Weeks 52 and 53

ZIZO on the dog walk last week.
Through December I have been taking pictures with the Theme A-Z of Christmas. Z of course was proving to be difficult until I took this picture for Helena’s ZIZO meme. Z is for ZIZO of course!
My December project is on my side bar if you would like to look

The birds have been so active in my garden over the last week, I tried a bird ZIZO for the last week of Helena’s 2014 meme. The pictures are taken through glass which is why they are cloudy but I didn’t want to disturb the birds.

I have seen this blackbird with his white tail feather on a number of days recently.

I love the look on his face!

I am so looking forward to joining in with Helena’s new meme for 2015: Pairs. What a great idea!

I have been zooming in and out on a tree this week. Zooming and being disappointed when I see on my screen what my eyes think they have seen.

I see this beautiful splash of colour over the fence every day.

But this is not what my eyes and mind see.

So I darkened the picture.

But it’s still not right.

Then I cropped almost everything out to concentrate my mind on the colour of the tree.

Still not right, and having cropped it so much it’s out of focus.

Then I remembered my friend Lisa Gordon talking about a picture of a lovely lilac (I think), she had seen while out walking but when she saw the picture on her screen it just didn’t look like what she had seen in the street. So she played with the picture until it looked like what her eyes and mind had seen.

I did something similar. I used an app called Glaze and this is how I see the tree every day.

And this is it ‘waterlogued’

I love how your eyes can focus on something while blocking out all extraneous detail. Something the camera can’t do unless you use your long lens and a tripod and a set of steps which I don’t have handy this morning and I just remembered that it is Wednesday and time to link up with Helena. Pixel magic, I love it!

Thank you Helena for this wonderful meme. I can hardly believe we have been zooming around all over the world for a year. I wonder if you might do something similar next year?

It has been raining here for days and I haven’t been out beyond the gate!
For Helena’s ZIZO this week I am posting pictures of a very beautiful pond I saw while on holiday when it was warm and sunny with clear blue skies.

So zooming in and out on my holiday.

I was looking at the reflections in the water.

and as I walked around the pond I saw these little chaps!

I took the picture for Deb Turtle and then couldn’t resist zooming in a little closer with Helena in mind.

Thank you Helena.

Dogs Day Out

I love visiting the beach by my brother’s home in South Wales, there is always something going on and today was no exception. Today was Dogs Day Out. There were ever so many of them running up and down the pebbled beach but just one was in the sea swimming up and down the shoreline and in and out with the surf all by him self. (Yes it could have been a her, I didn’t get a chance to look)

From where we were watching he appeared to be all alone and such a long way out. We couldn’t see any one to whom he might belong, until we climbed the bank of pebbles.
Down the other side of the bank, by the water, was a gentleman throwing a stone at for the dog, stone after stone, throw after throw and the dog kept on swimming to where the pebble disappeared into the water, he almost came back to his master once but then he changed his mind and off he went again.

Dogs and the beach, perfect for each other and a great opportunity for a ZIZO.

This lovely meme, which I have missed posting to, is Helena’s

Week 37 of Helena’s fabulous meme. This week I have been watching the bees on the Passion Flower.