Here comes the bride...

Here are some pictures from Saturday's wedding...

Wedding shoes and helmet. The happy couple left on a motorcycle.


The bride getting dressed....

A solemn moment...


Isn't she beautiful!


I decided to make her reflection black and white.


Look at the beautiful dress! The dress was actually made with feathers. This is so cool as the bride is a parrot owner.

Having some fun...


A little closer....


Here is a picture of the beautiful cake.


That's it for today. Until next time, keep on snappin'!

At The Beach...

These are the last of the photos from my Florida trip. I am so glad we had the opportunity to play on the beach before it became affected by the oil spill. I see that this past weekend the oil made it to Pensacola beach. Yesterday I saw some images of oiled pelicans that were captured at Grand Isle, Louisiana and these images really touched me. I guess it's because I have been around pelicans recently and observed them enjoying their surroundings and hunting for food. These are truly beautiful birds and to think that their food source and their very existence is affected by this disaster is very disheartening.

We were on the beach for the Memorial Day weekend, so needless to say it was crowded. I shot these pictures with my new Canon Powershot SX20IS in manual mode. This is a great camera with an incredible zoom. It's also my first Canon camera and I have to say I am loving it! I will be taking it with me on all my future trips.

I thought this was so beautiful, two mothers attending to their daughters. Hopefully this will be me one day!

One thing we noticed this time on the beach was that a lot of people were being bitten in the water and this bite left them paralyzed for minutes. We believe jellyfish were the culprits but I did not confirm this. The picture below is one such instance of this. There were a couple others. The little boy in this picture was bitten. The life guard, in the red shorts, came to his aid as his concerned parents and sibling comforted him. For this reason alone, I did not enter the water for a swim. With my luck, I would have been the next victim!

I sat on the seashore and took pictures as my husband sat next to me reading.

Some more beach pictures.

Below are examples of the zooming power of this camera. These people were very far away from me. The Canon Powershot SX20IS has a 20X wide angle optical zoom so it brings you closer to the action. I was hand holding the camera for all these shots.

These other pictures were taken in the evening around 7:00pm as we arrived to capture pictures of the sunset.

This is where I sat to take my sunset pictures.

In the distance, way across from me, I noticed a couple getting married on the beach. From where I was sitting I was able to zoom in for this shot. I zoomed all the way to the faces of just the bride and groom but I had a hard time keeping the camera steady enough to get a good picture at such a long zoom. A tripod would have helped.

On the other side of me were these teenagers enjoying the water and the beginning glow of the sunset.

Well that's it for today. Enjoy the rest of your week and until next time, keep on snappin'!

Drive-by Shooting....

I try to take a camera with me everywhere I go. It's not convenient to always log around an SLR and I haven't seen one that can fit in my pocket. Some places will not even let you in with an SLR. Besides, when a photo op arises I do not want to be fiddling with aperture, lens or shutter speeds, not while I am still learning anyway. So my everyday go to camera that I carry around in my purse is my beloved Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3. I have had it for a number of years now and absolutely love it.


Of course I took it with me on my recent trip and all, except one on the pictures below, (which I will point out) was taken with this camera. I thought this was a really cool shot below. We had just driven through a storm and though we were back to sunny dry road, you can see what we left behind in the rear-view mirror.


A lot of the pictures I take are for scrapbooking. I take them because they evoke a memory or feeling for me that I want to remember or share for years to come. The picture below is one of these pictures. We were driving along smoothly for hours and then suddenly we came to a standstill on the highway. We were delayed in this traffic for about two hours. I wanted to capture this moment with the miles of traffic pile-up. I used my Canon PowerShot SX20IS. I had recently purchased this camera and used it for the first time on this trip. Needless to say I fell in love with it. We were miles away from the image you see below. I put the camera in movie mode which allowed me to zoom all the way out to 80X, at which point I snapped this photograph. I know this is not the best quality picture, but it satisfied my need to remember this moment.


While my husband was driving around, I was taking pictures of the beautiful view. These pictures were taken in automatic, just point and shoot. The originals are a much better quality. These were compressed to allow for quicker online viewing.




I thought this was interesting. This guy was riding along pulling his kid behind him. I had not seen one of these contraptions before.


I also thought this was interesting. While we were in Florida, we noticed that people were protesting outside the BP stations. I bet sales were down that day because I pity the poor soul that would choose to pump gas among this angry mob.




Well that's it for today. I will be sharing the rest of the Florida pictures on Wednesday when I share actual beach pictures. Have a great week and until next time, keen on snappin'!