play ball!

For me, springtime means baseball.  When I was younger, my family would sit together around the television and watch the New York Yankees play night after night.   There was a gap in time when I strayed away from watching all the games, but in the past few years my husband and I have picked up the habit again--watching the games on TV and heading out to Yankee Stadium when we get the chance.

Springtime also brings with it lazy afternoons playing ball in the backyard.  I took the above photo last week at my brother's house in New Jersey.  I call it "three generations of wiffle ball"--my nephew, my brother, and my 70-year-old father at the ready in the outfield (go Dad!).

LeGrandLife's photo below beautifully captures the excitement of that first pitch of the season.  I can almost hear the roar of the crowd and taste the peanuts in my mouth as I cheer on the home team.  A perfect way to spend a spring day.

Enjoy the warmer days, and see you soon!

~christy of urban muser

first pitch by LeGrandLife

yeah, i know it's a weed

Ah Spring, I have waited so long!  Yesterday the sun came out after 2+ weeks of rain, wind and chilly weather.  I was amazed how quickly these beautiful yellow dandelions decorate the vast sea of green grass.  I'm excited to see more grow and bask in the warmth with them.

I loved seeing all the wonderful dandelion pictures in the flickr pool and I am sad I couldn't feature them all. Check out some more beautiful yellow and wispy wishes here, here, here, here, here and here.  And enjoy this beautiful picture (and title of this post) by christineellen.
I hope you have a wonderful warm springy week!

April of April Newman Photography

Yeah, I know it's a weed. by christineellen

dancing light

This isn't the most exciting picture I've posted, but trust me and keep reading because I've been thinking out of the box, just like all of you. This is a still picture of the magical dancing light which appears on a particular wall in our home, but only for a few minutes in the evening, for a few weeks of the year. As the sun sets behind the trees in the garden it produces a beautiful pattern of light and shade, and the slightest breeze causes the leaves to move, making the pattern seethe and shimmer like boiling water. Ella and Miles often call me to come and watch the dancing light with them. And as we watch the light move around the house touching different rooms in different ways throughout the summer, we are reminded of those special windows cut into Egyptian tombs that let a shaft of light in, but only on a particular day.

I tried taking photos of this dancing light, but a still image simply doesn't capture the way it looks. So I ended up taking a short video clip (below) with my iPhone and uploaded it to vimeo.



It's not so much a video as a moving photograph, because I composed it like a still photograph -- it just happens to be a video clip instead. It turns out that this is an emerging style of photojournalism, where photographers compose a still image and then also take a short video clip, sometimes moving the camera slightly and running the video at a high frame rate to give a slow-motion effect. You can see an inspirational example here. It's not a slideshow and it's not a video; it's more a set of moving photographs.

Suzie Q's image captures such a tender moment. You can almost hear the quiet and feel the rocking as she gets her new baby ready for bed.

Do you ever wish that a photograph was a short video clip instead? A still, moving photograph?

kirstin of fleeting moments

evening glow by suzie.q

ready for spring

I'm not a girly girl. I'd rather spend the day at a country auction in a pair of worn and faded blue jeans than hanging at the mall searching for the current season's must-have fashion accessories. {As if I'd even know what that would be.} However, when spring finally arrives, I can't wait to pull out my flip flops and indulge my feminine side. It's time for a pedicure, and girly pink polish.

I love Eileen's photo of toes freshly painted and ready for spring. Aren't those the cutest little pink toes you've ever seen?

xo maureen at Cottage 960

sandals by 2 peas and a blueberry

a beautiful day to be outside

I don't know about you, but when I think of Spring...I think of allergies. It hasn't always been that way. I used to live for being outdoors and soaking in the sun for as long as I possibly could. If you looked at me now though, I look much more like a porcelain doll.

Nonetheless, there's nothing I love more on a pretty Spring day then taking a nice walk, eating outside or doing a little shopping. I love that Teteel's photo gives me that joyful feeling of a being outside on a beautiful day. I can imagine eating at the restaurant in the background or being a kid begging my mom for one of those colorful balloons.

I hope you all have a wonderful Easter!

Ashley of Ramblings and Photos

Working Girl by Teteel

spring break

Spring conjures the warm, slower-paced days of approaching summer. Work and school still immerse us, but long weekends and spring breaks give us a breather and remind us of lovely things to come.

