Golden Hour

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{linking up the above photo to mary ann's photo challenge and to click!}

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"You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by; but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by." ~ J.M. Barrie

Tea... in an Ice Cold World

Contrary to what you may think, this...

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...is not real tea. It's photographer's tea... very easy to make too! All you need is steaming hot water, an empty tea infuser, and some loose tea. You pour the hot water in a cup, add the empty tea infuser, and sprinkle loose tea all around, for decor. Oh, and if you're going outside with your 'tea', make sure you put a saucer on top, so the steam doesn't escape and is there when you start shooting. You can just barely see the steam coming out of my 'tea'. That's my fault though, should've done this against a darker background.

Curves Adjustment + Black and White

Curves Adjustment + basic Picnik edit

Curves Adjustment + basic Picnik edit

{entering the above photo in Lucia's photo challenge}

Curves Adjustment + basic Picnik edit

{entering the above photo in Kelsey's photo challenge}

Curves Adjustment + basic Picnik edit

Curves Adjustment + Black and White + basic Picnik edit

So after I 'finished' my tea, I took a photo of my shoes. Just because, well... I wanted to. And another one...

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Sorta.

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I also took a photo of the living room curtain this morning. A bit random, I know, but I felt I needed to add it to the post.

By the way, I wasn't planning on Picnik editing my photos. I just ran them through a basic Photoshop edit, like I always do, but after I uploaded them onto Flickr, I noticed they were a bit dark and decided it would be best to Picnik edit them directly from Flickr. It was really convenient.

Currently listening to...

While We Sing by Leeland

Love is On the Move by Leeland

Learn to Love by Leeland

Feel free to 'steal' my 'tea' recipe anytime! ;)

Meet Ayra

I'd like you all to meet Ayra. My new Canon 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS telephoto zoom lens...

She is amazing! I can focus on even the tiniest things from an unbelievable distance with her, which saves me lots of moving around. Here are a few photos I took with Ayra yesterday...

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I have the shore in focus on this one, and you can just see tiny snowflakes falling down right in front of those ducks. I thought it was pretty cool how it turned out! You can zoom in (click on) the photo for a better view.

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Curves Adjustment

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Christmas light bokeh!

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We have lights outside that change colour (from red, to purple, to blue, to purple, and then to red again). I took this shot while they were changing from purple to blue. Love the colours!

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And my two personal favourites (which I am entering into Lily's photo challenge)...

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What did you get for Christmas? :)

Growth... by Emily Grace

This shot was taken last year...

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...and this was taken a few days ago...

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{I'm also entering the above into Katie's iLove photo challenge}

A definite improvement, don't you think? ;)

A Tribute to Fall

It snowed today... for the very first time! Not a real snowfall, just a few flakes, but it made me realize just how soon we'll all be saying goodbye to fall. The leaves are almost all gone, and you can distinctly smell winter in the air. It makes me happy though, in a few weeks time, millions of snowflakes will be lying around, just waiting to be photographed. And then of course, there's Christmas, a time when gifts are exchanged and we take time remembering the greatest Gift of all. December will then eventually give way to January, my birth month. :) So you see, I have tons of things to be excited about! But I wanted to take the time to give fall a little tribute, let it know just how much I'll miss its colour. As the saying goes, 'a picture is worth a thousand words', so I'll let my photos do the rest of the talking for me. :)

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This photo reminds me of pine cones and snowball fights, must be the white 'snowy' background.

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The colours were all so pretty! And I love the touch the little unfocused green leaf gives to the photo!

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{entering the above into mary ann's photo challenge}

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Feels... mysterious...

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Here's a black and white version.

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Do you think you'll miss fall? I know I will. But still, I can't wait for December to arrive! :)

Of Skies and Sunsets

Just before I get started, I want to let everyone know that there is one more week before my photo challenge ends! If you would like to enter and haven't yet, please do so soon!

I am so sorry I kind of disappeared this past week! I've hardly had time to sit down on the computer and answer e-mails, look through blog posts, etc. So if you sent me an e-mail and I haven't gotten back to you yet, I want to let you know that I'm digging through my inbox and you'll definitely get an answer soon! :)

And now for the photos! Here are a few really cool cloud ones I took a few weeks ago. The sky that day was AMAZING! I can't even say the photos do it enough justice!

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SOOC Shot {linking up to Kel's photo challenge}

{linking up to A&M's photo challenge}

The following are a few sunset photos I took last week. Hope you enjoy looking through them! :)

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{The above photo is so sweet! Makes me want to smile! :) Linking up to mary ann's photo challenge}

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And before I end this post, I just want to give a BIG thank-you to Emily Grace from A Life Worthy of the Lord and Emily Grace Photography for the beautiful new blog design! Isn't it amazing? Comment below and let me know what you think!