I had to shoot all of these at iso 800 so they are a bit soft z it was in very poor lighting.  I remembered Waydes thoughts on iso and this was good practice.  I did take my walking stick/monopod or they would have been much worse.  The guy next to me had a new Nikon D80 but he is a Biden supporter so it was just a photo op for him too.  Lots of the press photo's are not much better so I feel good about these.  They will all go away after Jan 3rd and we will sink into oblivion again so I snatched the chance.  (another C?)  Kathy

Oh to live in Iowa during caucus season.   Note the C.  Actually there are 2 others.  Candidate and Clinton. so here is my C and it's alternates.  Nary a Christmas among them.  Kathy

Much better possibilities, I think.  I took several 1 day and then today, I remembered one I also took in the time frame that might be better.  Here it is,  My B entry.  I will also give you some others since I went kind of nuts before this one.  actually I took this on my day off and was having the devil of a time trying to get a decent picture of the black cat(salem), either with Lucca or by himself.  He was so black that I couldnt get it with delayed flash, adjusting levels,underexposing etc.  any suggestions?

        

 

here are my other b attempts before I did the chosen one.

    

 

Thankful I didn't use what I thought of first?(that was a line up on empty beer bottles waitng for redemption!)  K

 

 

I added my ABC picture today and it was kind of a given what I would use since Lucca's full name starts with an A. we went to the dog park today and I made him run thru the high grass to get this! I did come up with an Alternate though on kind of a stretch.  The leaves today werent as pretty as when I went by and thought of it the other day but oh well.  I also had to take out the power lines which I didn't see on the drive by.  but as you said Mike,  I was out there looking for possibilities.Too bad this McD's didnt have the real arches!  But what a gorgeous day for the 16th of November.

 I loved the gator, Glen!

   I got my start in High school when I joined the photography club(boys there of course) and bought a used Zeiss  Ikon contessamat.  I was influenced by my dad who had a Zeiss that he had gotten in the early 60s.  We used to tease him and complain because we always had to pose so long before he figured out what settings he thought he needed.  His always trended to be over exposed but he loved taking fall color pictures.  I did some restoring of them digitally to counteract all the mold that was the result of a darkroom flood in our old house.  We set up the darkroom in our old fruit room in the basement and we have few pictures/negatives left from the b&w era when a wall of water came down the old coal chute and flooded it out!  Anyway, the contessamat had apperature prioty so it worked perfect when I did all the yearbook photography.  I learned how to use f stops, depth of field and the basics. then.

The rest of my family moved on to SLRs but I was in the poor phase, student and then 1st job need to pay the rent phase.  I eventually bought a Minolta XGM and then added Lenses, auto winder, tripod, filters and did lots of travel photography.  Later I went the Nikon route and still have all the old cameras.  I focused on making my audience(I did lots of programs) feel like they had been there.  I branched out into some business brochures and photo contests.  There was a fellow coworker that provided a healthy(?) amount of competition and we constantly tried to outbest each other.

I held off getting a digital camera for a long time and then as life styles changed, got a Sony cybershot but found myself just doing snapshots.  Good ones but just snapshots.  I upgraded before my trip to AK and learned so much about my new camera thanks to Wayde, Scott and others.  I still like the portableness of my Canon a710 but have gotten bitten by the bug again.  I think an SLR may be in the future.

But.. here is the dilema.  What do you do with all the pictures?