Photo Play: March 2026

March was cool and dry. We had fires south of town that were really scary. Thankfully those were pretty quickly contained.  But there were a lot of days when the smoke on the air just made being outside miserable. By mid month the temperatures had warmed up enough so that you could see a few things blooming here and there. There was enough going on that my camera came out of the bag a bit more frequently.     

Unless otherwise noted, all photos taken with a Canon 70D DSLR with a Tamron 18-400 mm telephoto lens.  

There was one rainy day early in March. It wasn't nearly enough to take the edge of what had been a very dry winter.  But it did make for some interesting through the window photography. 

You can see the tree is just starting to get its leaves, but the berries haven't fallen off just yet.  It reminds me of a very soft focus oil painting.  

We needed to run some errands one day mid March, something My Guy isn't fond of.  So I bribed him with a walk along Pathfinder and lunch after the errands. That was a productive day on the photography front.  

Fallen Tree

Red Buds

More Redbuds

Toothwort

Virginia Creeper

Winter's Left Overs

Winter's Left Overs II

The spring flower are always fun to see and they are one of my favorite things to photograph. They are easy targets. It's harder to photograph a landscape that is still mostly brown. But the bright red mixed with the deep green of the Virginia Creeper against that textured tree surface is pretty eye catching. That's probably my favorite photo from the walk.  For the downed tree and the brown leaves, it's all about capturing the textures.   

I don't normally include photos from my sewing room. Those are usually pretty focused on showing what the project looks like.  Every once in a while I do take one that is just a bit different from my typical.  

Taken with my old Sony Cyber-Shot DSC 9V, this close up is more about the textures and colors than it is about showing progress on the project.  

So March wasn't a bad month, I did actually use my camera. We were on vacation in April, so the camera came out of the bag more then normal.  I should have at least a couple of shots to post from our wanderings in Texas.  

Photo Play: January and February 2026

My quilting efforts this year have been pretty good. Not so my photography efforts.  One of my goals for 2026 was to take at least one photo per week.  Hasn't happened.  So there aren't a lot of photos from the first couple of months in the year. Though looking back, I did try more in January than I did in February.  But in the end, only 2 photos from each month made the cut for this post.  

All photos taken with a Canon 70D DSLR with a Tamron18-400 mm telephoto lens.  

It was incredibly cold in January, so being outside was just not fun. Both January photos show something warm. 

My Guy likes to bake when it's too cold to be out and about outside. These were a new recipe, brown butter cookies.  They were very yummy and didn't last very long as they were wonderful with coffee or hot tea. I thought this photo would look just right in a cookbook. 

I was reading a photography book in January, "Extraordinary Everyday Photography" by Jed Manwaring. The book is about capturing the details of everyday life, the stuff you see all the time. I snapped this shot at lunch one day. 

 

My Guy spends most of the winter in very lived in flannel shirts.  You can just barely see his glasses peaking out of the top of that pocket. I'm not sure it's a great shot technically, but it makes me smile.  It's so easy to take those weekend lunch times, with him in his slightly frayed flannel shirts sitting across from me for granted. So maybe there something to capturing those every day details we just don't consciously think of?    

February was more cold, cloudy days. Everything was still mostly brown. I did brave a walk one day early in the month and took some interesting shots. 

Any guesses?  Both photos are of a frozen lake.  The first one reminds me of sand, rather than ice.  

That's it for the first two months of the year. With spring making an appearance about mid March, I did get out with the camera a bit more that month. We were on vacation in April and the camera was out when we were hiking. I've not taken much since.  I haven't finished reading the photography book either. I'm going to need to change my game a bit if I want to do more on the photography front.  

Photo Play: 2025 Summary, 2026 Ambitions

My blog is mostly about the quilty stuff that goes on in my sewing room. If you are here for that, I won't be offended if you skip this post. 

Since I've retired, my goal has been to do more photography and learn to do it better. I've been retired a little over 3 years at this point and I'm not sure there has been much improvement in the more or the better aspirations.  Looking at how I did on my 2025 goals says a lot. 

1. Take more pictures.  Nope that didn't happen.  I only had 79 photos I felt that were worthy of posting, versus 112 from last year.  

2. Take more walks, go more places:  The more walks didn't happen, nor did I go more places. But I do think I used my cell phone more this year to take photos while we were out and about.  

