"Bokeh" Day 22 of the 30 day photo challenge

Better bokeh than never.  This is one of the smalls I added to my collection.  The striped dress is glazed ceramic no larger than one inch and on the base of the pedestal is written Marilyn Monroe.

Let's do the Hokey Bokeh and TWO sunshines in one week.

"Bokeh," this photograph challenge topic was a new term for me.  It means areas in the image are out of focus and this picture qualifies.  I was tempted to change the day's topic to "Something Cute" but then I realized I didn't have to.  These two sweeties were at the Goodwill in Sacramento off of 16th Street.  They photographed well but there were numerous chips - ya gotta give them credit for surviving for as long as they have.  I place them as 1950s-1960s figurines.

The reference to sunshines is that I received TWO Sunshine Blogger Awards in one week.

My second was from Gwen of A Little Unhinged, another blogger I met on a blog hop.

Now, if you haven't participated in a blog hop, it is the thing to do!  I tripled my readership in one week and found some fun and interesting blogs.  I will be co-hosting a Blog Hop with her in the next couple of weeks.  

Give a visit to Destiny at Rockin' Mama, a different take on the mommy blog.



AND Shane at Whispering Sweet Nothings for the skinny on all of your how-to's.  

From writing to photography, Day 1 (Self-portrait)

For those of you that have been following my posts in June, I am not so much a writer but more a photographer (or so I fancy myself).  Google, being the wonderful thing that is, helped me find United Kingdom blogger Debumere Life Begins at 30.  She is hosting a photography challenge with today's prompt being "self-portrait" http://debumere.blogspot.com.  I've jazzed up my portrait with effects from the site http://www.befunky.com.  So this is my scraggly patriotic self.  I just re-read the rules and no photo-shopped images ... I promise not to photo-shop (except for today's post and Day 3).

Mr. VZ is trying to convince me we should become ex-pats (ex-patriots) international migrants, then I would be thrift shop commando on the road.

Day 20's interesting prompt of the photograph challenge is "bokeh."  I had no idea what that word meant until I Googled it.  The Wikipedia definition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh is:

In photography, bokeh (Originally  /ˈboʊkɛ/,^[1]  /ˈboʊkeɪ/ boh-kay — also sometimes heard as  /ˈboʊkə/ boh-kə,^[2] Japanese: [boke]) is the blur,^[3][4] or the aesthetic quality of the blur,^[5][6][7] in out-of-focus areas of an image. Bokeh has been defined as "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light".^[8] However, differences in lens aberrations and aperture shape cause some lens designs to blur the image in a way that is pleasing to the eye, while others produce blurring that is unpleasant or distracting—"good" and "bad" bokeh, respectively.^[3] Bokeh occurs for parts of the scene that lie outside the depth of field. Photographers sometimes deliberately use a shallow focus technique to create images with prominent out-of-focus regions.

Bokeh is often most visible around small background highlights, such as specular reflections and light sources, which is why it is often associated with such areas.^[3] However, bokeh is not limited to highlights; blur occurs in all out-of-focus regions of the image.

Commando thrift shopping was a resounding success yesterday.  Here are the highlights of the finds, wrapping paper 4 for $1.  

A Christmas table cloth (25 cents), some pheasant notecards (25 cents), pink sunglasses (25 cents), Pirates of Caribbean at World's End "Pirates Forever" pink striped tank top ($1.50) and Favorite Recipes of California Winemakers published in 1968 (will be an interested read).  

The Songs of Peace & Love, published in 1968.  I went through three large stack of piano and organ music to find peace and love.

When the other photography challenge participants are known, I'll provide a link back.