Images and Words week 140: Fresh

Greetings from Amy and welcome to a new week of Images and Words!  I'm going to continue with and build on the New Year's Theme we've had going on with my theme of "Fresh."  Here is my entry:



I took this photo a couple of years ago on an incredibly prolific morning in which I had intended to go balloon chasing but the flights were cancelled due to high upper level winds. It was a beautiful fall morning so I went down to the Boise River where this incredible steam was rising. When I found this quote I knew this was the photo I wanted to use.

I hope you will enjoy my theme!

The Rules:

Each week we will post an original photo with words on it. The idea behind this group is to expand our minds through our photography.

Photos must be your own, but the words can be someone else's as long as credit is given after the words. 

Your post can either be serious, or if you'd like comical, but never obscene .

Posts can either have one word on them,quotes, or full poems ... Your choice.

All posts are to be done on your own site in a blog form with a link back to it being left here. 

New topics will be posted on Sundays.

Posts can be made through Saturday.

One post per person only please.

Images and Words week 135: Action!

Greetings from Amy and welcome to week 135 of Images and Words! My theme this week is "Action!" Here is my entry:



One advantage of living in a small town with minor league sports teams is it's easy to get REALLY good seats!  I took this photo at the home opener for the Idaho Steelheads, our seats were in the third row!  Even so, this photo was more difficult to shoot than you might think because the lighting wasn't very bright so I had to underexpose slightly to get any sort of reasonable shutter speed, plus I had to be aware of the stanchions holding up the protective glass (plastic). I was thrilled when it all came together for this one photo of Aaron Lewadniuk a moment before he shot his first goal as an Idaho Steelhead. Unfortunately, the Steelies lost the game 3-2 but sometimes it's a thrill seeing young talent that could (should) make it to the NHL, and I'll be able to say I got a good photo of him from way back when.

If you're interested here's the highlight reel from the game, I took this photo at about the 1:45 mark right before he passed the puck to Kael Mouillerat who passed it back for him to shoot the goal. This moment was described by the Steelhead's website and by the local paper as a "pretty give and go", and it was indeed "pretty"!  Coming down the ice you could just feel that they were going to score the goal. For some reason it won't let me embed the video, even though embedding is allowed, so here's the link if you want to watch it. I'll try to embed it in my first comment.

http://player.vimeo.com/video/30680794?autoplay=1

Also, he can fight too! Here's a video of him at the end of last season, his rookie season, when he was with the Ontario Reign. In the video he's wearing dark blue, number 20. I'm impressed with the way the he protected his face while the other guy  punched at him but couldn't land any blows, then at the right moment Lewadniuk turned the tables and got the other guy down to the ice. I'm having difficulty posting the You Tube video as well. Ugh! I've done this lots of times! I'll try to put the video in my first comment as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooL7MgsRMpM&feature=youtu.be

Images and Words Week 130 Halloween/Scary Fun

Greetings from Amy and welcome to this Halloween edition of Images and Words!  I'm honored to have the holiday again this year as I did last year, and I'm going to repeat the theme because I think itwas a successful blend of Halloween for those celebrate it and inclusive for those who don't. My theme is "Scary Fun".  If you celebrate Halloween then please feel free to post something with a Halloween theme, if you don't celebrate it then any thing that's scary and fun (or so much fun it's scary) will fit the theme. This is my entry:




I took this photo in the "Haunted Woods" which is where they dress up the woods as a Haunted House. It lasts for the entire month of October, and when it's not in use they leave the decorations set up which makes for some great photo ops.  I purposely took this photo with all of the empty space on the left for the purpose of making an Image with Words.  Does anyone else find themselves doing that?

I hope you will enjoy this theme again!

The Rules:

Each week we will post an original photo with words on it. The idea behind this group is to expand our minds through our photography.

Photos must be your own, but the words can be someone else's as long as credit is given after the words. 

Your post can either be serious, or if you'd like comical, but never obscene .

Posts can either have one word on them,quotes, or full poems ... Your choice.

All posts are to be done on your own site in a blog form with a link back to it being left here. 

