Nicci

March 10, 2015March 10, 2015 Nicci Skiing

Spring skiing and a dog

I would love to have one of these dogs, the Great Dane. The man let me take a picture.

The Alpine Meadows Adaptive Skiing Center makes me so happy.

There were two people helping this little skier. The next day I saw two people helping a blind skier. Skiing feels really good, the fresh pine-scented air blowing on your face and the feeling of gliding. The center makes all kinds of innovative equipment to help people with different disabilities.

Here is the last photo of this vacation.

I do have a few more to show you, which I will do when I get home.

Happy Tuesday, or Wednesday, as the case may be.

Nicci

March 9, 2015March 9, 2015 Nicci Uncategorized

#Giveaway Monday

This was the juiciest giveaway I found this week. I was Googling around looking for classes for creating book covers. I’ve been learning that you can make good book covers in Word! Anyway, I’m still working hard on an upgrade to a cover, using Photoshop Elements and GIMP, just hacking away. But next time I’m looking forward to using the templates provided for free by Derek Murphy. Here is the link:

http://diybookcovers.com/?utm_content=bufferba0c1&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

He also gives away a lot of information in articles about design and marketing that has helped me already, though I’ve only sampled a bit of it so far.

I took photos while skiing yesterday. I’ll post them tomorrow. I also had another link that has procedures for using Word to create book covers. It was awesome, but I can’t find where I stored that. (I have a bit of a housekeeping issue with my bookmarks.) When I find that link, I will provide it, but I do need to get this posted. What good is a giveaway Monday if it doesn’t post until night time?

Have a great Monday!

March 8, 2015March 7, 2015 Nicci Photography

Down by the river

Yesterday was a lovely day for a walk by the river.

We weren’t the only people who thought so! There were several people who parked on Highway 89 and scrambled down to the bike path with their families to enjoy the weather and nature.

I didn’t take any pictures of the people though.

Just enjoyed nature and the joy of photography.

Most of these pictures are from the DSLR, which is in its element outdoors, I think. (Except at night for some reason I have to figure out.)

The air smelled like wet pine needles and rich soil.

The river is very low because of the drought, but there’s a lot of beauty when it’s like this.

The calm water allows for a lot of reflections. I also love the mix of textures in this setting, the dried grass, rocks, the pines and water.

Then there are the ducks. I was so excited to capture this shot! I used the Panasonic for its stronger telephoto lens.

The Panasonic allowed me to capture these two as well.

March 7, 2015 Nicci Photography, Skiing

Skiing at Alpine Meadows March 6th

We have just enough snow and lovely warm weather to make for a lot of fun.

I saved most of the photography for the end of the day.

But I did get my husband to take this of me so I wouldn’t have to do a selfie.

I plan to go out and photograph the Truckee River today. What do you plan to do with your Saturday (or Sunday)?

Nicci

March 6, 2015March 5, 2015 Nicci Photography

Moonlight in the mountains

I had a lot of technical difficulties but did manage to catch the reflection of the moon on the snow here.

Here you see Alpine Meadows lit up by the full moon. There are a couple planets up there in the sky, or perhaps they are stars, but awfully big ones! The lights on the mountain are people working. They are grooming the slopes. Interesting job, eh?

Earlier in the evening, while I was still in Nevada, I was able to capture one shot of the moon rise that wasn’t too blurred.

The DSLR was not cooperating tonight, but fortunately the little Panasonic could handle the job. I just didn’t have a tripod for it, nor a remote shutter control. But the sensor and intelligence in the camera are remarkable. The Panasonic saved the day…or in this case, the night!

March 5, 2015 Nicci Photography

Nevada mountains

I had a lovely evening walk today. The sun wasn’t in the right place for photography, but the results weren’t anything a little post processing couldn’t fix!

March 4, 2015 Nicci Photography, Uncategorized

Morning light

Seeing the first sun on the mountains roused me from bed this morning.

I decided to drive to Tahoe City to photograph the lake. I parked at Commons Beach. Needless to say, I had the park to myself. It was quite cold, but I bundled up.

Have a great day!

Nicci

March 3, 2015 Nicci Skiing, Uncategorized

Riding the tram at Squaw Valley

This mountain, which we called Granite Chip (though I’m not sure if that is correct and couldn’t confirm), has always been one of my favorites. The contrasts of color in the rocks, snow, sky, and trees are so pretty.

I shot these out the tram window, as you can see, but what a great vantage point for photographing this slot at the top. I used to hike up here in the summer with my dog and look out through that slot down to the valley floor. A tad scary for someone afraid of heights (a little) but I would just stand back a bit. The slot was a natural frame for the beautiful valley floor.

If I love the colors so much, why did I make one monochrome? It’s kind of dramatic this way.

The weather turned really nice today and is going to keep getting warmer. I hope to get some more photos for you. I’m so tempted to take my DSLR out. I saw some trees below one of the lifts with roots hugging the crown of a bluff. I’d have to take my skis off and scramble up over rocks and through snow in my ski boots, so it might not happen. But it would be an interesting twist on skiing to turn the day into a photo shoot!

March 2, 2015March 2, 2015 Nicci Giveaway Monday

#Giveaway Monday 2

More giveaways for you (because I forgot I had already scheduled one!) LOL! I didn’t want these links to go to waste. Good stuff here. Enjoy!

Dangerous Justice by Terri Reed is an exciting book. It’s being released a chapter a week from Harlequin. It caught my eye because it’s about a K-9 unit. I just read the first chapter which is action packed! It’s really short, too. Check it out.

http://www.harlequin.com/articlepage.html?articleId=1998&chapter=1&utm_campaign=onlineread&utm_medium=social&utm_source=Twitter_HQ&utm_content=dangerousjustice&utm_term=

The following list of books aren’t free, but the list is free, and it’s a really good list. What I like about the list of 22 contemporary authors is the very short blurb approach. In a few minutes you can scan the authors and see whose work you’d like to read next:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/isaacfitzgerald/these-writers-are-not-to-be-missed?hootPostID=456e3b27084b3fc9199a383d5e348cdd#.gl1XXKAzl

Thanks to https://villagebookslg.wordpress.com/ for tweeting about that list. The Village House of Books is great at curating books. Speaking of which, here’s a link to a guest post from an interesting historical author whose very interesting book Rebel Queen is in book stores tomorrow: https://villagebookslg.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/guest-post-michelle-moran-author-of-rebel-queen/

I found this sweepstakes today. It looks pretty easy to enter. If you use Twitter and live in the USA, you can retweet this tweet and follow @AOL to be entered to win a Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Nook (retail $149).

Tweet:

http://www.aol.com/article/2015/03/01/enter-for-a-chance-to-win-a-nook-from-aolrise/21148135/

That’s it for today! Have a great Monday. I do hope to bring you some skiing pictures tomorrow, if I can tear myself away from my cozy condo and manuscript and brave the snow!

Nicci

March 2, 2015February 25, 2015 Nicci Uncategorized