You Capture - ten favorite photos from 2011

This is my first time participating in 'You Capture' and hope to join in every week.  I'm not a photographer and while I have a semi ok camera I still don't know how to use it probably and stick to the automatic settings.  This is something I want to change but for now I don't have time and while I know if it was important enough I would make time but not yet.  For now I'm just happy to get the camera out and challenge myself every day.  Maybe later in the year I'll get brave and explore manual.

For now here are some of my favourite photos from 2011.  It was hard to limit it just to 10 and they are almost all of my two kids.  I'm trying to take photos of something other than my kids but look at them... aren't they cute??

Day 5

Today I was organised for a change and had chosen the topic of todays photo before breakfast.  I've been looking after a friends chickens while she and her family are on holiday.  Going up to feed them every day and collect an egg from the one egg laying hen at the moment.  They have 3 adult hens, one has just hatched some eggs and is in a rabbit hutch with the baby chicks.  In the large chicken pen/house is the two others, one which is laying an egg but not every day and the other is currently clucky and doesn't seem to move, every time I'm there I have to pick it up to check for eggs underneath.

This photo is of the clucky chicken.  Every time I open the door she sticks out here feathers to make her appear larger.  In the week I've been looking after these chickens there has only been 3 eggs but every time they're under this chicken.

I have to admit when I added chicken to the list i was thinking of taking a photo of a chicken curry or pie or stew, but a alive chicken is just as good if not more humane.

1. Sunrise
2. Rain
3. Chicken
4. House
5. Strawberries
6. Horse
7. Cars
8. Tomatoes
9. Juice
10. Worms
11. Eyes
12. Bunny
13. Toys
14. Ribbon
15. Pop
16. Bubbles
17. Police
18. Ink
19. Recycle
20. Umbrella
21. Robot
22. Plants
23. Patch
24. Fur
25. Art
26. Dance
27. Literature
28. Sliding
29. Zip
30. Shoes
31. Collection

Day 4

8pm and I hadn't picked up my camera all day.  Only 4 days into this challenge and I didn't want to fail this soon.  I had already been through the list earlier and ruled out those I wanted to save for another day which didn't leave many that I could quickly depending on how you interrupt the theme.

The great bit about having kids is there are many many toys that I can play with between the two kids there were several horses.  Since it was getting late I popped outside to get the last of the days light and pleased that the horse was in a good mood and complied with me :)

1. Sunrise
2. Rain
3. Chicken
4. House
5. Strawberries
6. Horse
7. Cars
8. Tomatoes
9. Juice
10. Worms
11. Eyes
12. Bunny
13. Toys
14. Ribbon
15. Pop
16. Bubbles
17. Police
18. Ink
19. Recycle
20. Umbrella
21. Robot
22. Plants
23. Patch
24. Fur
25. Art
26. Dance
27. Literature
28. Sliding
29. Zip
30. Shoes
31. Collection

Day 3

My girl has more shoes than myself, hubby and my boy combined, but she prefers to go barefoot.

1. Sunrise
2. Rain
3. Chicken
4. House
5. Strawberries
6. Horse
7. Cars
8. Tomatoes
9. Juice
10. Worms
11. Eyes
12. Bunny
13. Toys
14. Ribbon
15. Pop
16. Bubbles
17. Police
18. Ink
19. Recycle
20. Umbrella
21. Robot
22. Plants
23. Patch
24. Fur
25. Art
26. Dance
27. Literature
28. Sliding
29. Zip
30. Shoes
31. Collection

Day 2

After days and days of rain around 2pm yesterday I realised the rain had stopped .  Looking at the sky and then at the weather forecast it showed we had a small window of good weather, or I really should say less rain so if we were going to go camping before hubby went back to work next week this was the time.

So we packed up the car, grabbed the co-ordinates of the closest DOC camping grounds and after a quick stop at the supermarket we were off for our first ever family camping trip.... half way there I realised the camera at home.

All was not lost as I still had my phone so before the battery died I snapped a couple of photos.  These photos were more about capturing memories of the trip rather than trying to remember something on the list so I'm choosing my favorite photo and just going to make it fit.

Since the tent was our 'house' for the night here is my girl refusing to sleep in our 'house' well past her bedtime but still half an hour until sunset.

1. Sunrise
2. Rain
3. Chicken
4. House
5. Strawberries
6. Horse
7. Cars
8. Tomatoes
9. Juice
10. Worms
11. Eyes
12. Bunny
13. Toys
14. Ribbon
15. Pop
16. Bubbles
17. Police
18. Ink
19. Recycle
20. Umbrella
21. Robot
22. Plants
23. Patch
24. Fur
25. Art
26. Dance
27. Literature
28. Sliding
29. Zip
30. Shoes
31. Collection

Embrace The Camera - Christmas Day

1 down 365 to go

Well I didn't manage to get out of bed early enough for the sunrise this morning, not that it mattered as it was cloudy and raining so I doubt I would have seen the  sunrise let alone be able to photograph it.

As the day went on I took a lot of photos but nothing that I was happy to use as the first photo of this challenge.  In the end shortly before the kids bath time I grabbed the camera and headed outside to the rabbit hutch.  I didn't even try shooting through the wire as I knew I wouldn't like the results.  At first I poked the lens of my camera through the wire at the top of hutch and which Lucy (black rabbit) found very interesting and climbed up the side of the hutch to get closer.  As Lucy is black and with her constant movement I struggled to get the photo in focus so I needed a different approach.

I then opened the house part of the hutch and with some help of some fresh dandelion leafs Lucy and Bella quickly hopped in.  Lucy might have thought the camera was some kind of food as she was more interested in it than the leafs.

It was hard to narrow it down to just one photo but when showing them to Mark this one made him laugh, I also like it as both rabbits appear to be in focus which isn't easy with black and white moving subjects.

1. Sunrise
2. Rain
3. Chicken
4. House
5. Strawberries
6. Horse
7. Cars
8. Tomatoes
9. Juice
10. Worms
11. Eyes
12. Bunny
13. Toys
14. Ribbon
15. Pop
16. Bubbles
17. Police
18. Ink
19. Recycle
20. Umbrella
21. Robot
22. Plants
23. Patch
24. Fur
25. Art
26. Dance
27. Literature
28. Sliding
29. Zip
30. Shoes
31. Collection