I guess I wasn’t the only one entranced by the scenery a week or two ago near Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle. The sunset over Puget Sound was pretty darn nice, don’t you think?

For more skies and sunsets, visit Skywatch Friday. And you might like to visit the folks at Scenic Sunday, too, even though we are early for that one.

This is the plate I made for New Year’s eve to go with our ritual crab and creamcheese dip and potato chips. I love veggie platters. People only really eat raw vegetables when they are cut up pretty and on a plate in front of them. This assortment is especially fine because the carrots and purple cabbage came FROM MY GARDEN. That is so exciting to me, especially since we had a serious cold spell last month. But the cabbage waited in the fridge and the carrots waited in the ground! Their green tops were ratty from the freezing weather but the carrots are just fine, if not even better than in the summer. I will grow them again, that’s for sure.

For more ruby redness seen in photos around the world, visit Ruby Tuesday. And Color Carnival is back!

Even though winter just got here, officially, I’m already thinking towards the bulbs of spring. These tulips were at the New York Bronx Botanical Garden last May. For more cheery splashes of yellow, visit Mellow Yellow Monday. Let’s have a dream of spring tulips, shall we? And hie on over to Scenic Sunday while there’s still a bit of Sunday left.

Yes, this is with the new camera, but unfortunately I did not have the right settings in place, and the quality of this image, which is straight out of the camera, is pretty poor. But isn’t it a lovely scene? There I was down near the water, with such a sunset and the ferry right there, as scenic as it gets, and fumbling around in the almost dark I just failed to get it right. Darn. Well, try to imagine it with sharp, brilliant edges, and all the water ripples showing.

Visit Thursday Challenge for other special images. This week is free choice as to theme.

This is my friend Lyle’s dahlia garden. You can see the telltale shadow of me trying to photograph with one hand while holding the bouquet I had just picked in the other. Oh, the warm and sunny days of summer!

For more lovely flowers, visit Flowers For Today.

Santa came a bit early and I got a Canon Powershot S90! Here’s a very appropriate photo of the dawn, taken yesterday morning in my backyard, as my first post with the new camera. The only benefit of the days starting so late is I get to see the actual dawn sometimes. Have you guessed I am not naturally an early riser?

It’s going to take me awhile to get comfortable with the manual control features (which were part of the reason I got it) of the new toy. And it’s very small, no bigger than the 3-yr. old Canon point-and-shoot it replaced. Another plus is it does REALLY great in low light indoor situations without a flash, which I prefer in most cases. But so much to learn! I prefer things simple but I am pledged to master this.

Can’t wait to see what it does in the garden with flowers. For that I must wait.

For more skies of happiness and inspiration around the world, visit Skywatch Friday. And have a great holiday.

There’s a Winco grocery store in Renton, not too far away, that not only has great prices but has a parking lot with very sculptural trees and a big sky, too. This was taken last week. We are now entering the darkest week of the year (in the Northern hemisphere, of course), and soon the days will be on the upswing. Let’s hear it for the Solstice!

For more skies seen round the world, visit Skywatch Friday.

And thank you so much for those who clicked through to the Photoblog Awards and left a comment or a vote. I appreciate it so very much. And thank you to everyone for putting up with all that repeated blurb about it! We are done now.

Here’s another photo from that letterpress workshop I took. Visit Ruby Tuesday for more photos with red in them. And of course, Color Carnival for more brilliant colors. Have fun in blogland!

And because this just floated my boat, so to speak, I’ve tagged this Best Post of the Week.

On Friday evening I took two craft workshops. One was making handmade snowflake blockprint giftwrap, way fun, and the other was a mini Letterpress workshop. They were both so cool. Here is a photo from the letterpress class of some of the ink ready for us students to roll over the letters we had arranged (backwards, of course) in a tray, ready to image.

For more visions of cheerful yellow, visit Mellow Yellow Monday. And for more thought-provoking close ups, check out Macro Monday. If you like brilliant color, toddle over to Color Carnival, too. And aren’t the Reflections cool?

PLEASE IGNORE IF READ BEFORE about the 2009 Photoblog Awards. If you like my photos, please vote for this photoblog before Dec. 15 and leave a comment in the link  below. You have to register (name and password only) and then click on the word Vote in the upper left. Thanks very much! Photoblog Awards 2009

I just can’t get over the brilliance of autumn leaves I sometimes see around here. This is a straight-out-of-the camera (SOOC) shot, no Photoshop at all, thank you very much. Sometimes I do tweak just a tiny bit, but rainy skies can be your friend in photography. The even lighting helps get a perfect exposure, even on the Auto setting. I also rarely crop. Compose on the fly, take lots, and hit delete if you don’t like it. Digital rocks!

Visit Ruby Tuesday for more red loveliness, and Color Carnival for more scintillating colors of all kinds.

PLEASE IGNORE IF READ BEFORE about the 2009 Photoblog Awards. If you like my photos, please vote for this photoblog before Dec. 15 and leave a comment in the link  below. You have to register (name and password only) and then click on the word Vote in the upper left. Thanks very much! Photoblog Awards 2009