JeanC's photography

Recently I retired my Nikon Coolpix P3 that has been ailing due to old age. It is still a good camera, but I wasn't getting the quality of pictures I wanted on a regular basis. So I picked up a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FH20, another point and shoot that is simply delicious!

One of the features is the ability to shoot in black and white and it has a film grain mode that gives my photos an interesting look.

Plain B&W just out and about town:



B&W on the film grain setting with an ISO of 1600:

The old Tip Top Drive in in Lewiston ID:



Harvest time along HWY 95 in Nez Perce County Idaho:



I've never really had a chance to work in B&W so I am looking forward to what I can do with it.

It is amazing the critters you see around campus. A co-worker came in one day and waved me to follow him outside. Once I saw what he wanted to show me I ran back in and got my camera.

This sweet little brown bat was just hanging on the wall next to the front doors, so i amused a number of students walking into the building by laying on the ground to get photos. I had to apologize to the little guy a couple of times when the flash on my camera turned itself on a couple of times.

Eventually someone from facilities came by and took the little guy away. I do hope it was to find him a better place to hang out.

This photo made it into the library staff newsletter.

I have to say, I refuse to have ordinary things. We bought a small fishing boat last year and this spring I painted it.

Nothing brings out smiles of people while you are driving down the road or launching a boat like a boat that is painted orange and black tiger stripes LOL

I collect Devil Duckies, I have quite a number of them and they seem to find themselves in places I simply HAVE to take pictures of them in. In this case the lot that live on my desk at work went exploring one evening.

The library is now computerized, but we still have an old card catalog so the kids today can get a glimpse of how things used to be (and when the computer system is down for any reason I really, really miss the old card catalog LOL).

So here a number of them are checking out the old school method:



while three check out how we do it now:

I love taking pictures of food. There is a beauty in food that so many people today don't see with the fear of food culture we live in. I take pictures of food to show that food isn't bad, it isn't evil and it is wonderful, beautiful and nourishing.

Not to mention I am a darn fine cook and I love to show off what I make LOL.

The above is a stroganoff I whipped up for dinner last night with London broil, crimini mushrooms, sour cream and onions. Stroganoff is a dish many new cooks blanch at the mere mention of, but it is a very easy dish to cook. The key is patience, even for a quick throw together dinner. I find that it works wonderfully well using even the cheapest cuts of meat that I will let simmer in the crock pot all day when I think to make it a head of time.

For last night's dinner, I cubed the beef and sauteed it a bit at a time in a bit of olive oil, making sure I didn't crowd the meat and then set it aside in a bowl while did the next batch of meat. Once the meat was done, I popped in the sliced mushrooms (I prefer crimini over white. Criminis have a wonderful beefy flavor while whites tend to be fairly neutral in flavor). Once they had a chance to cook down and release their juices, I added some balsamic vinegar and a bit of Worcestershire sauce and let them simmer a while longer.

When they were about done, I added some flour in anticipation of thickening the sauce and let the flour and mushroom mixture cook a while longer. I then added the meat back in with the accumulated juices. I added enough water to cover and a good sized dollop of beef soup base I keep on hand.

At this point I crumbled in some dehydrated sweet onions. If I had used real onions, I would have sauteed them before or after the meat.

I let the stroganoff simmer and when dinner was about ready, added the sour cream and let it all heat thru. In the meantime I cooked some egg noodles, drained and then buttered.

I always like to make enough so we have at least a good couple of meals, esp lunch the next day. The above photo was taken at lunch and I am sure I amuse my coworkers when I sit down to eat and then whip out my camera before doing so.

A couple years back DH and I decided to take a drive up the Snake River in Hell's Canyon to see what we could see. In specific I was looking for Buffalo Eddy as I wanted to see the pictoglyphs that had been made by the Nez Perce about 4500 years ago.

It was a fairly nice day, tho a bit hazy from a number of wildfires that were burning throughout Washington and Idaho. But that did not deter us from exploring somewhere we hadn't been before.

We finally arrived a Buffalo Eddy and stopped. The parking area over looks the river and just below the lot is a large and steep sandy area where people were out
enjoying the day. I considered going down, but contented myself with just taking pictures from my vantage point.

I eventually decided I wanted to see the pictglyphs and headed down the trail above the river. It wa a fairly easy walk, but when I got to the end, realized I was not dressed in such a way as to see the glyphs. Sandals and a skirt are not the best hiking outfit LOL.

So I decided to take some pictures of the immediate area and head back to the car where DH was waiting. As I walk back, a movement on the ground caught my eye.

Now I should mention the area is prime rattle snake country and after a run in with one in 1983, I was VERY leery of movements on the ground. I stopped and look and realized what I had seen was a Bull snake following the trial along side me.

Once I determined he wasn't a rattler, I stopped and very carefully leaned down and told him (her?) what a gorgeous snake he(she?) was and I did so want to have some pictures.

I made sure I moved very carefully, even tho it wasn't a rattler, snakes can and will bite if they feel threatened. So I took a few shots on regular and then switched to my macro and leaned in very slowly.

I managed a number of shots, but it wasn't until I got home and downloaded my camera that I was able to really see what I had. The above photo is my favorite of all the ones I took since if looks like we were almost looking eye to eye.