3. Continue to learn my camera functions: Major fail, no effort at all on this point.

4. Keep studying photography via books/videos: Another major fail, I didn't read any books on photography in 2025. 

Before writing up this year's ambitions, I reviewed the last 3 year's photos, with My Guy's help and picked one that stood out for each year. Maybe not the best technical photo of the year, but that the one that elicited a response from both of us.  

2023

Canon 70D w/Tamron 18-400 mm lens

2024

Canon 70D w/Tamron 18-400 mm lens

2025

Canon 70D w/Tamron 18-400 mm lens

None of these three are my typical subjects. The Tamron lens is probably my most versatile, so it's the one in use most of the time.  What else did my review show?  My shots from 2024 included a lot of, "what if I tried this". There was almost none of that last year. Photos of flowers and butterflies were more than 90% of my photos Those are my favorite subjects. They aren't bad subjects, but maybe not the most interesting. 

So what's the plan for 2026?  

1. Take a photo every week. Hopefully that will encourage me to look harder for interesting subjects. 

2. Study both photography techniques and my camera operation.  One photography book a month, a chapter on my reference books on the cameras.  

I'm going to leave it at just two for this year.  Hopefully both will get me taking more and better photos. 

Photo Play: November and December 2025

November was busy and December was too. I had a hard time getting into the holiday season last year, so just didn't get my camera out like I normally do.  Since there weren't very many photos, it seemed best to just combine the two months.

Compared to all the I Phone shots from October, all the November photos were shot with the Canon 70D with the Tamron 80-400 mm telephoto lens.  All the photos come from an early November walk along the local walking trail. We don't see peak fall colors here till early to mid November. The trees change just as the autumn winds pick up. Our fall colors don't last long. 

The days were still pretty warm in early November. A few butterflies, like this Common Buckeye were still out and about. 

The only interesting photo from December was the one I took with the I Phone 12 of our small Christmas Tree.

I didn't use a special filter (at least I don't think I did, the I Phone sometimes does it's own thing).  I like the colored streaks from some of the lights.  

That's the last of my best of photos from 2025.  I'll take a look back and see how what made the cut fits with the photography goals for 2025.  I know I didn't do as much as I had hoped, but there some nice shots from last year.  That's enough.  

Photo Play: October 2025

It's been a while since my last Photo Play post.  I need to catch up on what last year's photography looked like before I decide my photographic direction for 2026. The plan is to review and wrap up last year's efforts before the end of this month. 

Life was busy in November and December last year. After spending the last week of October in Houston with My Girl, we were back down there the last week of Thanksgiving.  Which meant I was really busy catching up at home and didn't take much time to look over my photographs.  I wasn't sure there would be anything to post, I couldn't remember if I'd taken much of anything. But looking back, we took a trip to Eureka Springs, AR early in the month.  I didn't use my big camera much, but the I-Phone got a work out.  

Fountain in Downtown Eureka Springs

Arkansas had the same warm autumn we did, things were still really green and blooming the first week of October.  

Leaf Detail

Wingstem Seed Head

Asters

Blue Asters

Some leaves were changing colors, you could find a few on the ground here and there.  

Autumn Color of a Virginia Creeper leaf

While we were in Arkansas, we took a trip over to War Eagle Mill. It's a working mill and they grind their own flour. During Covid when bread making took off, the only place we could find bread flour was to order it directly from this mill.  My Guy stocked up while we were there and we took a walk around the grounds. The mill wheel is driven by War Eagle Creek. Around one side of the mill, I found this poor fella. (Taken with a Canon 70D/Tamron 18-400 mm telephoto lens).  Makes you take that warning sign just a bit more seriously doesn't it?  

Prisoner or Victim?

We also took a day to hike the Leatherwood Lake Trial.  (Canon 70D/Tamron 18-400 mm telephoto lens)

First of the Autumn Leaves?

Lake Fauna

My Guy normally carves a couple of pumpkins before Halloween.  They were sitting in the entry way for a couple of days.  Have you every looked up close at the texture of a pumpkin?  (Canon 70D/Sigma 105 mm macro lens)

Just to show how wacky the weather was in Oklahoma this fall, the following picture was taken in late October. The roses were still blooming and the Monarchs hadn't made it all the way south just yet. Taken with my I-Phone 12. 

My photos from October look more like spring than autumn. That's just how it was this year. If I have a favorite, its the last photo. But not a bad effort for the month.  The I Phone camera works pretty well.  There wouldn't be so many nice photos, if my only camera was the DSLR.   

