MY FIRST FLOWERS

My floral inspiration has been Sepintx who has some of the most awesome photographs of flowers, anole lizards and bugs (ewwww!).  Here is my first attempt at florals, these flowers were given to me recently by my co-workers as farewell gifts.  I'm as good at raising plants as I am at housekeeping.  Wish those poor flowers luck!

SPRING? WHERE?

This poor little guy is probably wondering why he left the warm South to fly home to this!  Knowing our wacky weather here the snow will melt and the sun will be back out by Monday, all he has to do is keep his toes warm till then.

 

Actually he's probably thinking... "WTF!  I should have stayed in Mexico with Punxsutawney Phil!"

DANCE WARRIORS

One thing I've noticed throughout my years as as a dancer... there are no ugly Native American Dancers in the arena.  The guys all look like they've stepped right off of the cover of a romance novel.  Another thing I've noticed is that there are more and more eagle feathers, and less and less turkey feathers as the dancers are more easily able to get the traditional materials for their outfits.  As for the more modern styles, well, they just get flashier and fancier, but they still manage to retain their traditional ideals.  Rarely do I look at an outfit and wonder 'whats THAT doing out there?'  They all seem to blend into one category... Cultural Pride.

I learned one valuable lesson this weekend... Auto-focus does not make you an Instant Photographer!  I was really disappointed with the quality, or lack of quality of my pictures.  My first mistake was to use the zoom, which just didn't achieve the crisp clear shots I was after.  I changed to my regular lense, but was still relying on the auto focus.  With that much action from the dancers the auto didn't know what to focus on, thus 258 blurry shots of some awesome dancers.  Next time its all manual!

NATIVE BEAUTY

These are just a few of the beautiful dancers at the Pow Wow.  Many dancers spend countless hours putting their outfits together. (Please don't ever make the mistake of calling them 'costumes') Many times family and friends pitch in to help with the intricate beadwork.  Some outfits have thousands of beads sewn on... each bead hand sewn one by one.  As you can imagine some dresses are quite heavy, especially the fully beaded buckskin dresses.  The jingle dresses are also very heavy, most of the jingles are made from snuff can lids.  My friend had 365 cones on her dress, one for each day of the year.

SPRING HAIKU

As spring befalls us
The hearty leaves of winter
Wear a heavy coat.

(okay, originally I composed a sunny, warm haiku, but when I attempted to capture a photograph that would portray the arrival of spring I was greated by a flurry of snowflakes.  I do believe Punxsutawney Phil is still hibernating in Mexico.... Springtime?  I think NOT!  Add 6 more weeks to winter.)

Weekend Assignment #51: Spring Haiku!

Note:  I posted this entry in my other journal, but it seemed to be more suited for my photo-journal so I have posted it here as well.  Please excuse the repetition.

RIDING INTO THE SUNSET

Kit Carson statue, Main Gate, Fort Carson, Colorado.

I wanted to take a color picture of this statue at sunset, but I haven't got a UV lens for my camera yet and I just couldn't get the effect I was looking for so I tried a shot in the shadows.  I'll try again later with a filter.

SYNCRONIZED FLIGHT

 

 

 

These two geese did a fly-by for me while I was waiting for my little buddy, the Kingfisher, to show up.  The kingfisher didn't make his appearance until I was driving away, but the geese made the wait worth it.