I spaced that this was upon us.
I went out on a photo shoot for "water runs through it" this afternoon, and I feel certain I have my entry, so now I go and think "Spring".

I was completely oblivious to it being my job to be hostess for "Spring".

Yesterday, after I found last year's contest, first I panicked when I realized how late I was and then I got this awful sinking feeling that I may have thrown a wrench into the entire flow of things.

I really never dreamed that I would be doing this. I might be needing help, too, since I've never even posted a poll before, either. Maybe I'll practice this week just to see how the time thing works.

(I have tons of Springy photos, but none of them are even close to being contest material.)

just holler....

I had forgotten I had this shot.

But your flowerbox was pretty majestic, too.

I like that warm mat of dead leaves kitty is laying on, with new shoots of grass poking thru (they always manage to find the ideal snugness).

We've spent this whole Spring enjoying our newly adopted kitty, but none of my many pics make her look quite leonine, as your photo does. I've never been able to take good photos of our pets and with our old ones all now passed on, the motley assortment of snapshots I have can never do them justice.

Animals of Spring are unlike any other season, I think. Even our new indoor cat has acted like a kitten, tho she's more than five yrs old; the transition makes them come alive, somehow.

that pretty much roams free!

Surprisingly, I had been out that day looking for spring shots. Walking home, there he was! He
didn't even budge and let me shoot him from several different angles.

But we did have a great pair of friendly kitties--raised as brothers--who lived to be 14 and 17. So,
I did get some practice getting down on the ground to get shots of them.

I've probably got hundreds of the Skagit Valley festival pics, on my 'puter and sitting around in boxes, ha!

Not a one of them is quite as striking as the ones I've seen posted in this group over the years, your entry included.

Have you ever seen the work of Lee Mann and his photos of our bulb fields?

http://www.leemannphotography.com/index2.cfm?page=_cd&cdid=7

I was hoping for some fog when we were up there but alas it was mostly sunny except for a day of pouring rain. Maybe next year. This was about as close as I got to interesting sky.

I figured you could appreciate Lee's photos. This one of yours is equally magnificent!

You are fu*kin' with us!

Salem Lake was closed last year to build a new dam. It's all open again, and whenever I can scrape together the time and 4 bucks I'm out there!
The photo is of my friend.....I cropped her head off she would not want me to post her picture. We're so vain!

the person rowing.

Last edited Tue Jun 2, 2015, 10:33 PM - Edit history (1)

Honestly- I'm clueless. It's the reflection I like, and ist just like my camera saw it
=========
edit to add:
I was away from home when I typed in the above, and now, looking at it on my screen I see that the disturbance in the water from the paddle she had just lifted is what distorted the reflection.
I'm definitely good with it, in spite of seeing your point.

Love your cat with the green eyes, also liked your flower box.
I wish I were in Spoleto right now.

Having been at the beach...home for a few days...then Spoleto, no wonder I had forgotten
about Green Eyes.

It's all good. I still think I'm seeing something that isn't really there. Twilight zone time. Forget it!

Sometimes when I've looked at all three of the contest threads in past competitions, sitting there oohing and aahing at each photo as I scroll down thru them, it then becomes impossible for me to pick any single one when it comes to voting.

I'll put my mind to a silly test, "Well, you've always preferred animal and bird pics, that's what started you out on snapping photos, yourself.", answering back with, "But perfect vistas, capturing that endless stretch of nature, is something you've never quite been able to do, as much as you love viewing them for real." (talking to myself, here, to be sure), then I might settle on one particular shot, call my man over to have a look and share the admiration of it and indignantly spout off to him about the amazing clarity, the color, the details, the art, if he dares to poo-poo my choice, ha!

In the end, for most of the Photography contests, I'll ask myself, "Could you ever take such a picture as that?" to determine which ones will get my vote, but as I'm beginning to realize as the entries come in this week, "Spring" this year is gonna be one tough choice. I could never, myself, single out any one of them as better than another.

it's gotten to where I squint at them and think:
Does this say:"winner" ?
When I determine the "je ne sais quois" the I don't know what it is but it may have it - then I chose it.