New topics will be posted on Sundays.

Posts can be made through Saturday.

One post per person only please.


Happy Halloween!

Images and Words Week 125: Twilight

Greetings from Amy and welcome to week #125 of Images and Words!  My theme for this week is "Twilight" which can be either sunrise or sunset.  I expect you all will thoroughly enjoy this theme!  Here is my entry:

I took this photo last week at an "Evening Glow" event. The darker the sky becomes the more spectacularly the balloons glow!  But it also becomes more difficult to shoot because the balloons are moving.  Yes, my camera was on a tripod but that doesn't help stop motion blur of the balloons.  Still, I got some good photos.  I particularly like this photo of "Martha's Mink" burning and glowing so spectacularly with "Free Spirit" in the background and "BOB (Big Old Balloon)" in the foreground both looking shadowy.  I think it goes fairly well with the quote.

Here are the rule for playing along.

Each week we will post an original photo with words on it. The idea behind this group is to expand our minds through our photography.

Photos must be your own, but the words can be someone else's as long as credit is given after the words. 

Your post can either be serious, or if you'd like comical, but never obscene .

Posts can either have one word on them,quotes, or full poems ... Your choice.

All posts are to be done on your own site in a blog form with a link back to it being left here. 

New topics will be posted on Sundays.

Posts can be made through Saturday.

One post per person only please.

Images and Words Week 120: Animals

Greetings from Amy and welcome to week 120 of Images and Words. I'm sorry for my slightly late start this week, but this image took a LONG time to make.  My theme is Animals, which has been done before but it's always a fun theme with lots of possibilities.  Here is my entry:

This is part of my series of Images and Words that depict common themes among religions and science with the goal of spreading peace and understanding.  The impetus for this photo was the study about chickens and empathy (quote on the bottom), there wasn't enough room on the photo to explain the study but they specifically studied hens' reactions to seeing their chicks in distress (mild distress, they didn't want to torture cute little chickies!). Around the same time as the study came out I read the quote from the Prophet Mohammad, after that I knew it would be easy to find quotes from other religions.  There's a wonderful Jesus quote about birds, but it's specifically about sparrows and I wanted to use this photo of Francine and the chicks.  BTW, the chicks are almost four months old now so they are big, and they are beautiful, and they are almost ready to start laying eggs!  I hope you will enjoy my theme.

The Rules:

Each week we will post an original photo with words on it. The idea behind this group is to expand our minds through our photography.

Photos must be your own, but the words can be someone else's as long as credit is given after the words. 

Your post can either be serious, or if you'd like comical, but never obscene .

Posts can either have one word on them,quotes, or full poems ... Your choice.

All posts are to be done on your own site in a blog form with a link back to it being left here. 

New topics will be posted on Sundays.Posts can be made through Saturday

.One post per person only please.*

Images and Words Week 116: Unknown

Greetings from Amy and welcome to week 116 of Images and Words!  My duties this week sneaked up on me, cuz I'm having such a busy summer.  I didn't know what to do for a theme?  Then I remembered this photo that I took at the Idaho City Pioneer Cemetery and thought, "Unknown would be a good theme!"  If you can't think of anything for unknown then consider this to be an open theme, but while looking for a quote I found a lot of really great ones and many were very visual too.  Here's mine:

 

As I said, I took this photo at the Idaho City Pioneer Cemetery, these are grave markers of people whose names have been lost but their graves are still maintained.  This is the Chinese section where Chinese immigrants were burined. Back then, Chinese immigrants were barred from becoming American citizens, after their work was finished they had to go back home to China, unless of course they died here.  Ancestors are very important in Chinese culture, so a wealthy Chinese citizen who was a former resident of Idaho City paid to have the remains of the men repatriated to their home villages in China. It's highly likely no remains are still in the graves and if there are any remains then they belong only to women.  Still, the people of Idaho City maintain all of the graves to honor the memories of all the Chinese immigrants who contributed to the city's history--men and women, remains or not.

I hope you will enjoy this theme.  Again, I found a lot of really good quotes about the "unknown", but if you can't find any then please just consider this to be an open theme.

