The topic for our challenge this week is “People, Here, There and Everywhere”. Tina has a wonderful description of the challenge and great examples on her site. Here are some that I selected for this week’s topic.

The first one is from my cousin’s wedding in Kentucky. This little one stole the show!

This wedding photo is from March of 2020 when we were all secluded in our homes. My neighbor lived 2 houses down from us and her son was married in a small ceremony in her yard. I had my 100-400 lens and got to play paparazzi (with her permission).

My granddaughter was 5 when the movie “Frozen” came out so guess who came to her birthday party?

A few years back we went to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm. I was very surprised at how nice it was. It did not feel like a typical zoo where everything was in cages. As nice as it was – I was amazed that the staff were involved in hand feeding alligators. Never in a million years would I do that!!!

My grandson started kindergarten this year so we went over to their house to see him off. Life is definitely different in the Outer Banks where the mode of transportation to school can be either bus or bike. Here is the group of neighbors off to school in their bike caravan. They still ride bikes on most days.

Thanks Tina for a great topic!

This week on CMMC we have one of Cee’s photos to choose a topic for our post. Possible topics are reservoir, lake, landscape, brown, blue, teal, water, green, layers etc. Here is my choice.

The topic this week on CFFC this week is Things That are Hot. The photo I’ve chosen is one of “forced perspective”. It appears that my husband is holding the sun.

Our challenge this week is Cityscapes. Patti has a description and great examples on her site. For this challenge, I have chosen a city near and dear to my heart, Norfolk, Virginia. We moved there when I was 5 and I spent my school years, college years and 75% of my career working there. Downtown Norfolk is typical of large cities with buildings and traffic.

However, one big difference from other cities is that it is home to Naval Station Norfolk, the largest naval station in the United States. There are many streets that will take you by the naval ships docked in and around the seaport.

There is a church in Norfolk that I attended as a child. It was built in 1857 and is beautiful both inside and out. Sadly, I only have this one photo at this time.

My adult memories are the years I spent working at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. In the 50 years that I worked there I watched it grow from a single hospital in a downtown setting known as Norfolk General Hospital to a large healthcare system now known as Sentara Health with hospitals and facilities in Virginia and North Carolina employing over 30,000 individual. Not bad for a downtown urban hospital.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t share two other fine healthcare facilities that are part of my cityscape and on the campus of Sentara Norfolk General. The first is Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters, the only free standing children’s hospital in Virginia.

The other is Eastern Virginia Medical School which began with with grassroots fundraising in 1970 and accepted its first MD students who matriculated September 28, 1973 for classes that began October 1, 1973. 

I hope you enjoyed this cityscape and trip down my memory lane!!

We had plenty to celebrate in February from my husband’s 75th birthday to our whirlwind trip to Vegas. Here are a few faves.

I like riding around the long and winding country roads in our area looking for treasures like this.

This was taken on a cold, rainy day at the beach. Even the gulls look cold!

It’s still good to see birds around here in the cold winter.

From the upper deck of my daughter’s house, we often see beautiful sunsets. These 3 photos were taken about 30 minutes apart. The colors just kept getting better and better.

Until next time!!

I’ve been “quiet” for a few days due to a short trip to Las Vegas. I didn’t lose that much money because we took advantage of other activities. For this week’s challenge, John of Journeys with Johnbo has us exploring some tools of photo composition, specifically shape, form, texture and light. My first 2 photos were taken in Vegas.

This was taken from the High Roller Ferris Wheel at night. It is quite a view from up there. There was enough light to see the shape of the buildings against the dark sky.

The next photo was taken at Eagle Point on the west rim of the Grand Canyon. I love the texture in the formations. Can you see the eagle?

Last is a bromeliad plant and is an example of all 4 tools.

This image is “just because”. My daughters bought us tickets to the Cirque du Soleil Beatles show. I didn’t take any pictures during the show because it was just enough to sit, watch and listen. I went on a journey back 60 years when they first appeared on the Ed Sullivan show in the U.S. If you are a fan like me and are ever in Vegas, it’s well worth seeing.