This cute little country church reminds me of this song:

Come to the church in the wildwood,
Oh come to the church in the vale,
No spot is so dear to my childhood,
As the little brown church in the vale.

I’m slowly working on them. You can go see a few more at my other blog.

 

The weather is abso-stinkin-lutely (to quote my friend Crysta) gorgeous right now. The azaleas and dogwoods and wysteria are at their peak. And I have to send back the rental lens today so I went out yesterday to catch a little more spring with it. I’m sure Sonya was wondering what I was doing when I passed her twice in about 5 minutes. Last evening after work I headed out and found a dogwood tree with the Perfect blooms on it near Ken & Carmel’s house. And then I stopped in to say “howdy” and ended up taking some squash plants off of her hands. So I ran some over to my parents. And then dropped off some extras at Eric & Linda’s house and chatted with Eric and Micah for a bit. Then stopped by the church to sign up for bake sale items. Then on home at 7:45. Not bad for someone who had intended to be home all evening. 

This place in town has a yard that is about half a city block. They always have the most lovely yard in the spring.

“Pods” on a crepe myrtle tree

I thought I wasn’t going to get any tulip tree blooms this year (again) and then I discovered that my parents have a tree in their yard so I got them afterall!

Love the new green growth that is visible all around. I was amazed at how much greener it is here than in SC last weekend. There was almost a line somewhere around Wrens, GA where the growth difference was apparent.

Pretty little weeds near the lake

Flowers in the swamp at the lake. Don’t worry. There probably aren’t (m)any gators here.

My favorite dogwood shot.

Bridal bouquet (?)

More weeds.

 

And yes, I’ve done a few of these. No more spring pics ’till I get good and going with the wedding pics. Check my portrait blog in a few days and I will have some up for you to see.

 

Just a few spring pictures to share with you. For some reason, many of the dogwood blooms look rough and I haven’t had time to look for nice ones.

But, I asked Raymonds if I could shoot some flowers in their backyard and they gave me the go ahead. They also have a bird feeder that stays occupied.

 

A “painted” version:

 

Camellia:

 

And the ever present azaleas:

 

Christy, this is for you and anyone else interested in the Canon 85mm 1.2L lens.  (I’m renting it for a week.) It is a heavy lens (3.2 lbs). The weight alone is formiddable. So extremely different from the [edited to add] 50mm 1.8.

I got it today and had a few minutes over lunch to shoot a few outside. Since I have no victims in range these sample shots do not include humans. When you have the thing wide open at 1.2 you have to be very deliberate about your focus target.

Amazing bokeh, though.

In my kitchen, no lights except the overhead flourescent.

In the living room, just some window light.

Now I shall go lift weights to prepare myself for handling this thing on Saturday.