The Rules:

Each week we will post an original photo with words on it. 

The idea behind this group is to expand our minds through our photography.

Photos must be your own, but the words can be someone else's as long as credit is given after the words. 

Your post can either be serious, or if you'd like comical, but never obscene .

Posts can either have one word on them,quotes, or full poems ... Your choice.

All posts are to be done on your own site in a blog form with a link back to it being left here. 

New topics will be posted on Sundays.Posts can be made through Saturday.

One post per person only please.

Images and Words week 112: Worn

Greetings from Amy and welcome to week 112 of Images and Words. My theme is "Worn", here is my entry:

I'm turning my Images and Words skills toward activism!  This is the first image in a series that I think I'm going to call "Images and Common Thoughts" or "...Common Beliefs" or "...Ideas" or something like that?  The goal is to help spread peace, love, and understanding by showing that different religions, philosophies, and science share common ideas even though they express those ideas differently.  I chose "Poverty" for my first theme in this series because I had been reading different religious perspectives on the poor, then I remembered that Darwin was a very nice guy so I decided to see if I could find a quote from him about the poor.  When it only took me about 30 seconds to find it I realized that helping the poor is a truly universal ideal and I needed to make this I&W. My photo is my son's shoes, d'oh!  He's been resisting letting me buy him new shoes because money is tight, but honestly it's not THAT tight. We CAN afford to buy him new shoes, so I'm hoping that with his old shoes now immortalized he'll let me buy him a new pair.

I posted this photo on a few different pages on Facebook and it received a great response!  A lot of people shared it, and one person made it her profile picture.  I was really honored when a professor of religious studies said she wanted to use this image for her class!  She said that to make her Survey of Religions class more interesting she was taking a special look at the theme of "poverty" and how religions deal with it.  So I sent her a full size version of this photo and just asked her to keep my copywrite in tact, she's a pastor so I trust that she will.

I feel that "Poverty" is too narrow a theme for Images and Words so I'm choosing "Worn."  If you want to do "Poverty" then feel free, otherwise I think and hope that "Worn" will be a broad and fun theme.

The Rules:

Each week we will post an original photo with words on it. The idea behind this group is to expand our minds through our photography.

Photos must be your own, but the words can be someone else's as long as credit is given after the words. 

Your post can either be serious, or if you'd like comical, but never obscene .

Posts can either have one word on them,quotes, or full poems ... Your choice.

All posts are to be done on your own site in a blog form with a link back to it being left here. 

New topics will be posted on Sundays.

Posts can be made through Saturday.

One post per person only please.

Images and Words Week 108: Time

Greetings from Amy and welcome to week 108 of Images and Words! I keep declaring this string of illnesses and injuries to be over, but it hasn't ended yet. It might not end until the boys are out of school and are no longer exposed to so many cold viruses? I just have to wait out my time. And so I chose "Time" for my theme.

These aren't actually our eggs, I took this photo on the "Boise Tour du Coop 2010". At first I tried using a photo of Francine with our first egg that was laid by Lois, but honestly it was kind of painful. So I chose this photo for its calming complementary colors. I hope you will enjoy my theme!

Here are the rules:

Each week we will post an original photo with words on it. The idea behind this group is to expand our minds through our photography.

Photos must be your own, but the words can be someone else's as long as credit is given after the words. 

Your post can either be serious, or if you'd like comical, but never obscene .

Posts can either have one word on them,quotes, or full poems ... Your choice.

All posts are to be done on your own site in a blog form with a link back to it being left here. 

New topics will be posted on Sundays.

Posts can be made through Saturday.

One post per person only please.

*

Images and Words week 103: Everyday Miracles

Greetings from Amy and welcome to week 103 of Images and Words!

I wanted to choose a theme appropriate for Easter but not too Easter-y because not everyone celebrates it.  And I wanted to choose a theme appropriate for spring but not too spring-y because not everyone is experiencing it right now.  But most of all I wanted to choose a theme in which I could use this photo of my hen and day old chicks in front of the daffodils and with Easter eggs. So I looked for chicken quotes, found this one, and decided my theme should be Everyday Miracles.  I hope you will enjoy the photo and my theme.

