LICKED CLEAN

Bella asked to see our tables at meal time. Here lately, our meals are shared with each other and plates are licked clean! 

(Taken on a recent trip to Europe ... eating near the Old City Walls of Dubrovnik, Croatia)

PEACHES.

This is kind of difficult to see, but one of summertime treats since moving here is the arrival of peach season.  You can't get fruits here except and until and unless they are currently in season.  We love summer here for the arrival of peaches!

Taken in Chandni Chowk in Old Delhi, just before this walla threw water over the peaches to make them glisten in the sun.

IN THE GARDEN

The weekly prompt over at 52 Photos Project is ::

During monsoon season everything becomes beautifully green.  So green that without having to touch up a photo in Picasa or Picnik, the colors are startling.

So far, Monsoon 2011 is only teasing us here in Delhi.  It seems to start, then stops.  One day, the skies and umbrellas open up.  The next day, the heat and humidity scares us back into the house.

By the way, the little orange tree still has only produced 2 oranges, and they were bitter.  But we have hope!

THE BLUE HOUR

Continuing on with the 52 Photos Project, this week's challenge was a bit more of a challenge for me, definitely.

I found myself being relegated to the archives, as there doesn't seem to much of a "blue hour" here in Delhi, because of the combination of monsoon season and the pollution, maybe?

Of course, as I sit here at 7:30pm, and look out of my window, today there DOES seem to be a weird purplish-blue haze.

Urban Muser shared this amazing site that tells you WHEN the blue hour is where you live ... wouldn't you know??

Now that I look at my photo again, I wish I would have either included the lamp post or not included it (and to crop it out would mean I would lose that funky yellow color).

I still debate back and forth on whether to start using Photoshop and I think I'm still sticking with not to start.  It means that not all of my photos have "pop" and "oomph" factor but both for the time I would spend on photoshop, and the urge I would have to fight to over-process ... I think this photographer is better off just using the standard crop, sharpen and the 'delete' button when it comes to processing photos.

Anywhoo ... there's my attempt at the Blue Hour.

Photo taken in NYC during December of 2010, during our impromptu visit back to the United States.

One word ...

Participating in a 52 Photos Project ... and although I'm jumping in late ...

 ... this week's prompt was to choose one word that describes you ... and then photograph it.  

I was unable to come up with one word that described me.  I'm in quite the funk lately with several issues and when a word (I assumed we should choose a positive word) would come to mind, I found myself immediately discounting and negating it for many reasons.  Though I know that I have many positive traits and strengths, I'm not feeling them at the moment.

I went through a journal that I've recently started to create in the hopes that it would help me determine "the word" that I would use for this week ... and I just couldn't do it.  I ended up self-doubting, criticizing myself (boy, is that dangerous when you start to knock your own self down to the floor) and just being all out mopey.

I was also unable to figure out any creative ways/places to see any of the words that I was supposed to be coming up with for this project.

SO ... in the end I emailed a handful of my good friends, the women that know me the best -- and asked them to help me out with suggestions for this theme.

End result ??  A photograph of the word that was repeated a couple of times by different friends ... Adventurous ... on a backdrop of where I was born.  I've come a long way baby .... literally.