Photo Play: September 2025

 After dealing with computer problems this week, I was glad to be able to sit down and go through my September photos. Not sure what the issue was with the computer but it finally recovered after a hard shut down and reboot. First thing I did after the reboot was to back up everything to an external drive and email myself some files (mainly guild BOM instructions) that would be disappointing if I didn't have access too.  

September was another busy month.  The first week of the month we moved Grad Girl (still need to come up with her new blog moniker).  That took a week and then I stayed with her the first week of her new job to help out.  Half the month was gone before I got home.  So there wasn't much on the photography front for September. But My Guy and I took advantage of being in downtown Houston after dropping off Grad Girl for her first day of work to visit the Houston Museum of Natural Science.  I didn't think to take my DSLR, but my I-Phone 12 got a good work out during our tour of the Cockrell Butterfly Center.  

Owl Butterfly

 

Blue Morpho Butterfly (brilliant blue when their wings are open)

Postman Butterfly

Tiger Butterfly

Variable Longwing Butterfly

Doris Longwing Butterfly

Tiger Longwing Butterfly

Clipper Butterfly

Butterflies are a lot like flowers, you can't just photograph one. I have lots more photos of butterflies, but these are well framed photos, probably as good as I could do with the DLSR.  Some of the shots have been cropped a bit, but overall, the I-Phone took some good shots. 

I did pull out the DLSR one morning to capture the morning sunshine coming into the office (Canon 70D DLSR with a Tamron 18-400 telephoto lens)

I'm not sure it's a great photo, but I wanted to try to capture the light and shadow of the rising sun outside the office window. It was the shadows of the leaves that first caught my attention.  I'm considering this shot an interesting experiment. I still need to tweak a few variables to get a great shot, but it wasn't a complete miss. 

Of all the butterfly photos, I like the blue Clipper butterfly shot the best. It's currently displayed on the computer display as the background.  Do you have a favorite?  

Photo Play: August 2025

August was another busy month this year. It was so nice to have Grad Girl home for a bit, but she was busy with interviews that meant road trips to Texas. That left me cat sitting while she was on the road.  I spent a lot of time out on our back porch because Queenie loved being outside. As in July, most of August's photos came from our own back yard.  The difference is I did take the DSLR out with me one day.  So most of the photos in this post were taken with the Canon 70D paired with a Tamron 18-400 mm telephoto lens.  Some photos have been cropped.  

These three photos are from the back yard taken with the DSLR. 

Indian Blanket Seed Heads

Sunset

The backyard photos wouldn't be complete without one of the reason why I was in the backyard.

Queenie on the Hunt

The last photo was taken with my I-Phone 12 while Grad Girl and I were apartment hunting in Houston. 

South Beltway 8 after the Rain

That yellow afternoon light after a late summer downpour so common in south Texas was just too interesting to not try to capture it.  

I take a lot of photos of flowers, they are my favorite photographic subject.  It's harder for me to look for other photo opportunities. One of my problems this year is that I've been in my habitrail and haven't  ventured out much. That changed in September and October. Lots more photos because we went places. I need to keep that in mind for next year's photography goals. 

If I have to pick a favorite for this month, it would probably be the photo of Queenie. She's so hard to capture in a photograph and that one captures her focus on getting to explore and hunt outside. Something she doesn't get to do often as an apartment cat. A close second is the photo from Houston. It's not a great photo, but it captures the light of the moment, which is an area I struggle with photographically.  Do you have a favorite?  

Photo Play: July 2025

There aren't a lot of photos for July, but there are a few that stood out.  Most of those come from my I-phone as it's the one camera that's with me pretty much anywhere I go.  You can decide if "the best camera is the one you have with you" is true.  

The first photo was my second choice for the "Reflections" family photo challenge.  It's the only photo this month taken with my Canon 70D DSLR. I used a Sigma 105mm macro lens.  

It was close between this one and the one I used for the challenge. I have noticed that I take a lot more photos when I'm working on getting photos for the challenge. 

The remaining photos were taken with my I-Phone 12, all of them were taken either in the house or in our back yard.  I spent a lot of time in July out on our back porch with Queenie while she was eating grass and chasing bugs.  

Queenie Cat

Wheel Bug, one species of Assassin beetles

Bee on a Basket Flower

My top two for this month are the rose reflection and the picture of Queenie.  Black cats are hard to photograph, it's hard to get a lot of definition, all that black tends to just blend together.  Maybe not one of my better months, but it is nice to know I can still take interesting pictures when I'm just hanging out with the cat.