Back after missing a few days!

My excuse would be that we didn't have an internet connection for a few days AND that I'm very busy with work and the kids. But I'm back and so is winter. On Wednesday morning I woke up to find lots of spider webs in the garden and they were all frozen. Not easy to take a good picture of its beauty. But here we go anyway! Thanks for looking!

Our Weekend!

Today, pictures of what we did this weekend, not necessarily photographically the best pictures ;-) but the weekend was fun! Saturday evening, we did this:

Quine! I'm not sure what it is called in English, bingo maybe? We went to this little village nearby that had organised a quine-evening, the four of us with Walter (BiL) and Maïté (his GF). Right from the start, W has announced to the people next to us that we were going for the beginners luck ;-) And we did! This is a little part of what we won:
We won 5 times: a back pack, a set of dishes, a ham (Walter), a chicken with a nice bread (not a living chicken) (Richard) and 6 bottles of Cahors wine (me). Good evening :-D We had good fun! the pictures of the ham and the bottles were taken today, because obviously we organised a lunch to enjoy all of it!

After that we played cards, I didn't take pictures of that, and that was the weekend! The weekend is always too short!! Thanks for looking!

My house

As I have had PSE (4) installed on my computer for ages, I have decided it was about time to try to learn to do something with it. With some help of PSE tutorials on the web, I took a try at a photo of my house, not easy and not the greatest of results, but I do want to show it anyway! You've gotta start somewhere huh!?!

First the original:

And the edited version, trying to make some sketch like picture :-D

Technology!?!

This weeks theme for the Photography challenge on Two Peas is Technology. After numerous photos of really no interest I came up with the following, which is obviously not really what the theme is meant to be about! But, once upon a time, this has been technology too :-)

We don't have a doorbell. We are still in the "knock knock who's there?" era! Every now and then, I hear this knocking that is really loud and very true, we actually don't need a bell, when we have this:

We also have another bell, which is barely used. It is a bell bought in a tourist shop in Amsterdam, one of those things you don't even look at when you walk around in your own country, even laugh at, but once you live "abroad", you suddenly like these typical things! I am from Holland and bought this when we had our first house in France with my French husband. And remember, once upun a time this was high technology. Well, yes, I know I'm totally off topice, but I actually like my pictures! The first is taken with my 18-55 lens:

And this is the same bell, taken with my new 50mm lens, I am quite proud of the (manual) focus, what do you think?Thanks for looking! It's Saturday, so hopefully lots of time and opportunity for photos today, even though the weather is BAD, lots, lots and lots of rain! Well, I'll just try to make the most of it!

Hairball

That's what we call her! I find it is quite hard to keep up with this during weekdays! No time to actually take pictures EVERY day, so I post pictures from last weekend. This is Scooby, our little hairball :-) She was adventuring in our neighbourhood. I post my pictures bigger now, someone made me notice that the small ones were quite difficult to really see. (thanks!)

Taken with my 70-200 lens (I believe that's what it is!) with wide aperture (A mode). Thanks for looking!!

Delicious!

Last night, Richard made us these Gougères au saumon, little cheese 'balls' with smoked salmon, they were delicious! A perfect opportunity to try some more with my new 50mm lens, playing with wide open aperture! thanks for looking

New lens

I received my new lens yesterday, a 50mm f/1.8 (Nikon) which I awaited impatiently! I tried some pictures right away... and it actually is not very easy! It doesn't have autofocus, so basically I suddenly have to be a "real" photographer!! Today I show you my first two portraits (out of 10 pictures, but the others were completely out of focus), these two are far from perfect, but the best ones. PLEASE give me your honest opinion and if possible some advice :-) Thanks!

lens: 50mm f/1.8

aperture: 2 (-ish)

shutterspeed auto

flash!