This is my lovely hen, Francine, and our three new chicks Bonnie, Kendra, and Debbie.  Can you see Kendra and Debbie?  They're grey and black and are behind Bonnie.  Here's a close-up photo of the three of them.

Bonnie is a Buff Orpington (same as Francine), Kendra and Debbie are Silver Laced Wyandottes (when they grow up their feathers will have black edges and silver-white centers). The eggs in the official I&W entry photo are craft-store Easter eggs that I bought just for ambiance so I could make an Easter photo.

Happy Easter!

The Rules:

Each week we will post an original photo with words on it. The idea behind this group is to expand our minds through our photography.

Photos must be your own, but the words can be someone else's as long as credit is given after the words. 

Your post can either be serious, or if you'd like comical, but never obscene .

Posts can either have one word on them,quotes, or full poems ... Your choice.

All posts are to be done on your own site in a blog form with a link back to it being left here. 

New topics will be posted on Sundays.

Posts can be made through Saturday.

One post per person only please.

Images and Words week 98: Uplifting

Greetings from Amy!

I have been put through the emotional ringer for the past three months and I really need my spirits lifted, so I thought that "uplifting" would make a great theme!  I can't think of anything more uplifting than hot air balloons, of course!

When I took this photo I knew that I would eventually pair it with this song because it's about flying in the evening.  Plus the music in the design of the balloon in front (named Martha's Mink) is this song!

Here's the full set of lyrics:

Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon

Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon

We could float among the stars together, you and I

For we can fly we can fly

Up, up and away

My beautiful, my beautiful balloon

The world's a nicer place in my beautiful balloon

It wears a nicer face in my beautiful balloon

We can sing a song and sail along the silver sky

For we can fly we can fly

Up, up and away

My beautiful, my beautiful balloon

Suspended under a twilight canopy

We'll search the clouds for a star to guide us

If by some chance you find yourself loving me

We'll find a cloud to hide us

We'll keep the moon beside us

Love is waiting there in my beautiful balloon

Way up in the air in my beautiful balloon

If you'll hold my hand we'll chase your dream across the sky

For we can fly we can fly

Up, up and away

My beautiful, my beautiful balloon

Balloon...

Up, up, and away.....

Here are the rules:

Each week we will post an original photo with words on it. The idea behind this group is to expand our minds through our photography.

Photos must be your own, but the words can be someone else's as long as credit is given after the words. 

Your post can either be serious, or if you'd like comical, but never obscene .

Posts can either have one word on them,quotes, or full poems ... Your choice.

All posts are to be done on your own site in a blog form with a link back to it being left here. 

New topics will be posted on Sundays.

Posts can be made through Saturday.

One post per person only please.

I hope you will enjoy this theme!

Images and Words week 93: Any Kind of Love

Greetings from Amy and welcome to a special Valentine's Day edition of Images and Words!  Last year's Valentine's Day weekend was my first ever time hostessing Images and Words, so this also my one year anniversary as a host of this group!  Last year I chose the theme of "Love and Romance" thinking that it would be easy to find romantic quotes and match them to images of flowers or candles or anything else like that, but it turns out that that's kind of a sore subject for a lot of people.  So this year my theme is "Any Kind of Love."  You can choose Romantic love or you can choose friendship love, or parent and child, or love for your car, any kind of love that you wish!  I remain a hopeless Romantic so I chose "Affectionate Love."

I photographed this lion couple at Zoo Boise.  The lioness was looking at the children through the glass when the lion approached her, they play fought for a moment and then nuzzled affectionately.  Aren't they sweet?

I'd like to give a quick apology that I haven't been very much the past few weeks.  Since Christmas everyone in my family has been either injured or sick, and at times both!  And of course it's up to me to take care of the family.  Everyone seems healthy now, so hopefully I can get back into the swing of things.

The Rules:

Each week we will post an original photo with words on it. The idea behind this group is to expand our minds through our photography.

