Photography – Page 5 – Circadianreflections Blog

Whatever Weds. April Fool’s Fun

April 2, 2025Posted in PhotographyTagged April Fool's Day Fun, Nevada32 Comments

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

Yesterday in my Nextdoor feed was this message from the State of Nevada.

State of Nevada

Local Agency

Public Information Officer Hailey Foster·

23 hr ago

Introducing the Silver State Standard: The Nevada DMV mandates that all vehicles must be painted silver by January 1, 2026 according to the Statewide Vehicle Color Standardization Act. Read more here: https://tinyurl.com/ut7jukn6

Clicking on the link opens a page that says, ” Statewide Vehicle Color Standardization Act

Please ensure your vehicles are painted silver to adhere to the state’s mandate.

What is it?

In an effort to reinforce Nevada’s proud identity as the Silver State, the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles is declaring the Statewide Vehicle Color Standardization Act, taking effect on January 1, 2026. Under this new initiative, all personal, commerical, and government-owned vehicles registered in Nevada will be required to be painted silver.

The purpose of this act is to promote state pride, improve traffic flow aesthetics and create the country’s first color-coordinated highway system.

The DMV encourages customers to begin painting their vehicles silver or purchasing vehicles that follow this guideline to avoid violation fees.

In Case You’re Still Reading

We cannot enforce a statewide vehicle color compliancy. We hope we made you laugh. Happy April Fool’s Day!”

I thought it was pretty funny and thought I’d share it since it was the most unique pun I saw all day. It had the most comments and likes I’ve seen on a Nextdoor post in my feed.

I hope you all had only fun pranks yesterday.

more to come…

Friday’s Feathered Friends- Lifers

March 21, 2025March 20, 2025Posted in Photography29 Comments

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

Last week I mentioned He-Man and I went on a not so spontaneous trip down to Henderson, NV. Not so spontaneous because I have been wanting to go down since December when the Long-tailed Ducks were first reported being seen there. They have wintered there since December! I needed two-three days with nothing planned so we could go down.

Henderson is just the next town south of Las Vegas. The ducks were continuing to be seen and we finally had a couple of days free to go so off we went on a little road trip.

There were 3 Female Long-tailed Ducks staying in the ponds at the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve. We arrived on Sunday afternoon after the Preserve had closed, so our plan was to get there when it opened Monday morning at 7AM. We arrived just a few minutes after they opened, signed in, spoke with the person working there about where to start in the preserve to see the Long-tailed Ducks. They gave us great pointers.

We didn’t see them on our first pass of the pond they were being sighted at so we moved on and explored some other ponds. There are 9 ponds in the preserve.

On our second pass by pond 5 He-Man spotted one! I moved to get better light and there they both were!

Here’s the first one we saw.

©Deborah M. Zajac | http//:circadianreflections.com Image

Here’s the second one. They were easy to tell apart because their bills are different. One has some pink on it and the other one has an all black bill.

The female tails are much, much shorter than the males, but still they’re so cute. I was so excited to see them. The male remains on my “hope to see” list.

I saw 4 other new to me birds while there which I’ll share in future posts.

more to come…

CFFC- Lunch or Dinner

March 17, 2025Posted in Cee's Fun Foto Challenge, Food Photography, PhotographyTagged Food Photography, Home cooking, Sandwich, Smores, tacos, turkey avocado sandwich30 Comments

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

This week for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge the theme is something suggesting lunch or dinner.

Back in the day I was playing with my food more and setting up “food photography shots”. Here’s old image of mine suggesting lunch. A turkey and avocado sandwich.

Do you like chips with your sandwich?

Copyright © 2015 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Or how about tacos?

Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Let’s finish this post with dessert shall we? How about some fancy smores?

more to come…

CFFC-Breakfast

March 11, 2025Posted in Cee;s Fun Foto Challenge, Photography, Still Life, Still Life Photography, Still life-FoodTagged banana, bread, Breakfast, fruit, Oatmeal, oranges, Tea, tea pot, Teacups and Saucer, yogurt41 Comments

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

I was MIA with a post last week and reading yours. It was a busy week with lots of birding, a Gull ID field workshop, lunch and shopping with girlfriends, and a not so spontaneous overnight trip to Henderson, NV to see a rare bird. I’ll tell you more about that later.

I thought I’d use Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge to let you know I’m catching up with your blogs and getting back to my regular schedule of posting.

Here are two of my classic breakfasts. I made these images a long time ago but, they fit the challenge and I still eat these foods for breakfast most days.

Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2013 Deborah M Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

This is part of Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge or CFFC. If you’d like to participate head on over to see what’s coming up in the upcoming weeks, or add your own post about breakfast.

Friday’s Feathered Friends-Birds, Birds, Birds

February 28, 2025February 27, 2025Posted in Birding in Nevada, Birds in the Wild, PhotographyTagged American Bald Eagle, Birding, Birds of North America, Cooper's Hawk, Downy Woodpecker, Nikon, Pygmy Nuthatch56 Comments

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

I thought I’d share some of the birds I’ve seen the last couple of weeks.

Starting with a little Pygmy Nuthatch. It was flying to and from its nest the hole in a tree trunk you can sort of see behind it.

A female Downy Woodpecker who was cold that morning. It was 15 degrees F when we started birding. She didn’t move from that tree for the longest time.

Another morning I had the pleasure of viewing a posing Cooper’s Hawk. Look at that tail!

Then it showed off its wing.

Then it flew showing off its wing span.

Last but not least, I saw the pair of Bald Eagles in their tree near my house on my way out last week. He was obscured by all the branches, but she was up high and in the open. I had to stop for a photo of her.

That’s all I have for you this week. I may be late getting to your posts and blogs this morning as I’m birding with my bird group.

More to come…

Thursday Doors- Nº14 in Watercolor

February 22, 2025Posted in Architecture, Photography, Thursday DoorsTagged learning to draw and paint, M. Graham Watercolor, Stratemore Paper, Thursday Doors, Watercolor66 Comments

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

Last week Pit from https://pitsfritztownnews.wpcomstaging.com/2025/02/17/august-september-2024-three-country-tour-in-europe-a-walk-around-chur/

posted a bit about some time he and his wife spent in Chur, Switzerland, and I loved one of the doorways so, I asked him it it would be alright if I tried to draw and paint it. He said yes! Here’s the reference photo. Used with Pit’s permission.

I wanted to simplify the image a lot keeping the door and only a bit of the courtyard. thought the little entry stair would be the hardest for me to draw so did a little thumbnail sketch- it was okay so pressed on and painted this.

I think the courtyard is too busy and I wanted to blur out the sides more so played with another rough sketch.

Chose my colors and painted version 2.

I’ve taken on the challenge of painting 100 mini paintings this year. I’m 16 paintings in. I’m going to paint this in mini this weekend. Time will tell if I can make it to 100 or not.

Thanks again, Pit for letting me use your photo as a reference!

This post is part of the weekly challenge Thursday Doors hosted by Dan Antion over at https://nofacilities.com/2025/02/20/riding-around/

Hop on over there to see more doors from around the world or join the craze and add a door or two of your own. 😊

Stratemore watercolor paper, M. Graham watercolor paints, assorted brushes. Images iPhone 14 Pro.

more to come…

Friday’s Feathered Friends-Couples

February 14, 2025February 13, 2025Posted in Birding in Nevada, Ducks, Friday's Feathered Friends, Nature, PhotographyTagged Friday's Feathered Friends, Hooded Mergansers, Mallards, Washoe Co42 Comments

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

Being Valentine’s Day today I thought I’d share a couple of bird pairs/couples.

Mallard pair

Hooded Merganser pair

I hope you all have a lovely Valentine’s Day and great weekend.

Nikon D850| Nikkor 500mm| PS CC

more to come…

What is it?

In Case You’re Still Reading

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