Through the secret garden and farm fields

I treated myself today and walked home through the 'secret gardent' and farm property after work.  The air was cool and refreshing, and the sky a vibrant bright blue.  I only had my cell with me, and while going past familiar spots I smiled knowing that if I had my DSLR I surely would have settled in for closer looks.  I did take a few, and when going through the set I was surprised to find this one.  It must have been taken without me knowing as I was in motion putting my phone away.  This curving effect has happened before, but never to this extreme.  I'd so love to duplicate the method and consciously decide which objects to include in the frame.  It could be lots of fun.

Candy cane light

Took a new route last night while on our walk, and ended up on a stretch of road with a few Christmas decorations.  I had been playing around with lights and camera motion lately, and aimed to fill the frame with the shapes.  These experiments are much more entertaining to me than just photographing the lights as is.  I like the way these came out with the spirals, hearts, squiggles, and horizontals.

Beyond dead ends

Our walk last night brought us to the dead end right by the entry to the farm fields.  My young daughter was with me, and we stopped to listen to the sounds of the night.  We were surprised to hear frogs so late in the season, but maybe the warm temps brought them out for a bit.  Sparkle tugged to keep moving on, but with the ground wet from a light rain and the stroller, I didn't go further.  We sat, observed, then took a few flash shots of the dead end sign.  At first I wanted to stay stabilized to avoid camera shake, and then I had to let go of that as my daughter leaned on me for hugs.  I liked the results of shooting with flash, then intentionally moving the camera up and down or back and forth.  Of course my daughter wanted to try it, too, and the second photo above is hers.  It's one of my favorites out of the set, and got me looking at the tree in the background.  I then started shooting trees without the flash moving the camera up or down to 'paint' with the light and shapes.   Out of a handful attempts, I like the one of the pine the best.  It might be the darkness or just the novelty of it all, but it's something that will get me out there experimenting again.