for her photo hunt this time around and she really came through with some great shots. I awarded Dawn double-bonus points for one of her shots for tickling my funny bone.
Our fourth photo-hunter was Carol. Carol’s hunt gave us a very sweet peek into her world and taught me a lesson in synonyms!
P.S. Would you like the recipe for those chicken wraps whose photo I pilfered at the beginning of this post? Pop over to my sister’s place and get it here.
P.P.S. Do you want a photo hunt in August or would you like a summer vacation? Let me know!
I’ve never been one for strict adherence to the rules. Rules are more like “guidelines” especially when it comes to the photo hunt around here. I’ve been known to bend, dance around and completely disregard the so-called “rules” I set forth in my photo hunts in the name of encouraging fun with photos.
So now, confession time. I didn’t do very well taking pictures for my own photo hunt! Was my photo hunt in the back of my mind while I took photos over the past couple weeks? Sure. Did I, in reality, take photos specifically for my photo hunt? Uh, no, not really!
However, I do have a collection of six new-to-you photos to share for this month’s photo hunt. Some of the photos were even taken this month!
Peace:
I’ve just returned from a lovely few days on Cape Cod. The weather was warm, sunny and breezy. While relaxing on the beach in South Yarmouth, I was able to gaze across Bass River to dozens of colorful para-surfers. The warmth on my face, the just-right salty breeze and these dancing rainbows made for an extremely peaceful feeling.
Joy:
When we went on our cruise back in April, I told you about the wonderful experience we had swimming with a dolphin. In addition to the obvious pleasure of being able to be so close to one of this planet’s most endearing creatures, one of the best parts of this experience was seeing the absolutely pure, unadulterated joy on my daughters’ faces.
Pride:
This photo is real rule-breaker because I didn’t even take this one (er, whoops, I didn’t take the last one either! Hubby took that one!). Dear friend Renae took this one at her daughter’s first communion party. But I have a lot of maternal pride in this photo. Sarah, for reasons unexplained, is a favorite person to younger children everywhere. Wherever we go to spend time with friends with children younger than ours, the little ones almost immediately glom on to her. It must be her sweet, approachable nature but I feel proud of the way accepts the children and makes them feel so very comfortable in her presence. This photo was also taken shortly after she got her braces off, and I love the pride in her new smile.
Aplomb:
To me, dancing on pointe is the very definition of the word “aplomb.” Meghan exudes confidence with each step of her pointe dance.
For my bonuses this month, I actually did take photos specifically for the hunt!
Strewn:
Little flowers in the grass caught my attention one day. I wondered why they appeared to be growing in the lawn, then I realized they were the little blossoms falling from my hanging plants! Duh!
Toast:
Because who needs a good reason for a margarita toast?
So my dear readers, there is my rule-breaking, almost-mine, not-really-photo-hunted-unless-you-count-hunting-in-my-archives photo hunt!
I’m back! While I didn’t receive a ton of comments to my previous post, I received enough to come up with a little inspiration for this month’s hunt. I apologize for not getting to posting this until 10 days into June. Let’s get a little abstract for this month, shall we? Not abstract art or photography, a la Scott a few months ago, but words that are a little more abstract and perhaps a bit of a challenge.
In addition, I’m going to include 2 bonus shots this month, ideas supplied also from the comments section:
Strewn, because I liked Cathy’s idea about words rhyming with June and I think this word has some neat possibilities
Toast, because it was Gerry’s idea and I love Gerry’s sense of fun!
Take until the very end of the month to get your photo hunt done, to help make up for my tardiness in posting this month. If you’d be so kind as to help me spread the word and help to get your blogging friends to participate, I’d be very appreciative. As usual, leave your links to your photo hunts in the comments section of this post.
And because I am not capable of doing a blog post without a photo, here’s a shot of some new-to-me flowers I am trying this season, lantana:
Hi everyone. It’s June. Has been for a week now. June is an even-numbered month. Do you know what I usually do in even-numbered months? Of course you do – a photo hunt. I’m sorry to say that I am really stumped for ideas here! I’ve started and stopped writing one post idea. I’ve scrolled through my old photo hunts. I AM STUCK! With all that has been going on around here recently, my creative juices just ain’t flowing. So now, I am hoping for some help from you, dear readers! Here’s what I am going to ask of you: leave me a one word comment here in the comment section of this post. If I get enough comments, I will create a photo hunt list from your comments. It is Friday evening as I am typing this post. Hopefully, enough comments will roll in over the course of the weekend, and I will have an “official” photo hunt posted for you by Sunday evening.
What do you think, friends? Ready to help a fellow blogger out? First word that pops into your mind – post it below!
Here’s a pretty dahlia to look at while you think!
This photo has absoulutely nothing to do with the Favorites Photography Photo Hunt, but who doesn’t like dessert? This is from one of the many dessert buffets on board the ship and this seemed like as good an excuse as any to feature the photo.
On to the Favorites Wrap-up:
Scott was the first one in this time around, and he presented a “Capitol” version of his favorites. Visiting the National Zoo in Washington DC is on my bucket list and Scott features a beautiful tiger as one of his favorites.
Carol was next with some adorable shots of some of her favorite furry creatures in addition to other favorites. Although I am not lucky enough to own an iPad, I can certainly appreciate Carol’s morning routine. I think it is similar to one of my favorites – my favorite weekend morning routine of coffee and blog reading.
Faithful photo hunter Nye was third. I love learning something new about Nye’s family’s culture each time I visit her site, and this month’s photo hunt was no exception. Nye was right on with her bonus shot too – she knew I’d love to see a garden picture.
Cathy submitted next and brought another fascinating international photo hunt into our mix. I think Cathy used just about all of my suggestions to make for a really cool “getting to know you” post. She really hit a great bonus shot too, especially for being one of our newest photo hunters!
Sybil was afraid she’d get a poor mark for “not following the rules” – but as I explained, there are no real rules around here, and I just love what she did. Sybil’s hunt shows us many of her favorite things to do, which I think is a really great idea.
I had a new photo hunter join us this month. Paige of “The Authentic Me” found her way over via Carol’s blog. I discovered through Paige’s post that we have several favorite things in common and that I’ll have to spend some more time checking out her site.
Robin’s favorites photo hunt presented us with a gorgeous collection of collages. Robin has a great talent for making these, and what better way to show lots of favorites when you are having trouble deciding?
Dawn decided to show us the favorite people in her life, but cleverly protected the perhaps somewhat-photo-shy by having them hold cameras in their pictures. She was also lucky enough to capture a beautiful swan nesting photo – something very new for me and a real treat to see.
I’ve not been one for sticking tight to deadlines when it comes to these photo hunts, and it is a good thing, or we might never get to see a photo hunt from my sister! But Jennifer came through, and I swear her pets that she features in the first shot must be having some sort of conspiritorial conversation. I love the refreshing look of a drink outside on the deck, and of course she was able to find a great shot for a bonus.
And last, but certainly not least, was Deb, who decided to go with a spring-themed favorites photo hunt when she realized that a lot of favorites just weren’t available for photo-taking in April. She shares a truly stunning shot of a beautiful tulip. She says she just might do some favorites for other seasons of the year too!
If you happened to miss my favorites photo hunt, have a look right here.
I hope you’ll have the chance to check out all the great photo hunts – and it looks like many of you have as I popped around getting the links for this post – and make someone happy with a nice comment. I’ll be back at it in June, with a fresh photo hunt for you, as long as my ready-for-summer-to-arrive brain is able to dream up something interesting for you! Thanks for participating and I hope you had fun!