But a few times I just post one that makes me really happy to have taken, and to heck with the votes.

was that one that I won the contest with. Let me tell ya, it took a lot of sheer nerve for me to enter it in a contest, for all of DU to see. None of my pics on my computer are really any good. I used to take really nice ones after my former mother-in-law gave me one of her outdated cameras, years and years ago...a very fancy one with extra lenses, but those photos sadly all went the way of termites and now, with no more film, I guess I've just given up trying to shoot anything nice with the stupid digital one that I use now.

Figuring out which photo to vote for in the contests is what always puts me in a quandary.

winning must have both enthralled, shocked, and scared you.
I remember clearly when I entered my first one, it was in a Seasonal Autumn contest and I was out of my mind nervous and made the top 5.
It was with a little point and shoot. I have a better camera now, but I still point and shoot. I've had way too much going on to rise above amateur, and I keep thinking that this ought to change.

Keep shooting. The kindness of some of the folks here kept me coming back.

I looked for something green and found something with...well rain. And green. And I found symmetry, which I always like.
It may not be a winner, but I'm okay with that. I'm limited with what I have.

And that fascinates me. I hope you will continue to show them and bring them on.
I would love to go to Mexico, but have nobody to go with me, and alone it's too nerve wracking to think about. And I don't want to do a packaged tour.

Loving them.

Hope all is well with you fizzgig.

It's dreamy and artsy.

I've always had a horrible relationship with adjectives. Dreamy and artsy are very kind words. Thank you.

and the test was a success!

whew!

Since we are currently under 30 submissions, I tossed in some tulips.

This year's Skagit Valley tulips came early due to weird weather, which did bad things to the Tulip Festival schedule.

This is also how I found out that my favorite lens needed to go to the shop to fix the sticky aperture blades; any aperture smaller than f/7.1 was coming out noticeably overexposed. All better now.

I had my very first error message recently that said "the lens and the camera were not communicating....please clean contacts". WTF? Haven't seen that one. Maybe I'm being too rough on my camera.

Probably depends on how dusty the environments are that you shoot in.

I am on the beach all summer shooting the beach volleyball tournaments, including lens changes. I will need to clean my sensor 1-3 times before the summer is finished. Haven't needed to do any specific cleaning of the lens contacts, but I would not be surprised to find out that my sticky aperture blades came from the dust of the sand over the years.

How do I go about doing that?

Is it the new link that's suddenly appeared for me, "super powers"?

Just say the thread is locked, and no longer accept submissions after your locking.
Memory says that once upon I time I had the power to really lock a thread... but I forget

Thank you kindly for all of your help with this, Mira.

I know I've probably bugged you to the extreme this whole week, but I do think I'll manage, now that I've got all of the picture titles and photo links saved and ready to copy into the polls (good advice!). And I will start it in the dark of night, so if I do mess up, my goofs hopefully won't cause any grief in GD before I can fix them (also good advice!).

Go to the submission thread, click on the superpower link in the op, and lock the thread.

Okay, here goes!

You'll see options for the thread.

You want the one that disallows anymore posting on the thread. Lock it, in other words. Reasons not specified.

"Reasons not specified" Gotcha!

He wants to know who gave ME that sort of power! (and that obviously, none of you know me very well, ha!)

He was standing here behind me saying just click the damn link that whole time...now he's yapping on, "Well, doesn't that make YOU feel important."

I'm might just kill him (after I feed him the half-flat of strawberries that I chopped up today).

Spring is BEAUTIFUL on DU!

I think that DU must agree on the beauty of the contest, too. Votes were pouring in fast all morning.

Someone commented that this contest was a "feast for the eyes"...it really is!

Shameless. Just shameless.

that probably could have run for the roses, heh heh!

Instead, I put up dying daffodils.