More Zinnias :)

I planted zinnias in the edge of my garden and they have bloomed beautifully for me all summer long. I have tried many times to capture their beauty. I planted a few different varieties so the shapes and colors are very varied. The butterflies were many in number earlier in the summer but now they only come occasionaly in the warmer part of the day. I was zoomed in on the zinnia and trying different apertures to see which way I liked it best and this little guy just flew down and posed for me :) Here are my latest attempts at the zinnias.

Still Playing With Webs

I am still playing around with spider webs. Thanks to Anna for the inspiration to try something colorful in the background! I was so surprised to see the background reflecting in every little drop on the web. I accidentally tore my spider web down when I was done shooting and removing my background :( but I checked and Mr. Spider has rebuilt it already :)

Webs

One of my favorite things to photograph in late summer and early fall is spider webs. The early morning fog puts moisture on the webs and makes them visible to the eyes, normally we don't notice them unless we get really close to them or walk into them:) The little drops of water look like rows of tiny pearls.

A Joy

My cute little niece Emilie is such a joy. I kept her over the weekend and we had so much fun together. She seemed to find joy in the simplest things. In addition to playing in a tutu (see pictures below) I watched her squeal with delight as 2 stray or lost puppies wandered up to our house. She was thrilled with the puppies and would pet and love on them. I was surprised but they seemed to love her just as much as she loved them. Here she is all dirty faced after playing with the puppies

Everynow and then she would tell me, "let's pray" and here's a shot of her doing just that. I couldn't understand a lot of what she was praying other than "pray to God, pray to God", and something about mommie but I'm sure the one she was directing her prayer to understood just fine:)

I decided to make a peach pie and a bumbleberry pie on Sunday and of course EM had to help me. When I finished making the crust she contined to work on her pie. You can see the salsa in the background, yes you guessed it, Em had to help me make that too. She thought it was so much fun to lay each tomato over on the cutting board after I peeled it. She would anxiously say, "can I do it", "can I do it" as I peeled each tomato.

She loved sampling the blackberries and as you can tell she must have even tried the flour :) She was and is such a joy! Thank you Emilie, for a great weekend.