Brush and Floss your teeth, every day!

If you'd like some help, getting your kids to brush and floss their teeth each day, frame this photo and hang it in your bathroom.  The kids will get a kick out of it!  You can order an 8X10 inch photo of this from me, at donnaridgway1@hotmail.com for $30.00.  That includes shipping and a foam core board.  Let me know if you want one today!
Donna Ridgway

Conversation with an Osprey

 Purchase Conversation with an Osprey

Osprey: I’m a little bashful, talking to you like this, you’re not my usual choice of companion…
Me: I know, I’m invading your world, but I won’t hurt you.
Osprey: Ok, then I won’t hurt you either, I could you know- my talons are strong, and my wings are powerful.
Me: I appreciate your strength, but I’ve only come to admire your beauty, and enjoy your resourcefulness. Look at the way you raise your children in that nest you’ve built!
Osprey: Yes, it is a beautiful home, isn’t it? I placed every item myself, with the help of my mate. And look at my kids, they’re almost ready to fly. It won’t be long after that, they’ll be hunting on their own, I can’t believe how fast they’ve grown..seems it was only yesterday they were eggs…
Me: My kids are grown, they left home a long time ago…I miss them.
Osprey: Sigh…yes it’s lonely when they fly the nest, and then I worry about them. I’m afraid they’ll try to eat a rattlesnake before it’s totally dead, or they’ll hit the water to hard when they try to catch a fish.
Not to change the subject, but what’s that black thing in your hands? And why does it click like that?
Me: This is my camera, it clicks when I catch an image of you. It sees you, the way I see you, but the picture of you stays, it doesn’t fade like memory does. It shows how wide your wings spread, the color of your eyes, it shows your black feet, and I can use this photo to show other people how beautiful you are!
Osprey: Cool! How do you think they’ll like this pose?

I hope you're enjoying Montana photos by Donna Ridgway! :)

Zig Zag

We were driving down the road by the elevator, near Priest Butte, at Choteau, Montana.  Some deer ran across the road in front of us.  Before Robert could stop, I shinnied out my car window, sat on the car door, and shot this photo leaning out around the antennae.

It was a fun shot, and I'm so glad I didn't miss it!  I call it Zig Zag, because it reminds me of the rick rack my mom sewed on homemade clothes when I was a kid.

I hope you're enjoying Montana photos and art by Donna Ridgway as much as I enjoy sharing them with you!

"Yer Crackin' Me Up! Montana Mule Photo" Fine Art Print by Donna Ridgway [5975112-1] - RedBubble

"Yer Crackin' Me Up! Montana Mule Photo" Fine Art Print by Donna Ridgway [5975112-1] - RedBubble

There are some mules on along the Rocky Mountain Front that we love.  When we stop to visit, they usually entertain us.  This time, when we saw them, I decided to entertain them, so I was telling them my jokes...This guy said I was crackin' him up!

This image can be ordered as a card, print or poster on the Donna Ridgway Gallery

Wishing you the joy that I find in these animals...
Donna

"Talons, Osprey in Montana" Fine Art Print by Donna Ridgway [5605940-1] - RedBubble

"Talons, Osprey in Montana" Fine Art Print by Donna Ridgway [5605940-1] - RedBubble:

We visited the osprey nest near Freeze Out Lake last night (7/23/10). One parent is gone teaching the first baby who left the nest how to hunt and fly with skill. The other parent is watching over the nest with the remaining baby.
I caught this as she was settling in for the night, she came down above me, with her talons outstretched…an awesome sight. It was late evening, so the sky was darkening, the remaining light shone through her incredible feathers…

I hope you enjoy Montana photos by Donna Ridgway.

Photo taken between Fairfield, and Choteau, Montana with a Nikon D300, 70-300 Tamron lens.

A great shift in creating....

I've been learning to use the manual settings on my camera.  This is a big breakthrough for me, as I've been scared to death in the past, to change my menus from automatic.  I just knew if I changed something, I'd never get the thing back to where it was, and I'd never be able to take another photo!  I'm psycho....:)

When Henry and Pedro left to go to new homes, I needed another, over riding passion in my life, so I turned to my camera.  And I learned how to do the things I wanted to make it do...

The above photo is one of the results of my learning to set shutter speed, ISO, and other important settings.

It's also the result of many hours of patience, and hundreds of photos.  When photogs say "nice capture", they truly mean, this is a "capture".  It's like baiting a trap and waiting and waiting for results....at the perfectly correct moment, you pull the string, and you catch something!

In this photo, the parent bird came down with a bug who had long, flowing, string like appendages, I'm not sure what the bug was!  The baby caught one of the antenna of this bug, before the parent could get the bug into the babies mouth.  The parent knew the baby would lose the bug, if something didn't change, so she began to fly backward, tugging her head downward, to pull the bug from the babies mouth.  You can see that happening in this photo!

When the bug came loose, the parent made another swooping pass, coming into the bird house and plopping the bug firmly down the little bird's throat!  It was such an awesome thing to see, and an even more awesome moment to capture!

So you see, my artistic focus has changed, from painting images, to capturing them!  I think it's the basic hunter in me, coming to the fore.

I hope you've enjoyed this "capture" of the swallow, feeding her baby bird!

Feel free to comment, I love hearing from you.

And look for more Montana photos!

Candy Striper, a Zebra carousel.

Here's my latest carousel animal painting  He's composed entirely from my imagination and it was sure fun painting this.  I used many thin glazes of color, creating the stripes with red and green layers.  When you look at this up close, you can see those colors in the zebra.

This painting is 20X24 inches, acrylic on hard board.
Donna