The (Perhaps) Never-Ending Story Part 5

     Renae had been walking for several hours now down the Red-Brick road, longing for someone to talk to who wasn't a pirate, or a crazy boy with a dagger, or a poofy-dress lady.
     Her hopes were soon met, for Renae was starting to hear a commotion coming from the cottage up the road, and she ran up to it to find out what was the trouble.  It was the sound of a someone shouting and gurgling.  Finally, the door burst open, and a tidal wave poured out!  Luckily, Renae was not in the way of this wave.  The tidal wave brought out of the house with it a great number of items: furniture, nick-knacks, a toaster, a blender, and a scarecrow.  Renae thought it odd that someone would put a scarecrow in their house, but not out in their field -- that is, until it got up...and spoke!
     "Pppht!", he spat out water, "oh, how much longer must I suffer this?  I do wish that I had a solution to this problem!" 
     Renae sheepishly cleared her throat.  The scarecrow jumped and looked at her; he hadn't noticed her in the chaos of his flooded house.  "I haven't seen another person around these parts in months!  May I ask your name?" the scarecrow asked with a courteous bow. 
      Flattered by his manners, she replied, "Oh, I'm Renae.  May I ask yours, your name, that is?"  The scarecrow merely shrugged his shoulders.  "My name's just Scarecrow.  At least it's not an easy name for people to forget. Oh, where did I put those emergency towels?"  Scarecrow stepped around to the corner of his house, wringing out his limbs on the way.  He pulled out a few towels out of a hollow tree stump and began to dry himself as he explained his dilemma.
     "You see Renae, I've been having such a terrible time."  Renae helped him dry out his arms as she listened.  "I cannot use running water for several weeks before my house fills up, and explodes out a window or a door." 
     "Well," Renae said, "why not let the water run out before you run some more?"  The straw-man drooped his damp shoulders.  "That's the problem.  You see, I haven't got at drain."  This flabbergasted Renae.  "What?" she asked.  "No drain?  Why, that's dreadful!  Is there some way I can help?"
     "I've been wanting to go to the Great Wal-Mart of Pause, they're sure to have a drain that would work.  Unfortunately the journey is long and dangerous, much too dangerous for myself alone.  But where are you going?  Surely you can't expect to be going through the Big Wood up ahead without a guide, or at least someone else for protection?" 
     Renae lit up.  "Say, that could be an answer to both our problems!  I'm trying to get home, and have no idea where I'm going, but if we travel together, perhaps we'll solve both our problems.  Brightening, Scarecrow replied, "Yes indeed!  I'm quite certain there will be someone there to help you at the Great Wal-Mart of Pause!  Shall we set off?"
     "We shall!"
     And they went skipping down the Red-Brick road arm in arm toward the Big Wood.

Pumpkin Patch

Well, I took these shots remembering only the part about not putting your subject in the center, and then I read the actual assignment today.  So, let's evaluate anyway and see how I did.

  I can personally see a fore, middle, and background in this top picture.  The stem is the fore-ground, the pumpkin is the mid-ground, and the brown background is the...uh...background.

  I can see the different grounds on this one, too. 

  I just took this shot for fun.  The pumpkin is decaying just enough to make it look like it's melting.  Oh, what a world!

    Not sure about this one.  At least there are some lines.

    Another just for fun one.  It looks like a mushroom!

I forgot about the silhouette thing!  Maybe I can get one or two silhouettes before Friday, though.

The Never-Ending Story Part 4

     All was silent except for a few bold songbirds who whistled their little songs, cutting through the silence.  Renae was on the grass, unconscious, while the sun shone gently down upon her.  She stirred, opened her eyes, and noticed the beauty around her: flowers of all different hues grew up around a tiny town that looked as if it had come out of a story book..  Saying that this was a tiny town was literally true; everything--the houses, the gardens, everything,--appeared to have been made for someone half her hight.
     Renae became suddenly aware that there was someone, quite a few people, watching her.  They were peeping out from houses, behind fences, even from between the clusters of flowers.
     "Okay...I don't think we're in Neverland anymore, Renae," she said softly to herself.  She felt a set of eyes watching from behind her.  Renae turned and saw someone in a very pink and very poofy dress.  "Now I know I'm not in Neverland anymore."
     "Is anyone else getting deja vu here?" asked the poofy dress lady.  "Don't worry little girl, all you have to do is follow the yellow brick road.  Good-bye!"  And with that, the lady vanished from thin air.  The little faces that had been watching her called out, "Good-bye, Glinda!" and pulled their heads back into their houses again, all of them saying in nasal-sounding voices, "Deja vu, follow the yellow brick road."
     "Ick, I hate yellow.  I think I'll follow this nice red brick road," stated Renae.
     She might have chosen the other road had she known what a weird time she would have on this strange path.

The (Perhaps) Never-Ending Story Part 3

     The shadow stopped in front of her.  Renae looked up, and the sight shocked her. 
     A boy was making the shadow.  He looked very young; about ten or eleven years old.  His clothes were tattered at the edges and his face, his arms, his everything, were dirty, but the most noticeable aspect of his appearance was his flaming, red hair.  'This is 'Peter', the boy that Hook described' thought Renae.  There was a very sharp-looking dagger in his hand.  Renae saw his facial expression and knew that he'd heard everything she'd said about turning him over to Captain Hook. 
     Something still wasn't right.  Renae had to look up to see the boy.  The puzzling thing was that he was not in a tree or hanging in a vine at all, but he was completely suspended in the air.  He was floating...on nothing.  This young, dirty, menacing boy was flying!
     The next thing she knew, the boy was twelve inches in front of her and the dagger was pointed at her chest.  Renae couldn't help thinking that he was going to put an eye out.
     "So," began the boy, "you're a new to the pirate thing?  We hate pirates."  Renae soon knew who 'we' was, because in literally seconds, a handful of boys, as ragged looking as their leader, surrounded them, each one with some sort of primitive weapon.
     Before Renae could explain that she was in fact not a pirate, she saw trees flying up in the back round, and what ever was doing it came closer and closer, until it-- a tornado--made the boys scatter from fright.  Renae herself was rooted to the spot with sheer terror, and the tornado picked her up and whirled her around with all the in the commotion and dibris it was carying.  The last thing she remembered was a great pain at the side of her head, and after that, nothing.

