Landing on Flickr Explore

On March 23, 2015March 23, 2015 By AngeliaIn Posessed by Nikon17 Comments

Have you ever heard of Flickr Explore?

No?

Well, let me tell you, it’s a page of badassery as far as photographic images go.

The best of the best. The boldest and brightest. The most UNBELIEVABLE photos uploaded to Flickr.

They call it Explore. And if you do Explore, you will be astounded by the talent they choose on a daily basis. That’s right. Every day. From millions of photo uploads, the Flickr Gods choose 500 to display for twenty-four hours on their feature page (called Explore).

That’s one photo out of 17,000 images or something like that. It’s really crazy and the images are crazy good. Did I say that already? They are CRAZY good.

If you’d like to see for yourself, click here. This will take you to the Flickr Explore page for today. At the bottom, you can scroll through previous days.

And this post is not about the secrets of how to hit the Explore page – although I hear there are some, and many have theories on this process. But I do not.

I consider it dumb luck (for me anyway). I’m pretty sure that is how it happened the first time I hit the Explore page. With my image of the vintage light bulb for my Project 52 that week.

And yes, I am happy with this one. The light is stunning. I found exactly what I wanted and executed it exactly as I saw in my head. And NOOOOO. That never happens with me. I, normally, have a bright idea heh! and it NEVER turns out how I envisioned it.

But this image.

It totally did.

And to my surprise (or dumb luck) hit the Flickr Explore page. It was quite a thrill! Thousands of views and hundreds of people favoring your image. It’s enough to make a photo girl proud.

So, twenty-fours later, my image drops to the next day and a new set of 500 images are displayed.

And of course, those images are just as Ahhhhamazing as the day before! Hey, no big deal, it’s just another day of The Extraordinary Images of Flickr.

Life goes on.

Another week, another photo for my Project 52.

But then…several weeks later…it happens again…

Yes, dear readers, my image hit the Flickr Explore page for the second time. And WHAT!?!

This time it is an image of my mean ol’ Maya kitty looking deceptively sweet. Oh, so deceptive!

She is probably my go to photo subject. I can’t even tell you how many photos I have of her from kitten to (almost) adult. She is just very photogenic. I mean look at her. She is just gorgeous. And don’t let her fool you, she bites. And she bites hard.

Several of her kitten photos got a lot of views too.

This one as her eyes were changing from blue to green.

This one the day we brought her home.

And just for fun, here is another set of photos on my Flickr that were viewed quite often. One is from the girls’ beginning of school photos. And the other is for the birthday of my oldest step-girl.

Maybe, they weren’t Explore-worthy, but they sure were view-worthy. I wish I could tell you how it’s done, but alas, it is still a mystery to me.

One thing, I will do…keep posting photos on Flickr and sharing them with you.

Maybe, you will find them as interesting as the Flickr Gods do.

The Most Interesting Weed in the World

On March 20, 2015 By AngeliaIn Angelia's Photography15 Comments

And truly the most abundant in our backyard.

As annoying as this weed is, I do find it most unusual. A weed or a flower? A seed or a shower of them? A part of child-hood, and a part of Spring. Maybe even a thriving example of the most copious life cycle.

Whether they are annoying or beautiful, I do not know.

And that is why I deem them – The Most Interesting Weed in the World.

After a Dark and Snowy Week…

On March 6, 2015 By AngeliaIn Beautiful Life28 Comments

The sun comes out ~~to blind me~~ to brighten our days. But the snow, and ice (which is still snow to Texans) was a fun and dramatic change from our sunny 60’s (sometimes 80’s!) winter.

The Dallas metroplex is one of those areas when the weatherman says, “Snow.”

We say, “Yeah, right!”

And when he still says, “SNOW!”

We say, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Well, we believed! We believed last week and we believed this week. The magical ice and snow and allllll the blustery cold things happened. We broke out the gloves and scarves. We made chili (well, my sweet hubby made super, yummy, delicious chili). And most of the household had many wonderful snow days away from the office and school.

Except for me…because…I work for a travel agency. Even better, I supervise the EMERGENCY SERVICE Department of said travel agency. And what do you know? Snow storms and flight cancellations seem to top the #1 EMERGENCY of travelers. Huh.

But you know, with the skidding and sliding of planes off runways and such. Yeah, that. It’s kind of important that they CANCEL these precarious flights, lest you end up crashing into a ditch, screaming as you plunge down a blow-up slide while highly flammable jet fuel LEAKS nearby. So not the winter vacation you were hoping for. This is why I am happy to work snow days and keep you extra safe. You’re welcome.

But fingers crossed, someone has snuffed out that darn ground-hog and it WILL FORtheloveofGODplease be Spring real, real soon.

In the meantime, enjoy my lovely (and rare) SNOW photos. It happened. It really did.

This. This thing called snow.It is magical. I bet I’ll be eating snow balls later.

Maya kitty sees her first snow. She batted at the window like. WHAT? What is that??

I don’t understand this thing called snow. I need a nap.

It’s snow Maya. I tried to take her out to see it in person, but she FREAKED and clawed my shoulder. I think that meant – HELL NO into the snow I won’t GO!

My Anna dog runs through the snow/ice.

Anna dog and my old gal Salem have a snack of crunchy, tasty snow.

My Black Lab Salem. She is 12yrs old going on 13 this year. And she *still* loves the snow. Sweet girl.

This was the first wimpy snow. I didn’t get a pic of the bigger snow on my car.

FUN!

The girls play on the trampoline. Snowballs and jumping – what could be better?

Snowball fight!

The girls chunked ice/snow balls at Anna. I am really surprised it didn’t knock her out. She loves catching snowballs more than anything.

Anna the Snow ball catcher. Who needs a Frisbee?

This snow is swinging. Heh.

Hello Kitty in the snow.

The girls and the snow (ice).

Bridget in the snow.

Molly in the snow.

The snow melted. Some ice was left. The girls wished for more snow (they got it a week later).

But that didn’t stop them from trying to use the leftover ice/snow from the trampoline to build a ICE SLIDE.

This is what I call glorious busy work. LOVE.

Our gorgeous trees in the back.

Our nearby park as the snow was melting.

The ducks at the park. They don’t seem to mind the snow.

All the ducks in the pond took off flying as if their life depended on it. We looked up and saw this scene. Apparently, the ducks spotted this guy and knew it was feeding time. It was too funny!

Clover covered in snow. I call it my lucky heart clover.

On a Dark and Starry Night

On February 23, 2015February 26, 2015 By AngeliaIn Beautiful Life18 Comments

On a dark and starry night…

The night of the black supermoon (which we can’t see from here).
© 2015 Angelia's Photography
The night of the Chinese New Year.

On this black night, we trekked to the country to see the stars.

I wish I could say we camped or built a fire, roasted a marshmallow or two. Slept in a tent and had a nice hike the next day. Preferably around a lake where we could watch the birds catch their breakfast.
© 2015 Angelia's Photography
But no, we just took photos. I took photos. My husband checked my skymap app for planets and maybe hacked a few portals on Ingress. Heh.

We drove an hour. We stayed an hour. We drove an hour home.

This is the life of a city dweller and the lengths we have to go to look at more than one or two stars in the sky.

Leaving behind the city glare. Immersing into the deep dark under the brilliant twinkle of lights.

It was pure bliss.

And I learned that letting go of a normal night schedule. Getting out and being free to roam and adventure. To bask in the glory of the heavenly skies…it is wonderous and magical.

It is a glow I missed seeing. A midnight blanket I needed to snuggle under. A tremendously soothing space for my soul.
© 2015 Angelia's Photography

Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry