On the Same Level With Nature - Up Close and Personal

What a beautiful day! Seriously - it was so amazing outside today.

Too bad I was in the office all day (except for the few minutes I ran out for lunch and actually got to feel the sun on my face from the office to the car, the car to the store, and you get the picture!). The dashboard thermometer read 86 degrees and that was shocking to me!

This is the time of the year where I truly feel like I come alive. When I get out of the office at night it's like I'm "released!" and "full of the power of spring"!! On spring days like this I tie my hair back, roll down the windows, and open the sun roof when I drive. I can't get enough of that warm spring wind all around me. Don't you know that feeling??

Okay, sometimes I try to contain my true silliness on my blog and keep it to pretty professional "talk" but I think it's okay to post how something made you feel alive and how it inspired you.

Well...with that said...today the feeling was like ---> I wanted to find large open field and just run through it barefoot with my hair flowing in the breeze!!

Sound strange, corny, weird? I doubt it you'd think that...come on! admit it! I'm sure you've had visions of running through a beautiful open field, feeling the sun on your face, while your hair blows in the breeze (well skip the hair blowing in the breeze if you're a guy and you don't have flowing hair LOL).

This is the time of the year where it's not burning hot and you can feel spring physically and mentally (I think that's why they call it "SPRING FEVER" LOL!) and you just can't wait to be outside.

Unfortunately I wasn't dressed for the occasion for running through any fields with my "work clothes" and high heeled boots on LOL! (Imagine the site as I'm running and go tumbling down in my boots!)

So, I settled for another day of getting VERY Close and personal with nature by using (only) my Nikon 105mm f/2.8G VR AF-S lens and shooting some macros at the park I frequently visit on my way home.





Macro is a whole other world...you are literally a foot away from your subject, up close and personal and certainly on the same level with your subject. I wasn't perfectly dressed for this either - but did happen to remember that I have a spare pair of sneakers in my trunk and a padding thing to kneel on!





This session was even more fruitful then the last one in terms of variety. I headed over to the rose garden section of the park (this place is huge) and I set up for getting close to the flowers by lowering the tripod as low as it would go. I made a note to bring my Gorilla Pod next time and see if it can support the weight of this lens. It's hard to get close w/ a full size tripod so that option may work!




Most of these ended up being hand-held and required a lot of squatting! I guess you can say I am getting my workouts! Photography+toning the legs? Can't beat that!

Enjoy!