Photos must be your own, but the words can be someone else's as long as credit is given after the words. 

Your post can either be serious, or if you'd like comical, but never obscene .

Posts can either have one word on them,quotes, or full poems ... Your choice.

All posts are to be done on your own site in a blog form with a link back to it being left here. 

New topics will be posted on Sundays.

Posts can be made through Saturday.

One post per person only please.

Images and Words week 88: New

Greetings from Amy welcome to week 88 of Images and Words.  In honor of the New Year I have chosen the theme of "New".  

Here's my entry:

These are my own Japanese maples that I photographed my first autumn here in Idaho, and the weather and color that year were AWESOME!  One of my favorite things to do in photography is to depict things a little differently than you would normally see them so that people will contemplate the image.  You don't need to go to an exotic location to do this (although exotic locations are always fun!), you can do this in your own back yard. In this photo it's the silhouette of the slightly overlapped leaves that draws me in.

I hope this will be a very open and fun theme for everyone!

The Rules:

Each week we will post an original photo with words on it. The idea behind this group is to expand our minds through our photography.

Photos must be your own, but the words can be someone else's as long as credit is given after the words. 

Your post can either be serious, or if you'd like comical, but never obscene .

Posts can either have one word on them,quotes, or full poems ... Your choice.

All posts are to be done on your own site in a blog form with a link back to it being left here. 

New topics will be posted on Sundays.

Posts can be made through Saturday.

One post per person only please.

Images and Words week 83: Weather (or not)

Greetings from Amy and welcome to week 83 of Images and Words!  In honor of the season finale of Storm Chasers coinciding with my first ever Snow Day I have chosen the theme of "Weather (or not)".  Here is my entry:

Having lived almost my entire life in Sunny California, snow is still very new and special to me.  I'm very intrigued by "The Blue Hour", that hour of twilight in which everything looks blue and snow seems to glow.  I took this photo last New Year's Eve right outside our restaurant, the foot path on the Boise River Greenbelt normally gets plowed but we had this late afternoon-early evening snow that didn't get plowed, in fact it didn't even get stepped on!  As I was photographing I made a point to stay off the path so I could get this shot of the pristine snow.  I used this Images and Words in an advertisement this week for our restaurant, and I'm also thinking about making it into note card gift sets for Christmas presents--that way our friends and family who live here in the Boise area can send out Thank You Cards and Thinking of You Notes featuring the beautiful area in which they/we live.

I would love to see photos of severe and/or dramatic weather, but really almost any photo would depict weather in some way: any photo of the outdoors, even seasonal clothing indoors, and I'm sure you could make the argument that in-season produce or even a bottle of wine expresses weather.

BTW, if you watch Storm Chasers, Sean Casey's film "Tornado Alley" comes out on March 18, 2011 and he suggests that we contact our local IMAX theatre to let them know we want the film!

The Rules:

Each week we will post an original photo with words on it. The idea behind this group is to expand our minds through our photography.

Photos must be your own, but the words can be someone else's as long as credit is given after the words. 

Your post can either be serious, or if you'd like comical, but never obscene .

Posts can either have one word on them,quotes, or full poems ... Your choice.

All posts are to be done on your own site in a blog form with a link back to it being left here. 

New topics will be posted on Sundays.

Posts can be made through Saturday.

One post per person only please.

Images and Words Week 78: Happy Halloween/Scary Fun

Greetings from Amy and welcome to week 78 of Images and Words!  I'm thrilled to be hosting on this Halloween weekend, and so my theme is "Happy Halloween/Scary Fun".  I added "Scary Fun" to the theme because not everyone celebrates Halloween, so I think that anything that's both scary and fun would be appropriate.  Here's my entry:

This is part of the "Haunted Woods" along the Boise River Greenbelt.  Every October it gets dressed up as an outdoor haunted house--hence, "Haunted Woods".  This is also where I got Dana and his son Ethan horribly lost while we were eaten alive by mosquitoes.  I took this photo last year on an incredibly photographically prolific morning in which I was supposed to go balloon chasing but the upper level winds were too fast for flying, so I went down to the river instead.  This is the same morning in which I took the photo of the steamy river with the two ducks, and also the weird bent twig structure (which I was trying to find for Dana and Ethan when we got lost).  On this morning I had the whole woods to myself that morning, few people and no mosquitoes.  I took this photo at a make believe graveyard that was staged where there had been a fire a few months earlier, and I think the black burnt wood looks gorgeous against the white skeleton hand and gauze.

