Freedom is not free #22aday

This weekend I drove to Tuxedo to see the 660 flags representing the soldiers that take their lives each month.

While I enjoy the freedom that I have and cherish, I’m thankful to all who serve but so saddened by the sheer number of suicides.

I’m thankful for the freedom to worship. I’m thankful for the comforts we can have because we have the freedom to work for them. I’m especially thankful as a woman because I know in other places in the world we are not treated the same.

We are sponsoring Sofia, a little girl in Ecuador thru Compassion International.  A boy named Steven was bullied and set on fire. In a lifetime the family couldn’t have come up with the money to treat his wounds. My heart breaks for that while I’m aware we have horrible things happening right here at home too.

 

As you spend time eating hot dogs, and hamburgers, sipping a cold beverage and watching parades and fireworks – please, please take a moment to remember how lucky you are and that our freedoms came at a cost.

Thank you to all who serve and have served. Happy Independence day. 

Now I hope by some miracle my cats learn to not be scared of the bombs bursting all darn week by the neighbors because the only year that didn’t bother them was their first.

 

and here are my favs from this year.

 

I was trying to try photograph the fireworks differently last night and it didn’t work. I was hoping my fz1000 was capable of making the fireworks look like flowers.

Set to manual, bulb, and rotated the ring during the exposure. I got longer exposure shots but the focus didn’t seem to change.  So the ‘pull’ technique didn’t work for me. Not sure if it was me or the camera.

http://www.diyphotography.net/long-exposure-fireworks-tuto…/

I asked Graham Houghton, the Lumix expert about the flower fireworks… He kindly responded.

Hello Kim, nice effect however it has been done with a camera which allows manual focus change during exposure. The Fz1000 does not allow any change to focus or zoom once an exposure has started when shooting still images so it is not possible to replicate this effect.

 

Kindest regards,

Graham Houghton

http://www.grahamhoughton.com

If you own a Panasonic Lumix check out his blog and newsletters!