Extras

I am loving the "extra" pictures I have been able to get due to the photo challenges every Friday. I have gotten some really special shots as a direct result.

There was, of course, that gorgeous pucker from last week. They WILL be printed.

Then there is this one that never got blogged, from the "SQUARES" challenge:


Yesterday, after thinking about "lines", I hauled the childer to the railroad tracks with a few props~a hobo sack (cloth napkin with sandwiches inside) and an older-than-dirt case of Matt's and wound up with a few nice shots that wouldn't have ordinarily been had, if it hadn't been for the LINE challenge. And a few good memories, too!

So YAY for Foto Fridays!

Some "extras" from yesterday. Less for the foto challenge and more just for ME. ;-)

Tipping his hat, like a "gentleman":


Got the Hobo bit right down:


It is almost impossible to get a real Corynn face these days. She makes these cheesy smiles that are SO not her. I much prefer silly faces to pure cheese. The photo on the left I told her to look as if she had been waiting all day for the train. I wish I could be so cheerful when I had been waiting all day for a train....


Looks like a lovely glimpse of childhood at first glance, and then you notice the dead and putrid oppossum just beyond her feet. HA!


THEN, we heard a whistle and some dinging and saw a train coming on down the track. We raced off the tracks in plenty of time but I was amazed at how fast they seem to go when you are on the tracks compared to how slow they seem to be going while you are driving beside them. YIKES! I will say, the whole incident left Andrew shaking in his boots. I don't think he realized that trains would actually COME. (Neither did I, for that matter) He kept looking around nervously waiting for another train to just barrel him over. Poor guy.

Strawberry girl had been napping until the train roared by... so she got in a picture too. Even though her bonnet pretty much covers her entire head.


This last one makes me sick. It is alright but it is a FAR cry from what should have been.

You see, right after the train incidence and Andrew's ensuing panic that another train was headed his way, a white truck stopped directly on the road and sat there. I don't know what he was doing, likely taking a call or looking at some GPS thing, but it gave me the heebiejeebies. (I am paranoid, I know.)

I got Adele sitting on the box and the children were lined up perfectly and miraculously, all were looking at me, smiling--what's more they were REAL smiles and not those fake "cheese!" smiles. I started taking the pictures.

Except. They wouldn't take. I looked to see what was wrong. Nothing-except the shutter button would not press. Over and over I tried. Then I thought about another train. Then I thought about the stalker on the road. And my brain fried into a bazillion pieces and I said FORGET IT.

The kids all resumed play and I took my battery out, put it back it, tried again and it was fine. My camera has been giving me fits like this lately. It even has a hard time auto-focusing (which isn't a problem since I do it all manually---except when I try for self-portraits. blech)

I tried again but this time the kids were weird and made funny faces and Adele' didn't even LOOK at the camera.

ugh.

I'm telling you-those pictures would have been seriously wall worthy.


I think I may have to break down and take my camera in to be looked at. This is depressing since my sewing machine is STILL being fixed. My two most wonderfully therapeutic opportunities for self-expression, and they are all going haywire on me at the same time.

How depressing....