Oops, I didn’t mean to go away and forget about my little photo blog, but here we are. I kept meaning to post…and then I didn’t. Some days I think I should give up this blog or maybe combine it with my much more active (and time consuming) food blog, but other days I like having a place to post about things other than recipes. I don’t know, one day I will figure out what exactly I want to accomplish with this blog, but until then I guess I’ll keep posting sporadically.

Another factor is that I haven’t been taking many non-food blog related photos lately. It’s been so hot that walking around and taking pictures doesn’t sound very fun. Plus since I’ve now been living here for almost two years the shine has kind of worn off. I still adore this neighborhood, but I feel like I’ve already taken pictures of about every tree and flower in all four seasons so I’m not as inspired by it as I was last year.

What I have been doing is taking tons of photos with my iPhone that I got a few months ago. I’m loving using instagram and other photo apps and it’s been inspiring me in ways that my good old Canon just hasn’t been. I’m trying to figure out the best way to autopost those photos on here, so that may start happening soon. Otherwise, if anyone still reads this blog (I seriously have no idea) and you are on instagram, feel free to follow me, I’m Emiline220. I will follow you back!

To try to get back into the photo taking groove, I joined the new Capture the Word group on flickr. They have a new word every week and you try to well, capture it (duh). Anyway, the first word was Refreshing, so when I saw my very first home grown tomato gleaming with rain drops it seemed like a perfect subject.

I’ve heard of blood oranges before, but never actually bought any until this year. I’m kinda in love with them. I don’t even think that taste that great (they don’t seem to be as sweet as normal oranges to me), but they are just so beautiful that I would probably continue to buy them even if they tasted awful.

I took these photos a few weeks ago when we had a power outage for no reason in the middle of the day. Seriously, it was bright and sunny and only slightly windy, so I can’t imagine what caused us to be without power for 2+ hours on a Friday afternoon. But I figured I would make the most of it and take some photos and the blood oranges were the first thing that came to mind.

That actually made me realize that I need to be making time to practice taking photos like that more often. It was fun, it was a nice stress reliever and I’m never going to grow as a photographer if I don’t practice all the time. I’m going to try to take a “power outage” break at least once a week from now on.

This summer I discovered I love cherries. I’m just sad I didn’t realize it sooner.

I realized I had a fridge full of red fruits and vegetables, so I decided to do another color themed photo shoot as a companion to the “Green” photos that I took earlier this year.

I like to do theme weeks. Last week was antiques, this week will be fruit because I seem to have a bunch of random photos of various summer fruits that I have yet to post here. I went back to the antique shop this past weekend (because I’m obsessed with it now), so I’ll have some more photos from there in the couple of weeks, but I felt like a break from those.

These are the same blackberries that I photographed here, but I finally got to pick them! I still have a bunch sitting in my freezer, so I need to find something good to do with them.

Blackberries in May (top left), June (top right) and July (bottom).

I’ve been taking pictures of these blackberries since May (and actually before, since I realized that these were Blackberry flowers) and I was finally able to pick them recently. Now I have a freezer full of blackberries and I just have to figure out what to do with them.

Creativity Boot Camp, Day 9. Technically, CBC ended yesterday, but I’m going to finish, dammit!

My drizzling skills leave something to be desired, but let’s pretend I was going for more “Jackson Pollack” and less “magazine-quality precision and elegance”, okay?

Creativity Boot Camp, Day 8