On the 7th, we traveled an hour to the Maryland Renaissance Festival held every Fall. The jousting is a crowd favorite. Notice both lances broke on this pass. The red and white one is between the two knights while the black and white one is above the knight on the right. See more photos. 
Somebody(ies) teepeed the neighbor's house with toilet paper. This is why I'm carrying my camera almost everywhere I go. Until recently, I never knew walking our dog around the block would produce a photo op.
After the meeting, the Brownies make a mummy for their Halloween candy. Kim shows one that is a few wraps shy.
This is the start of my "500 photo weekend." The photo on the right is the 10,001st photo I've taken with the Nikon D70s. I took a little over 7,000 with the D70 (no "s") before I dropped it and broke it during a Red Sox / Orioles game in April 2006. The photos above were taken about half an hour before sunrise Saturday morning looking west. The eastern sky was much brighter. Two separate events happened to make me want to get up so early. First, the trees rapidly turned color within the last 48 hours. Second, we received our first rain in 34 days on Friday which made the street black and ground darker to contrast against the fall colors. I also love how the sky turns navy blue for a minute or two as it transitions from black to light blue. See more photos. 
I headed to a different location after I took the pre-dawn photos above to show changes as the sun rose. The photo on the left was taken by standing underneath the tree and pointing the camera in the general direction of the sun to add backlighting to the leaves. It really adds color. I discovered manual focus is a good thing on the photo on the right. The camera has 5 focus points and none of them were on the spot I wanted focused. I knew shots this close could have focus problems. One trick to to put the focus point on the spot you want focused, press the shutter half way down to lock in the focus, move the camera to recompose the photo, then press the shutter the rest of the way down to take the picture. This can cause the photo to be blurry on the little spot I wanted to be in focus. The distance between the plane of camera's image sensor and the spot I wanted focused and the spot that actually was focused are two different distances. At less than three feet (1m) from the leaves, a small distance makes a big focus difference. I switched to manual focus, composed the shot, focused, and took the photo. The veins in the center leaf are in focus, so I was happy. Just remember to turn the autofocus back on before putting the camera away. See more photos. 
Within an hour of the above photos on Saturday the 20th, we were at Ainsley's soccer game. This is the first time Ainsley's team (Tigers) played Anna's team (Rock Stars). Both are in first grade. We had to remind them before the game that playing soccer against each other was not the time to socialize. After I took a few close up shots, I gave Ryan the camera for most of the game to take photos. He did quite well despite the size and weight of an SLR with a long, 70-300mm zoom. He made me proud. :-) I only wish I had Betsi's camera to take pictures of Ryan taking pictures. It's fun to learn new things. See more photos.
I thought it was interesting that half the leaves were completely yellow while the others were completely green. 
At the HOA Hoe Down, Betsi's hand is covered in cotton candy, while Ainsley had her face painted, and Ryan enjoyed the moon bounce with a built in slide the best. Guess what I was doing. 
I've seen this path a hundred times walking Shadow around the neighborhood. It looked a little different today. Maybe the leaves are thinning out and there is more sun on the path. The tree along this path (right) looks like it has arms that want to reach out and grab you. I also took a picture of it in April.
Webelos (Cub Scouts) have 20 activity badges to earn over a two year period. A hike is one of the many requirements for the outdoorsman badge. The three mile loop in Great Falls National Park along the Potomac River offered some difficulty, climbing, and fun that the kids and adults could enjoy. I was amazed on how low the water level was when we got there. The red kayak in the right photo shows the normal water line on the rocks. I'll have to take some pictures in the Spring for comparison. 
The remains of the Patowmack Canal (left) runs parallel to the Potomac River. We traveled along the top of the cliffs (center) and saw lots of ropes tied to trees. We knew mountain climbers scaled down the walls, but we couldn't see any until here. Water carved out this hole in the rock (right) that is about the size of Ryan. See more photos. 
Sometimes I try things that just don't work. I tried to get the yellow tree (left) and moon (right) in the same shot. The moon was too bright and the tree was barely visible. I was too tired to try multiple shots to get a better exposure on the moon. There was a 13 second exposure on the tree and 1/15 of a second exposure on the moon. The moon probably should have been 1/60 of a second since it's over exposed. Oh well. The moon is photo number 522 for the weekend.
A proud Ainsley shows some of her gymnastics moves when parents and cameras were invited in for the last 15 minutes. She flew across the balance beam and spun around the bar and ended up in this position. It took more strength than most girls in her class could manage. 
Ryan and Jeff camped at Lake Fairfax for the Webelos REE (Really Exciting Event). The Boy Scouts sponsored the event and taught them outdoor skills. It was also a time to give the Webelos some idea of what the Boys Scouts do when they advance in a year or two. It was impressive to organize 160 participants and deal with the rain the first two hours on Saturday. Jeff is a fair weathered camper and arrived two hours after the rain stopped. See more photos.
Sometimes, you have to laugh. Can you tell she dressed herself? She normally does much better than this. You couldn't tell her the white shirt, pink flowered mini-skirt, the blue patterned pants, slipper and boot didn't match. She said she couldn't find the other boot. When Jeff announced he was going to the grocery store, she changed into some knee high black vinyl boots with a fuzzy cuff. Betsi said that I had to take her to the store and could not leave her in the car. I guess she wasn't embarrassed since she didn't know what to be embarrassed about. We'll make sure to show this photo of Ainsley to her future boyfriends. 
Our first frost on the 29th. |
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