FINALLY! Pictures with lines!

Telephone poles; 'nuf said.

The focus here was supposed to be the wires.

I thought this was kind of cool and graphic.

I like the flowers, yet the nitty-gritty-ness of the sign and pole.

This cornstalk was just lying on the sidewalk like this; perfectly separating light from shadow.

Ahh, more nitty-gritty-ness(mom said it was 'city-gritty')!

The (Perhaps) Never-Ending Story Part 2

     Renae was sitting in the captain's quarters at a table across from the ship's feared captain.  He used his hook to thoughtfully comb his long, black mustache.
     "You see Missy," began the captain, "when ye first appeared on our magical shores, we thought we'd just get rid of you, and save us the trouble of you telling more nosy land lubbers like yourself about this place and risk them finding us.  However, I think you could be an asset to us and  give us a little help in exchange for your life."
     Renae swallowed.  The musty smell of unbathed men was choking her and making it hard to think.  "What do you want me to do?" she asked a little shakily.
     "There is this boy," his eyes glazed over with a certain contempt, "my...nephew, Peter, who has been gone for a very long time, and you see, we have not been speaking to each other.  I would like you to find him, and tell me where he is so that I can...make amends.  He won't be difficult to distinguish; his hair is firey red. "  He smiled a sugar coated grin.  "It would make me most grateful.  We will be reaching the Never land quite soon now.  You will be placed where he is found playing with his curse--I mean, delightful friends."
    
     Renae was in a terribly thick forest.  She was trying to find this boy that the smelly man had talked about.  He had gone into great detail in describing his appearance, even so, Renae could not help feeling a sense of hopelessness.  She had no idea where this boy was, or where she was for that matter.  And she was sure the pirate was lying.  It is not often that one hears, "help me find my nephew or die,".  'Ugh.'  Renae recalled the last words the hook-handed captain had told her: "Remember girlie, your life is at stake."  "Pirates must not have many social skills," Renae decided.  "But still, I had better find Peter, whoever he is, and turn him over to this 'Hook' fellow, or it'll be my head."
     A shadow passed over her, and Renae instantly stiffened.  Who knew what kind of horrible creatures could be running around?  The shadow stopped in front of her.  'Huh?' 
   

Boring Spider

    There is this spider in our front yard bigger and neater that the ones that I've seen out there before, and I got some pictures of it just sitting around and being a spider, but I wanted to get some pictures of it in action.  Nicholas poked it with a stick for me several times (and remarked recently that he is not going to do it again) and when it did move, the pics I did get of it were not what I was hoping for, being a perfectionist and all.  So I was throwing a number of things on the web, trying to get it to move, but it just stayed there. This is some of the stuff we put on its web.  Not a movement.

   

     By the way, here is another picture of it: I forgot that last night it attacked a plant I threw on its web.

The (Perhaps) Never-Ending Story Part 1

     Once upon a time, there was a girl named Renae.  Now Renae was home schooled, and had just joined photography class, and needed something to photograph other than her pet rat and spiders.  So she decided to grab her camera and go exploring for something interesting that had straight lines to take a picture of. 
     Renae set out for the woods behind her house, thinking that there must be many straight lines in a place with so many trees, but when she was about fifteen minutes away from home, Renae noticed something unusual happening.  In what had always been thickly wooded land, the trees were thinning out and the ground was gradually but steadily sloping down.  Curiosity drove Renae to investigate.  Soon, the terrain underfoot turned from grass to sand, and a salty breeze was tousling her long, wavy hair.  Suddenly, she saw a line of blue on the horizon; "no way...", she breathed to herself.  Renae began to run; the line of blue grew thicker and thicker until it she finally saw it stretch into an endless expanse of water.  'Oh boy, I don't believe it!  The ocean?!  I live in the mid-west, how could the ocean possibly be here?!  I should take some pictures; they won't have straight lines, but oh well.' After doing so, again, driven by her curiosity, she explored the edge of the ocean, wading through the water and marveling at how this huge body of water came out of no where.
     At last, Renae felt it was time she started home.  She turned to leave, and before she had gotten several feet, two pairs of strong hands grabbed her arms, turned her around, and started hauling her back towards the ocean.  She looked upward at her kidnappers, and saw that they were burly seamen.  Renae would have screamed, but instead she swept her gaze across her surroundings, looking for some one to help her, and gasped.  For instead of seeing just the ocean, she now saw many seamen like the ones who were dragging her along.  That, and a huge ship that looked like it had just sailed out ot the seventeen-hundreds, and flying pirate colors, too.  Finally regaining her wits, Renae did scream, and struggled too; one of the seamen just rolled his eyes, picked her up and threw her over his shoulder as if she weighed no more that a sack of flour.  Renae was carried up the gang plank and onto the ship, and was thrown down onto its deck at the foot of a tall, thin man of apparent power.  "Welcome aboard the Jolly Roger miss!" At the end of this man's right arm, where his hand should be, was large, ominous looking hook..