Fluttering By

This morning, in an attempt to keep my mind off of other things, I joined a group of photographer friends at the San Diego Safari Park (formerly known as the San Diego Wild Animal Park). We were there specifically to visit the butterfly exhibit, which was simply spectacular. My camera, although kind of on the "fritz", managed to capture a few shots I was relatively pleased with. Here are a few of my favorites. They are unedited, not photoshopped, or even cropped. I'm way too lazy for that right now.

My Lion

Ok, here's my first attempt at a decent black and white.

What do you think?

One of THOSE days...

Have you ever had one of those days...you know the days when it just seems that nothing much goes right? That's how my day was...

It started off good enough, with me picking up Bear and heading to the Wild Animal Park to join my Photography group for a meetup. All was well until I opened up my camera bag, and realized that I'd FORGOTTEN TO PUT MY CAMERA IN IT! Good Lord, if my head wasn't screwed on, I'm pretty sure I'd forget that half the time.

Getting old sucks...between that, and having way too much going on sometimes, I should have just called it a day, come home, and went back to bed. Oh well...lesson learned.

Thankfully, I did have my little Sony Cybershot with me, so I got a couple of pictures but nothing like what I was hoping for. Bear let me borrow her camera and I snapped off a couple nice shots of a gorgeous male lion (much better than the one picture I'm going to share here) but in typical fashion for the day, I forgot to get the pictures off of the memory card before she headed home today.

Throw in a whole bunch of other garbage that happened today, and like I said, I should have just stayed in bed.

C'est la vie...such is life sometimes, such is life.

This grumpy looking fella has nothing on me today...

I'd like to be tearing something up too...

I know how ya feel brother....

Pictures-a-Plenty

With Hubby out of town this week (he returned safely this evening from Sioux Falls, South Dakota-burr!) I took as many opportunities not only to not cook, but to get out as often as I could with my camera. I took nearly a thousand pictures over the last four days mainly at the zoo and La Jolla Shores.

Although I may not be very proud of most of them, these are a few that I was pretty happy with, that I didn't already post this week. (My favorites from La Jolla Shores were posted earlier this week.)

La Jolla Shores

I spent a little time this evening with some of my friends in the Pacific Photographic Society, a photography meetup I belong to. I always have a great time with this group, and always learn a little something.

I took just over 300 pictures this evening in a matter of about 2 hours. These are a few of my favorites....so far. I haven't really had too much time to look through them all as much as I'd like to.

Where the Ocean Meets the Coast

Yes, that's where I was this morning at 6:45am. At the corner of Ocean and Coast, where, ironically enough, the sand and the sea meet. OK, enough of the philosophical stuff...it was cool out there today in more ways than one. It was in the low 60's when I arrived and it was a beautiful morning. The seals were out sunning themselves, enjoying the early warmth of the first rays.
The way this baby leaned it's head back reminded me of Kona and the way he does the same thing.

This was a very protective Momma...She was not happy when other seals came near her baby.

This fellow looked like he was enjoying his morning.

There were a few brown pelicans out this morning too, but not nearly as many as we thought there would be.

This one didn't look like he was ready for the morning quite yet.

Coming in for a landing!

Whew! There's that rock I was looking for.

A family affair...

These pups were really soaking it up.

After we were done at La Jolla, we went over to the Birch Aquarium. Trying to get decent pictures through the glass without glare, is challenging to say the very least.

I was thankful to be with a very knowledgeable group of photographers, and was able to get help with my settings (thanks again Sam!) I would have been lost without Sam's help, and would have come home with a blurry mess of nothing.

Instead, I was able to get a handful of some decent shots (nothing compared to what some of the more professional folks can do) and was a happy camper. My morning was not wasted.

I loved the look of this wolf eel. He looks like one of the statues in my back yard!

I love the view from the aquarium looking back down towards Scripps Pier,

and of course beautiful La Jolla as well.