You Capture: Get Down Low

I took these last night at the park with my girls. There they are near the top of the stairs. As I'm laying on the ground to get down low for the assignment I run into my friend who is a professional photographer. She was with her dog and her huge and intimidating camera and giant humungo zoom lense. She caught my attention by saying, "oh that will be a nice persepective!" or something like that. I'm not sure why I'm telling you all of this...maybe someone will read it. Anyway we chatted about photography and things like that. I shared with her the You Capture photo assignment...which she thought was a really cool idea. Anyway...here are my photos from last night.

What a dirty job! We all got railroad grease all over us by hanging out too long on the tracks.

Baby Wearing in Guatemala

One of the cultural habits that is immediately evident in Guatemala is the act of baby-wearing. Woman carried their young babies and even toddlers wrapped firmly upon their backs with beautiful fabrics that we Americans notice as being icons of Guatemala. American's tend to tow their babies in strollers. I myself have 3 children and we went through 3 different strollers designed for 3 different activities. Though I had strollers I also went through a period of time when I wore my babies but let me tell you it wasn't as easy as these women made it look. First, it was difficult to wrap the baby in a way that I felt both comfortable and safe. I think safety is a concept that we have been taught to become scared of not having enough of these days especially when it comes to our young ones. I'm sure our overly commercial/disposable society has a lot to do with that don't you think?

Ufff, this blog was never my intention to get overly wordy...so enough...just look and observe.

This woman was spotted in a town called Chicicastenango on market day. I'm a shameful photographer so the shots aren't that great.

Here is another woman at the Chichicastenango Market.
Woman in Antigua.
This woman came and sat next to me at on a bench at the park in the center of Antigua. She is holding her grandson. We chatted for awhile and she told me how her daughter was a working woman and she now takes care of her grandson during the days when mom is at work. Notice how he is holding her cell phone. I love it!! All but the picture below are photos of Mayan women. Almost all Mayan women still dress in their traditional clothing called a huipil. Mestizos which make up the minority wear western clothing.
Here is a woman doing her laundry in the town square with her baby in tow!

Guatemala 2010

Monterrico Beach on the last day of the trip. The red flag was out and I was traveling as a role model so I played it safe and waded in the shallow end.
The ancient Mayan city of Tikal is located in the jungle of Guatemala. Our tour guide grew up nearby and knew all of the shortcuts. I thought he was joking until after we left and I looked at the map. Hmm, the marked trails were wide and brown and we only walked narrow and green. Thankfully we didn't run into any snakes or tarantulas.

There was an abundance of flowers!! Especially orquids.
These are the colors and patterns of Guatemala. More to come...

ESTOY EN GUATEMALA!!!!!

Las fotos vendrán...

You Capture: SKY

This week's You Capture theme was sky. This is what it looked like last night around 7:30 pm after a major downpour, flash flooding, the works! Beautiful really.

Sunday Playday

It's hot here. My thermostat runs cold so I'm not complaining at all but the kids are. Sunday I decided to dump all the Christmas decorations out so that I could use the storage containers as personal pools for the kids. It kept them busy for much of the afternoon. The mama robin that made her nest just a few feet away was NOT happy with this new play place though...
All of their excitement was disrupting their feeding schedule. Mama robin nervously hovered in the trees waiting for them to leave. She made a few attempts to make a landing by flying over them but then changed her mind within a few feet.
While the kids were at play I was able to walk the length of the house and find other signs of life...
Hey what are THEY doing?

You Capture: Depth of Field

I stumbled upon this really cool website (clink on the link above) and decided to participate in this week's photo challenge. Depth of Field. It really kicked my butt because the camera was NOT doing what I wanted it to do. Ha ha...I'm afraid that I"m being a bit resistant and have a difficult attitude towards change towards my new camera which is a replacement for the one that was broken months ago. It isn't anything fancy just a point and click like my old one but it has taken some learning. Well, as I worked towards this challenge I constantly found myself saying...but my old camera would have...but in the end I came up with this...


This is the top of one of my bean poles...where the spider that finally ATTACKED me by JUMPING at me was hiding.
I really don't like spiders. I don't but this "jumping spider" as I have named them seemed small enough for me to deal with. And he was outside. I tend to do better when they are in their own environment and not imposing on mine.


This is what I was really going for before the whole spider incident.

Slow Down and Take a Closer Look

My front yard is a hillside chock full of weeds. Every once in awhile I go outside to pull weeds. I do it simply for exercise because they grow back faster than I can possible clear them all. Oh I have plans for this expanse but for now it is just too expensive, too huge, and too time consuming of a project to do on our own. For right now it is an acre packed with weeds. Thankfully the house rests at a dead end and the two neighbors don't mind.



But wait. Slow down. Let's take a closer look.
These just started blooming. Are they a variety of bleeding hearts maybe?
And these clusters are ready to open.
I love my new camera because it has a one centimeter macro button. I didn't even realize this was a bee until the picture came out. I guess my eyes aren't that great.
My daughter P was roaming the hillside picking flowers while I was crouching in the weeds. When I stood up she came running towards me with this wonderful bouquet! And then she tells me. "Each flower is doing it's own unique flower business. " And then she proceeded to tell me why she picked each variety.
I love that in some parallel way we were able to both see the splendor growing on the hillside.
The bouquet was our center piece at dinner last night and one of the topics of our conversation. Thanks to the hillside of weeds!

Muzzle Lickin' Good

If only my kids had this ability to clean up after themselves! Imagine my boy without a food stained shirt shoulder and my girls with clean shirt sleeves. And the corners of their mouths wouldn't look like a glazed donut all the time!

My son is 4 now. For his 3rd birthday we gave him a real hammer and a box of 250 nails because he learned pretty early on that the toy tools don't quite get the job done like daddy's do.
So watch out when you come to our house because you might just step on a board of nails. This artwork is everywhere. There seems to be more of it this spring because we have been building a deck.
Here is the piece he worked on last night while I was fixing dinner.
And a piece from a week or so ago that sat out in the rain.