Ahhh. Finally completed this WC weekly challenge from last week. I felt oddly out of touch with doing human portrait. But, once I began to remember the knack it became a joy to work on. I am very pleased with the effect of the eyes...almost to the exclusion of the rest of her features. The creative muse has returned...at last.

My creativity is back!!! Thanks to Roly Poly Oly. He is a HuskyX that we took care of for 2 weeks for friends. And here he is. It was a joy to draw him and a pleasure to give the drawing to his folks! Now maybe I can get back to the pencils.

This cheeky little fellow was sitting atop the step railing peeking in to see where his best buds...Zak and Freedom...had gone to. I was sitting in my blind stalking birds at the feeder when I spotted this. I thought it was funny but I was glad the dogs did not see him from inside. They'd have gone wacko.

I took this landscape a week ago and I keep going back to it. It is not a particularly great shot. The day was somewhat dull and it was late for what little sun there was that day. There was evidence of either heavy frost or light snow on the higher elevations. I did use my tripod so the s lack of sharp focus is atmospheric. This was taken with a 55-300 mm zoom. What I'm getting at is...it's compressed, fuzzy and obviously low in light. BUT...for some reason it has captured my interest. Perhaps the textures, the lines of the various planes, the different blues are the reasons it appeals to me. It is truly representative of what our winter has been this year.

I had my blind set up for a few hours close to the bird feeders. I managed to get a few fairly good shots of birds and a squirrel and nearly froze my butt off. The blind was very cozy as long as the sun was shining. Once it disappeard behind the clouds I discovered that I was not dressed warmly enough. It was an interesting endeavour in any case. I am trying desparately to get inspired to draw again....Where did my creative muse go???? Where????

I've had another expedition through the woods and along the creek. We seem to be lacking sunshine this winter so when it does come around in the mornings especially it is cause for celebratory photo shoots. These are my two favorite shots. I loved the look of the creek but the light was not on it at all so the photo is a bit disappointing.

I did a few still life practices. This is my favorite. I'm not too adventurous with the manual settings but rather just trying to develop an eye for better composition. For the most part I turn to the auto settings. Baby steps first then I'll move on. If only I could remember to leave the white balance on the auto setting before I set out for outdoor shoots. I have learned to shoot in the RAW format so I can fix these kinds gaffs more easily at least. Oh well.