New Camera!

For our anniversary this year, Felix and I decided to buy ourselves a new camera! Being mostly clueless about photography, we're still figuring out how to take the best pictures with out new Cannon Rebel XT. Here are some of my first shots.

These three pictures are from the first night we had the camera. The cactus was a gift from my sister and is currently sitting on our bedroom windowsill.

Felix and I went for a walk to try our hands at night photos. This is probably the best moon shot I've ever managed.

Flowers outside one of the businesses in the neighbourhood.

Tree in the dark. These leaves look white but they're actually green!

I'm not actually sure if Felix or I took this photo but I love it, so I decided to include it anyway :)

My attempt at a sunset photo with delayed exposure...this doesn't work freehand!

This attempt worked much better.

Hands-On Labour

My boyfriend and I spent the weekend fixing up his house for sale. Since this took up almost my entire weekend, this week's pictures are from our hard work!

Painted Hands. So I'm a slopping painter, but with the interesting tile underneath, my lack of skill gives a great effect!

Broken Glass. One of our tasks was to fix some broken windows. This window was cracked right across in an interesting pattern.

The mess from fixing the window.

Window film we removed, I love the lighting in this one.

Paint Cans

So paint is kind of boring - but with the help of Photoshop, I spiced up these paint cans!

Sponge paint brush

Reflections

I got into reflection pictures while we were renovating. I really like the effect of glass - we're going to try doing some more like the last two - you can expect it in the upcoming entries.

Mirror Reflection

Cleaning windows..

This is my favourite for this week! It's really interesting because the glass picks up the texture from the carpet underneath and reflects Felix standing above it. This is not photo shopped at all, all natural!

First Signs of Spring

The beginnings of a fantastic garden.

Well it's April and the sun has been kind enough to join us for the Easter long weekend. This entry is all pictures of the new growth in our garden. I love this time of year, because everything suddenly comes back to life!

Little purple flowers pushed their way through all the debris laying over our garden - this was taken after the area around them was cleared out.

This is the bush at the back of the garden where the buds are going absolutely wild!

A lonely tulip bulb drying out in the sun. The squirrels took off with this and all his brothers in the night.

The Thyme from last year still going strong!

A lonely purple crocus

I love this picture because you can see the debris that makes up most of the garden this time of year, and then there is this little bush out of nowhere. It's a cool little plant because the flowers are different colours.

ZEUS! This is a clay head I made from a mold my sister bought me for my birthday one year. I think it looks great in the garden.

This is my favourite picture this week because of the way the flowers are laying down before Zeus :P

Little yellow flowers bursting to life

The raised bed made of old rocks from the house foundation - R-R-R!

Our little tree, bursting with life!

The BEAUTIFUL BLUE SKY in April with our little tree reaching desperately up to the sun

Our Resident Blue Jay trying to visit the bird feeder, but too chicken to get that close to people, so he watches patiently for an opportunity

Snow Monsters

Winterlude 2010, wk. 3, Gatineau, QC

With the end of Winterlude looming (actually it's been over for a while now, because I haven't had time to post this!) I forced some of my family members to join me on my trek to Jacques Cartier Park to see the "Snow Park". Every year the park is transformed with truckloads of snow sculpted into slides, mazes and giant masterpieces. Alongside there is ice fishing, urban knitting, trampolining, and of course beavertails.

The snow sculptures are made by teams from each province and territory in Canada for competition. - hope you enjoy this week's pictures!

Under the advice of my sister, I have decided to pick an "author's choice" and allow my followers (yay for my one follower!) to pick a "follower's choice"

Follower's Choice: Like one of the pictures more than the others? Let me know which you like best - next week I'll post the most popular!

LAST WEEK'S FOLLOWER'S CHOICE: tie between The Chimera and The Mermaid

Thanks for voting!

Author's Choice: Every week I will pick my favourite picture and try to explain why. My choice is marked with a ♥

Traditional hockey mask carved out of the side of a snow hill

Montreal Canadians Goaltender

I loved this guy, they had carved the whole side of the hill to look like Banff and he was just cruising down the slope!

I think this is suppose to be a snowboarder but his snowboard is curved like a ski...

It took me forever to take this picture with all the wind, but I almost got it completely straight!

This is my second favourite picture this week - flag action shot!

This guy made me laugh. The detail on the fish is incredible!

Just to show how massive these sculptures are, my lovely baby sister posed for me. She may be young, but she's tall - aka these things are huge

This was probably my favourite sculpture because of all the detail, it also won first place in the competition

Climbing ice cliffs

The Beaver - he was melting a bit, but he still rocked!

Apart from the snow stuff, there was also knitting stuff - my other hobby! There was some really awesome yarn bombing in the park.

♥My Favourite! I love this picture because all the different strands have slightly different amounts of clarity, giving it a textured effect.

Cute piece of knitting.

snuggly tree.

These are pieces of artwork up on display in the park

And of course, THE ROCKET - Maurice Richard's statue outside Jacques Cartier Park