My family took a little roadtrip to the canyonlands of Utah for my daughter's spring break. When we finally allowed ourselves to just absorb the moment rather than dashing from one place to another, our mini-vacation took on a completely different vibe. We found a magical spot on a late afternoon hike, right where I took this photograph, and I sat and let my mind empty while my daughter made art with sand and stones and sticks, both of us content to dream and soak in our surroundings and the warmth of the sun.

And it never hurts to break out hot pink hiking accessories, as Kelly also demonstrates below.  A true sign of spring, shrugging off the dark colours and weightier fashions of winter.  I feel a shopping spree for some new chucks and sassy knee socks coming on.

cheers,
mosey of mosey along

Fun socks and shoes by Kelly Russo Photography

love letter

Dear Spring,
I awaited you patiently and now that you are here I couldn't be more grateful for all the barbecue times,
the summer nights outside, the sun warming my skin, hanging out with friends and dogs and so much more.
I am grateful for all of this and I couldn't live without you. But dear spring, could you come earlier next time?!
Tolly P. and I are sending you the sun today, to all who are still in dreary weather.

See you in 9 days,

Love,
Suki of sukiphotographyblog

{spring sunset} by Tolly P.

sensory delight

.
This year, the signs of spring were not visual for me. I wasn't inspired by the buds coming out, or the shoots poking up through last year's leaves. It all seemed a bit awkward, and I was ready to fast forward to summer. It wasn't until I found myself rolling down the window a couple of weeks ago on my commute home, that I started to relish spring. I noticed the feel of a gentle breeze on my sun-warmed skin, and an unusual sound coming through the window. What was it? No, it was not birds singing, not traffic, but rustling leaves. I had forgotten the sound, it had been so long. I laughed out loud. That was, for me, the first true sign of spring.

This image by and.the.desert.sang seemed to capture, visually, a whole sensory experience of spring. Pausing for a moment in a busy day, to relish the feel of the sun on her skin, under the blossoming trees. I can feel spring through her photo, can't you?

Kat of The Kat Eye View of the World

Ode to Rachel by and.the.desert.sang

spring petals

Spring Petals by GillyinKent

First of all, thanks to Muse Tammy for inviting me to guest post.

This was much harder than I thought it would be. Choosing a picture from the pool would have been easy, but finding something of my own to put with it was much more difficult.

I started thinking about what spring means to me. Flowers and blossom and new leaves, of course, but the theme encouraged us to ‘think outside the box’ and so I wanted to avoid straightforward flower pictures, however tempting and lovely they are. At the weekend I visited a beautiful old house and gardens, where the blossom was so heavy and abundant that it was a wonder the trees didn’t keel over with the sheer weight of it.

I filled a whole memory card with blossom photos but then my eye was caught by the way that the fallen petals were piling up on every surface. They lay inches deep on stone stairs and balustrades, they floated so thickly on the pond that you couldn’t see the water, and huge magnolia petals were draped like small and bizarre items of laundry over the shrubs that grew underneath the blossoming trees. I remembered that one of the experiences I love most in spring is when a sudden breeze releases petals into the air so that they float down like confetti or some strange and lovely spring snow. And I adore the way cushions of pink petals pile up in every corner, on top of cars, and in gutters, transforming everything in their profusion.

I took the picture above because I liked how the graphic lines of the steps and the hardness of the stone contrasted with the soft delicacy of the petals. I got exactly the same feeling when I looked at kat3no3l’s photograph below – the petals in her image are almost translucent in their fragility.

Gilly Walker of www.gillywalker.com and flickr
 

Pink Snow by kat3no3l (Katenoel)

the next theme is . . . SIGNS OF SPRING

It was a long winter, and many of us in the northern hemisphere have been waiting with anticipation for the spring season.  Each year, as the sun crosses northward over the equator, along with it comes the unmistakable signs of spring's arrival.  This week, we challenge you to think outside the box and show us some of those things that make you think and feel SPRING!  Here are a few to get you started...

Those first warm days when jackets are optional.

in wind with wagon on a mission by anikatoro

A pretty spring garland, hung with pride.

gift of spring by tammy lee bradley

Long walks with the dog, and stops for ice cream!

i hear the sounds of the ice cream man by urban muser

That "fresh air" feeling that makes you jump for joy...

spring! by kirstinmckee

...or dance around in the glowing sun as the days get longer.

she moves...by soapchickash {and daughter!}

OK, so do you see where I am going with this?  Try and challenge yourself to really think about what spring means in your neck of the woods--how do you feel?  what are you doing? what's happening in your neighborhood?

The temperatures are rising my friends, now get out there and show us what you are up to!

~christy of urban muser