I'd like to take a moment to say I'm sorry that I haven't been around much these past weeks--I've been swamped with a visit from my mom and sister, getting sick immediately following, and then increasing my responsibilities at the restaurant.  And I'd also like to say thank you because among my increased responsibilities is social media marketing so I'm putting my Images and Words skills to work!  Thank you, Joel, for starting this wonderful group!  And thank you to all of you who participate!  I'm almost finished catching up on my tasks, and then I should be back into the swing of things here at Multiply.

The Rules:

Each week we will post an original photo with words on it. The idea behind this group is to expand our minds through our photography.

Photos must be your own, but the words can be someone else's as long as credit is given after the words.

Your post can either be serious, or if you'd like comical, but never obscene .

Posts can either have one word on them,quotes, or full poems ... Your choice.

All posts are to be done on your own site in a blog form with a link back to it being left here.

New topics will be posted on Sundays.

Posts can be made through Saturday.

One post per person only please.

Images and Words Week 73: Creature Features

Greetings from Amy and welcome to week 73 of Images and Words.  My theme for this week is "Creature Features," and I invite you to feature any creature that you wish.  Creepy crawly creatures would be great!  But you may also post creatures that are furry or feathered.  And being originally from San Francisco I should encourage photos of humans who warrant the title of "creature."  Here's my entry:

This is a strangely colored praying mantis was found by my son in our "outdoor living room", and was relocated to my veggie garden where he was safe from our chickens and hopefully helped me with our grasshopper problem this year.  A friend of mine gave me this quote which was attributed to 16th century naturalist Moufet, who is also known as Thomas Muffet.  Legend has it that he wrote "Little Miss Muffet" based on an incident with his step-daughter, but there's no actual proof of this.  Makes a nice story though.

I hope you will enjoy this theme.

The Rules:

Each week we will post an original photo with words on it. The idea behind this group is to expand our minds through our photography.

Photos must be your own, but the words can be someone else's as long as credit is given after the words.

Your post can either be serious, or if you'd like comical, but never obscene .

Posts can either have one word on them,quotes, or full poems ... Your choice.

All posts are to be done on your own site in a blog form with a link back to it being left here.

New topics will be posted on Sundays.

Posts can be made through Saturday.

One post per person only please.

Also, Mia posted a tutorial on how to post nice sized photos so people don't have to click to enlarge a photo.  If you missed it, just click "Prev." at the bottom of this post.

Images and Words Week 67: Courage, Motivation, Inspiration

Greetings from Amy and Welcome to week 67 of Images and Words.  Our scheduled hostess this week is presently without internet, my heart goes out to Mia because I would go CRAZY without internet, so I'm hostessing because I already have a theme ready to go and then Vic will guest host for me in two weeks.  Did you follow all of that? LOL!  Anyway...

 

I have chosen the theme of "Courage", which might be a little too specific for a lot of people so I've decided to add "Motivation and Inspiration" because everyone seemed to enjoy that theme. Plus you can never make too many Motivational/Inspirational posters, can you?  Nah, I've made several cuz it's a lot of fun. 

Here is my entry:

 

A few weeks ago we had a lightning caused wild fire near-ish my house, our neighborhood filled with smoke but we weren't in any danger.  My son and I decided to go check out the fire, and when we arrived it was just a few plumes of curious smoke but soon the wind kicked up and it became quite dangerous--especially when the wind shifted toward these horses!  The owners of the horses tried to evacuate them, but the horses were very scared and ran around wildly before finally allowing their people to lead them to safety. I'm happy to say that all of the horses were rescued, and there were no injuries nor fatalities (except for a few chickens) in this fire.  Unfortunately, four homes were destroyed as well as several outbuildings including a garage with a Porsche.  I was the only photographer who documented the rescue of the horses so I sent my photos to the local newspaper who put this photo (sans quote) and another one of my photos on their website.  If you're interested in seeing my series you can check out my album here.

