December 10 on 10: Wrapping up the Year

This post is part of the 10 on 10 blog circle. A group of women photographers post 10 photon the 10th day of each month. After reading this post please follow the circle starting with Trini in Norway.

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This month, this strange thing happened to me: 

One day before work, I stopped off at one local park on a cold morning, and I found a frozen puddle in a parking lot. The puddle had the most a lovely freeze pattern, so I took some photographs with my macro lens. 

After work, I processed my favorite out of the group and posted it on Flickr. The photo made it to 'Explore' and the next day, someone contacted me via Flickr and he wanted to purchase the photograph. This person offered me $250; he just wanted the file to print it himself so he could hang the photo on his wall. He said, "I think it will look great". 

I could not believe it. I took the offer; I actually got paid and I sent the file, but I have to admit to being a bit nervous about the whole deal. I have sold a few things before but mostly on Society6 and I do not get that much money for prints, etc., so why should I get this much money for spending 10 minutes taking pictures of a frozen puddle? Am I really some sort of fraud? Will the print turn out the way he expects? Do I deserve this? I felt torn . . . it's just a puddle--a lovely, lovely puddle, but anyone can do this. It was not hard; not hard enough.

Despite my second guessing and my guilt for the sale, I will try to be realistic and look at this as just something nice that happened to me and try to remind myself that I did not ask; he offered, (and I will keep my fingers crossed that the print this man makes from the file I sent to him lives up to his expectations). 

And here I have nine more rather random, but rather typical photographs (for me) that I took these past few weeks:

I hope everyone is having a great holiday season.

10 on 10: Hocking Hills, Ohio

For the kids fall break from school, we were able to take a couple of days away from home and I found a vacancy in a cabin in the Hocking Hills State Park--this is a place I have wanted to go for awhile because it was supposed to be spectacular, plus it is only 4 hours from my home in Indiana. The place did not disappoint. It was so amazing and beyond belief to me--with the caves, caverns, gorges, cliffs and wonderful trails through old growth forest in this non-contiguous state park.

Here are some of the photos I captured from our brief trip.

Ash Cave is not a true cave, but amazing none-the-less and the most prominent feature of the Hocking Hills area. In season, there is a tall waterfall that cascades over the edge of the cliff and I plan to be back there someday to see that wonderful sight.

Old Man's Cave was very crowded since it is the most popular 'attraction' in the area, yet the trails through the woods nearby were so tranquil and interesting. 

The most interesting spot to me was a true cave called Rock House.  The kids were impressed as well. 

Since Rock House was pretty crowded on the evening we went there together as a family, I decided to go back at dawn by myself in the hopes of being alone (which worked out, too!)

I will be trying to get back to this lovely natural place sometime in the future--perhaps in the spring when there should be an abundance of waterfalls to add more magic to the landscape.

This post is a part of the 10 on 10 blog circle. Please follow the circle starting with the lovely Kathleen.

October 10 on 10: Waiting for Fall Colors

Fall colors seem to be lagging behind this year in the mid-west compared with past years. I suppose this is due to our extremely wet June and July and the lack of cool nights so far. I think that will change soon and I still have nature's magnificent display of color to look forward to in the coming weeks. 

For now the woods are still quite green:

But in selected details, fall colors and patterns can be found:

And no matter what, this time of year brings opportunities for some of my favorite morning things: spider webs and dew:

This post is part of the 10 on 10 blog circle--a monthly collaboration with talented women photographers. Please follow the circle starting with  Kathleen Ries.

10 on 10: Morning at Fall Creek Gorge

I think I have mentioned this before on this blog, but I have been pretty lazy about photography these days at home in Indiana. I just have not been getting up and getting out, choosing to sleep in on weekends and, often, not going any place further than my backyard. It used to be I would go to a state park or nature preserve at least a couple of times a month and hike with the family. Nowadays, it is harder to get the kids to want to take weekend day trips because they are older and prefer to use their weekends doing 'their thing' (not mine).  They complain that it is boring going to state parks because all I want to do is take pictures and there are no mountains and on and on. Well, I get it; I can only force fun every so often and sometimes the forced fun will have to be more what the kids might want to do rather than what I want to do.  (I will do the whole forced fun thing sometimes, though, because the kids need to spend time with me and my husband, too).

I decided over Labor Day weekend, I would take one morning, get up, get out and go on my own to one of my favorite places in Indiana: Fall Creek Gorge, which is also known as the potholes. I had not been there in many years despite it being such a lovely location. This is just a small nature preserve, but it has some of the most interesting natural features in Indiana. A sandstone cavern has been cut by the creek over many decades into 'potholes'.

I got up at about five am on Sunday morning, had coffee and breakfast (I don't do anything on an empty stomach nor without my morning coffee, so this was necessary) and drove over to the preserve, which is a little more than an hour away. I was all alone there at that time in the morning which made me happy--one of my biggest (and irrational) fears is that I will run into some stranger who will see me with my camera and tripod and think 'who the heck does she think she is?' .

It was not as if I was going at the very best time of year for this locale (spring will bring the most water and fall, better color), but since I was going somewhat on a whim, I had to take what I got. I was happy enough . . . probably simply because I got up and got out. (Oh and besides that, I was back home before my oldest was even out of bed!)

I hope to make this a bit more of a habit--get up, get out, see what I can come up with. (But not every weekend because I do enjoy sleeping in sometimes, too :))

Below are the shots I got from my morning trip--a little glimpse of some Indiana scenery.

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The gorge and the potholes:

Water cuts through and cascades over the the rock cliffs. 

Water makes for interesting compositions:

Even though it is mostly dry at this point, the small waterfall up the trail is still pretty. 

This post is part of the 10 on 10 collaborative blog circle. Please follow the circle, starting with the talented Luciane.

August 10 on 10: Post Summer Vacation Let Down

This year, my post vacation blues hit me a little bit harder than usual and for the past couple of weeks, I have been feeling and acting grouchy. I know that I should not be that way because I am lucky that I even CAN take vacations. These feelings come down to wanting be somewhere that I am not--mostly physically because as nice as it is to live in the Midwest, I cannot say it has ever felt like my home. But, you know, time to snap out of it; get over it and accept; no more pity parties. I mean who wouldn't want to live their lives in their vacation spots; it's kinda why they are vacation spots, right? :)

For this month's 10 on 10 blog post, I have more pictures from the Adirondacks that I recently got around to editing. These are just random shots--no particular theme.

And then I have a just few from our other trip (another regular trip that we take) out to the lake houses that Dave's family owns on Lake Pend Oreille (pronounced Ponderay) in Idaho. I don't ever take a lot of pictures there because that trip always has more to do with visiting family and also working on the properties (nearly all of the building and maintenance of those properties is done by the family--including even the kids; it's a great experience and really quite fun even if it is labor intensive!) Here are a few photos of the lake and mountains. It is very different from the Adirondacks--the air is dry and the light is very clear and white (not something I am used to at all).

And here is one from back home, from the other day; I need to find my fun in focusing on the little things now that I am back home.

This is part of the 10 on 10 blog circle. Please follow the circle, starting with Connie Hanks.