Cherry Blossoms

Last night I came home from our camera club meeting feeling quite chuffed as I scored full marks for both of my entries, that has not happened to me before and doesn't happen that frequently in the club. The judge this week also commented on the high standard of our club, and she consequently found it so difficult to award scores. We have a handful of active members in our 'club' class (beginners), more active members in our intermediate class, but a very active advanced class so the competition is always high, but it was my lucky night last night. The images I entered were this one, which looked good printed on a slightly textured Hannemuhle pearl paper, and this one.

This morning I met Laura for a walk with Xena, and although it was sunny it was so cold - what has happened to our spring? It was also so muddy after all the rain yesterday and last night.

It has been a photography day at the computer - I finished going through videos of setting up my camera for wildlife, and then also finished going through an online book I bought of Nikon focusing modes, as they are quite complicated with my camera which has so many different settings. I also uploaded all my camera club exhibition images to the PhotoEntry website, it takes time to choose and resize the images. With such an active camera club program and competitions I don't have time to enter any other type of competitions, this is enough work! 

I went out just before lunch to get some photos of this beautiful cherry tree down the road, its blossoms are lovely deep pink. Interestingly I spoke to someone at camera club last night who has just got back from a trip to Japan to see the blossoms there, and he said there were none, as they had an unseasonal warm start to spring so all their blossoms were out much earlier. He did see enormous dinner plate sized peonies though!

Xena was snoozing in her chair and then went crazy as she saw a fox who had the audacity to walk right past the window - we have so many foxes around at the moment!