by Beth Ellen Nagle on December 31, 2008
Well, we are now heading into a new year. I am not much of a writer (an area I could surely improve upon) and so won’t go into things too deeply but it has been a great year of challenges, growth and change. One thing to put simply-I pray (God willing) I see less of the hospital this coming year. :) I look forward to a new year in homeschooling, artistic endeavors and exploring/learning.
We recently acquired some frogs! These are African Albino Clawed frogs and we got them from some friends who needed to let go of the responsibility of caring for them. I moved them to a much larger home and they seem content. They are quite comical when they eat and I would like to get some video of them sometime. I have not named them properly yet.
I have always wanted to try electric guitar and my husband got me a very budget but decent guitar to play around with. This is a Fender Bullet Squier. I can improve on the sound by getting different pickups and new strings as well as setting it up for good intonation. It doesn’t tune as well as I would like but once those things are done it will have a pretty decent sound. 
While I have had some practice with my Snow Rail my photos have not met my expectations and I have yet to improve on my general setup. Aside from having a box I need to have an area in which to work. I sure wish we had a garage but we don’t! I need to setup some kind of temporary place to have something to set the box on and also to shield wind. There is still work to do before I can really focus as I would like.
Well, there is more going on but will leave it at this. I hope you all have a Happy New Year! :) Thanks for visiting!
by Beth Ellen Nagle on December 22, 2008
I loaded up one of my favorite computer programs this past week. I find it helps to explore images in other ways to get inspiration. Here are a couple of my recent images. You will find the Apophysis site in my links section.
“Star”
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“Nebula”
by Beth Ellen Nagle on December 22, 2008
We had a decent storm recently and the winds were whipping up snow drifts. This one was a bit higher than what I am used to seeing in our back porch. I don’t think the photo does it justice.
In other happenings, I updated my WP and I am sure struggling to get used to the new dashboard. When I get there I think I am in the wrong place!
by Beth Ellen Nagle on December 17, 2008
My snow box is finally done. I have named it the Snow Rail. It is mounted on a rail that allows you to move the camera in 4 directions (up/down and left/right). My current setup is the Nikon D70, Pro Optic Auto extension tubes, Nikon 50mm and a clip on Raynox 250. I have other options but wanted to work with that first. I will also work with a reverse lens and other combos when I get a chance. Yesterday we had a nice snow and I was able to step outside. Initially the snow was clumpy but towards the end I began to see nice flakes. I was out briefly. The box was not chilled and so it warmed up my glass that I set on the box to catch snowflakes. Things started melting pretty quickly even though the glass was cold as the warmth transferred from the box to the glass. I will have to be sure the box is chilled next time. 
I was able to see many snowflakes and only snapped around 4 photos under the circumstances. Clearly I would like to get in closer. We have snow coming in tomorrow and so I hope to get out again.
by Beth Ellen Nagle on December 16, 2008
On the inside of our front door glass some ice crystals formed. I grabbed my little Panasonic FZ5 and threw on both my Raynox macro lens (150/250) and did some studies. It melted rather quickly and I chose a composition I thought pleasing. Hope you enjoy. It is snowing today but the snow is too clumped to get any real snowflake shots. John is almost done with my snowflake box where I’ll try to use my Nikon D70 setup for capturing snowflake images. Hopefully it will be done by tonight and now I just wait for good flakes to fall.