 

The Rules:

Each week we will post an original photo with words on it. The idea behind this group is to expand our minds through our photography.

Photos must be your own, but the words can be someone else's as long as credit is given after the words.

Your post can either be serious, or if you'd like comical, but never obscene .

Posts can either have one word on them,quotes, or full poems ... Your choice.

All posts are to be done on your own site in a blog form with a link back to it being left here.

New topics will be posted on Sundays.

Posts can be made through Saturday.

One post per person only please.

 

Images and Words: week 64 "Shape"

Greetings from Amy!  Joel and I switched weeks because he is out of town, he will be back next week.  This is week 64 and I have chosen for my theme "shape", which you may use as any part of speech that you wish: noun, verb, adjective, adverb.  For my entry I'm using it as a verb.

I took this photo of my son, Alan, about a year ago when I was teaching him how to throw clay on the potter's wheel.  It's with both great pride and chagrin that I say he's a much more naturally talented potter than I am.  I paired the photo with this quote from Lao Tzu, given to me by my friend Cheri, as a motivational poster to get my own home pottery studio built.  It's not so much that I need motivation, but I could use some focus.  We've had a very fun but hectic summer so far with our family's new chickens that you saw last week, plus we had to get our swimming pool repaired and a new solar water heater installed--and the solar company keeps sending us the wrong parts!  Ugh.  But with the chickens all settled, the swimming pool all repaired, and the solar water heater installation nearly finished I can finally get down to the business of getting my pottery studio built!  Monday is the day that I will being the process. Wish me luck!

I hope you will enjoy this theme.  Again, you can use the word or concept of "shape" in any way that you wish.

Have fun!

 

Each week we will post an original photo with words on it. The idea behind this group is to expand our minds through our photography.

Photos must be your own, but the words can be someone else's as long as credit is given after the words.

Your post can either be serious, or if you'd like comical, but never obscene .

Posts can either have one word on them,quotes, or full poems ... Your choice.

All posts are to be done on your own site in a blog form with a link back to it being left here.

New topics will be posted on Sundays.

Posts can be made through Saturday.

One post per person only please.

 

Images and Words: Week 61 Patriotism, Celebration of Countries and Cultures

Greetings from Amy and welcome to this special Fourth of July edition of Images and Words!  My theme for this holiday is "Patriotism: Celebration of Countries and Cultures", and I invite you all to post about patriotism and/or share what your love about your favorite countries and cultures.  Here's my entry:

The guy on the left is my hubby's best friend from way back in high school in California, and who moved his family here to Idaho to be with us.  Next to him is my hubby, Chad.  Behind them is our son, Alan, and on the far right is our other son, Sam.  The words are my own.  I'm not much of a wordsmith but every now and then I can come up with something.

My words refer to "Ingroup/Outgroup biases" and how they can so easily be overcome.  In short, Ingroup Bias (or Ingroup Serving Bias) is social-psychological speak for our tendency to feel that everyone inside our group is good, Outgroup Bias (or Outgroup Homogeneity Bias) is social-psych speak for our tendency to feel people outside of our group are all bad (and they're all the same).  These groups can be based on anything, from nationality to sports teams affiliation to even people with the same last digit of their social security number.  When allowed to run amok these biases can lead to prejudice and bigotry, but the good news is they can be so easily overcome by simply getting to know someone not in your group.  When you get to know someone you start thinking of them as being in your group, and not just them, you unconsciously include everyone who is like them!  There's no end to this inclusion, there's no reason why we can't eventually include everyone in the whole world into our in-group.  Isn't that neat?  Long ago these biases probably served us well, but today it's a small world after all and we'd be well served to overcome them--fortunately, we've been provided with the means to do so.

The Rules:

Each week we will post an original photo with words on it. The idea behind this group is to expand our minds through our photography.

