Monday, December 7, 2009

Around Portsmouth

Portsmouth, NH, (USA): Thursday was a gorgeous warm day with beautiful skies.

Jim and I took a quick photo safari to Portsmouth to play with some of our Christmas presents!! (Camera gear)




Skyline




Stonewall Kitchen

Lots of holiday decorations are out, using lots of local greenery.


Market Square


Pigeons



Garden structures at Strawbery Banke



Piles of salt and sand on the pier, waiting to treat our roads during winter storms

With our recent snow still covering the ground and trees, I'm extra glad we spent Thursday afternoon outside enjoying the warmth!

11 comments:

Kelly said...

Great pictures! We here in CA had some snow on our nearby hills and that is always exciting!!! Rain at sea level, of course, and lots of it. But now it is clear and the hill is sparkling white. I like snow, in theory (or in the distance!).

Sara said...

I don't know where my comment went - anyway...

I do love Portsmouth...it has a lot of charm and is very pretty.

And, like you, I love to play with my camera...your photos are really good.

Sharon said...

Great pictures. The colors are wonderful. Are they raw or did you Photoshop them?!

Theresa said...

New camera gear, and you've broken it out early huh??
Does Santa know about this? ;-)
So, what did you two splurge on?
Lovely pictures of a lovely city. Neat garden stuff.
The one thing I don't miss is the road salt, it's not used here, they use a gravel stuff instead. Doesn't eat away at your cars nor melt snow really, but it does provide good traction up into the mountain terrain.
Studded tires allowed and chains a must during storms for trucks and cars without 4WD

Life Looms Large said...

Kelly - Distant snow sounds really good to me! (Of course, tomorrow the blizzard that's been all across the country arrives here, so our ground really might be covered for the winter already.)

Thanks for the photo compliments! To answer questions: Yes I do photoshop. I always at least crop and sharpen. 2 of these photos (the bricks and the salt pile) I also had to rotate a tiny bit because they were annoyingly slightly crooked. I also saturated the color a little more in the salt pile photo because it came out of the camera very grey. Otherwise I try not to mess with the color or what it actually looked like to be there!

It's a very Ebay Christmas around here - well, I'm also buying some weaving books. I'll reveal all after we actually open presents. But we're selling some very old camera gear (my original film camera that I bought back in college, plus some other stuff). And Jim bought a new camera that will give him more capabilities for shooting wildlife. That means I get his old hand-me-down camera. And he also bought me some kind of special flash so I can use artificial light indoors without ruining photos (think of the fabric and food pictures I like to shoot.)

When we got this super warm day (the 70's) in December, we had to go shoot pictures. Even though technically it isn't Christmas yet!

Sue

Anonymous said...

Beautiful pictures - I love the one of the pigeons on the ledge!

Delighted Hands said...

Great practice shots with the new CHRISTMAS equipment-I especially like the one of the garden sculpture. A warm day? Glad you enjoyed it!

Theresa said...

Oooh! ebay book buying!!! Sounds wonderful. Can't wait to hear about the weaving book treasures you
found. How goes the weaving??

Life Looms Large said...

Ebay camera buying....various sources of used weaving books....which you know I'll blog about! I am not opening them til Christmas (although I do sneak a peek when a package arrives!)

I was sick yesterday, so no weaving has happened since Saturday. And oddly enough, Saturday night something Charlotte commented about stuck in my brain....need to sort it out soon - today or tomorrow I'd guess. I really want to have all 3 scarves done by Christmas for festive holiday wear and of course, my Xmas weaving project needs to be done by then too!

Sue

Life Looms Large said...

Oh wait - I also wanted to say that I'm happy that some one else liked my pigeon ledge pic!! I was so proud that that one came out of the camera that way - all lined up and well composed. I'm learning!!

And I love the garden structures too. I took a lot of pictures around that one house and didn't take time to really get good composition of that gazebo made of sticks. It's a really cool structure!!

Sue (who hereby promises to finish making my grocery list before reading or commenting on any other comments!)

charlotte said...

Lovely pictures! Portsmouth seems to be a town with a very intact town old center, and without the usual ugly office and store buildings built in the fifties and onward.