2009 Photo Roundup: Part 1

Here are a few of my personal favorites of the pictures I took in the last year. I made a nature-themed calendar for my parents and in-laws for Christmas, and used some of these pictures in it.

This is my current favorite photo. I am a little bit in love with it. I just adore this color palette of bright berry-red, sky-blue, and crisp, clean white. To me, it says winter, but in a happy way, not the dull, dreary, slushy way that winter starts to feel like come end of February.
I took this the morning after our first decent snow and ice storm in December. My dog had to be very patient as I took her along for my photo walk. She can only sniff so many smells under one tree, where I was fixated on these berries for a good while. I made this shot Miss January in my 2010 nature photography calendar.

When my parents visited me last summer, we took a day trip to Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania. I didn't really know what to expect, and was blown away by the enormity and variety of beauty, both natural and manmade. The place is immense. I would love to visit it in every season. More of my shots from Longwood Gardens to come later, but for now, here are my two favorite butterfly pictures from that day.

Around late March/early April in Baltimore, the cherry blossom trees explode with tufts of light blossoms. When the wind blows, the petals shower down on you like snowflakes. It's one of my favorite things about living here, and sadly, it only lasts for a couple of weeks. This is a beautiful old church in the Mt. Vernon neighborhood.

I took pictures of this cardinal over Thanksgiving weekend, on the University of Virginia campus grounds, when we were scouting out garden sites for the morning-after brunch for my brother-in-law and his fiancee, who are getting married there this coming June.

There's nothing more striking in the gray of November than a bright red cardinal, no?