Photos must be your own, but the words can be someone else's as long as credit is given after the words.

Your post can either be serious, or if you'd like comical, but never obscene .

Posts can either have one word on them,quotes, or full poems ... Your choice.

All posts are to be done on your own site in a blog form with a link back to it being left here.

New topics will be posted on Sundays.

Posts can be made through Saturday.

One post per person only please.

Images and Words: week 57 Fun and Games

Greetings from Amy and welcome to this week's Images and Words, a few hours late.  Sorry!  I hope that this theme will make up for my goof.  I have chosen the theme of Fun and Games.

This glass chess set was a Christmas gift from my Grandmother-in-law to our family, and we keep it set up in our living room.  A few months ago I donated a table to my friend's new apartment, and then I bought myself an uber-cool glass top table with ottomans that slip underneath.  Immediately I noticed the beautiful play of light on the glass chess set and new glass top table as the sun moves across my windows throughout the day.  This is one of my favorite shots.  I knew it would make a good I&W so I looked up chess quotes to pair with it, and I like this one best.

Each week we will post an original photo with words on it. The idea behind this group is to expand our minds through our photography.

Photos must be your own, but the words can be someone else's as long as credit is given after the words.

Your post can either be serious, or if you'd like comical, but never obscene .

Posts can either have one word on them,quotes, or full poems ... Your choice.

All posts are to be done on your own site in a blog form with a link back to it being left here (I've created a button link which you are welcome to use).

New topics will be posted on Sundays.

Posts can be made through Saturday.

One post per person only please.

Have Fun!  Let the Games begin!

My button link

My button link's HTML code if you'd like to copy it

<A href="http://imageswithwords.multiply.com/journal/item/68/Images_and_Words_week_57_Fun_and_Games"><IMG id=photoimg class=photoimg src="http://images.amyukalichick.multiply.com/image/2/photos/37/1200x1200/44/If-you-see-a-good-move-desaturated.jpg?et=K5CmHnA3KOv4bxTa1Nnbrg&amp;nmid=307660128" width=100 height=80>

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Images and Words Week 53: Family

Greetings from Amy and Welcome to this special Mother's Day edition of Images and Words!  In honor of this holiday I have chosen the theme "Family."  Here's my entry:

 

I took this photo of a Barbary Sheep (Aoudad) family at Safari West in Sonoma County, California.  Safari West is an African wildlife preserve in the heart of the Napa/Sonoma Wine Country, and I highly recommend visiting there if you're ever in that area.  It's neither a zoo nor a drive through park, rather you take a guided tour in a truck just like an African safari--and I know this because I've been on an African safari in Kenya!  And just like a game park in Kenya they have permanent tent accommodations for overnight stays.  If you're interested in their website please click here.

Barbary Sheep are from North Africa and live in the rocky mountains there, so they are very happy on this steep hillside in Sonoma.  I took another photo of a different family of Barbary Sheep that was more of a close up portrait, and it's a nice shot but my family and I prefer this photo taken through the foliage because it's an action shot.

I hope you will enjoy this theme and may you all have a

Happy Mother's Day!

Each week we will post an original photo with words on it. The idea behind this group is to expand our minds through our photography.

Photos must be your own, but the words can be someone else's as long as credit is given after the words.

Your post can either be serious, or if you'd like comical, but never obscene .

Posts can either have one word on them,quotes, or full poems ... Your choice.

All posts are to be done on your own site in a blog form with a link back to it being left here (I've created a button link which you are welcome to use).

New topics will be posted on Sundays.

Posts can be made through Saturday.

One post per person only please.

My button link

My HTML code if you would like to copy and paste it

<A href="http://imageswithwords.multiply.com/journal/item/64/Images_and_Words_Week_53_Family"><IMG id=photoimg class=photoimg src="http://images.amyukalichick.multiply.com/image/1/photos/37/1200x1200/38/Barbary-sheep-family-with-quote.jpg?et=nwTzW7OJ5zNnsV3n8LhwnA&amp;nmid=307660128" width=100 height=80></A>