Arizona – nancy merrill photography

A Photo a Week Challenge: Light the Night

A few years ago, we had the opportunity to travel to the Mesa/Gilbert, Arizona area for a family wedding. While there, we experimented with long exposure night photography. The LDS Gilbert Arizona Temple proved to be the perfect subject for our venture, and the weather cooperated better than we could have hoped, and we are very pleased with the results. When working with longer shutter speeds, it’s vital to have a tripod and really nice to use a shutter remote instead of having to touch the camera. It’s also important to be patient and experiment with different settings on your camera. We got better results with f-stops of 5 or higher to avoid too much light hitting the sensor.

IN A NEW POST CREATED FOR THIS CHALLENGE, SHARE YOUR FAVORITE NIGHT SHOTS (WITH LONGER EXPOSURE TIMES OR NOT).

Everyone is welcome to participate, even if your blog isn’t about photography. Here’s how it works:

Each week, I’ll come up with a theme and post a photo that I think fits. You take photographs based on your interpretation of the theme, and post them on your blog (a new post!) anytime before the following Thursday, when the next photo theme will be announced.
To make it easy for others to check out your photos, title your blog post “A Photo a Week Challenge: (theme of the week)” and be sure to use the “postaday″ and “Photo a Week” tags.
Come back here and post a link to your image in the comments for this challenge.
Follow nancy merrill photography so that you don’t miss out on weekly challenge announcements.

Thankful November 24th: My Faith

You are getting two post today because yesterday was too full to do a post (gone from 8 in the morning until 11 in the evening). And the first one today was for fun (see Thankful November 24th: Chocolate for reference.) This post will be much more serious. I’m sure that many people who follow this blog and read my posts are aware that I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (sometimes known as the Mormon Church). I haven’t tried to make it a secret. I have also tried to not be overbearing about it. I was born and raised in Utah in a family that is very actively involved in this religion. When I was 22 years old, I served as a volunteer missionary to Wisconsin. I married my husband in the beautiful Mount Timpanogos Temple in American Fork, Utah. I have been living my religion as best as I can for almost 53-1/2 years. Having faith has grounded me, given me hope as I see things happening in the world around me, and provided me with a community wherever I have moved. I am a firm believer in Jesus Christ. I have faith in a Heavenly Father, who loves and knows me. I’m grateful for scriptures I can turn to for comfort and guidance during difficult times in my life.

Whatever your religious (or non-religious) life may be, I hope that you find love, happiness, and joy in the Christmas season this year. I love celebrating the birth of my Savior with the entire world.

Thankful November 18th: Traveling

I know that I’ve already expressed gratitude for the earth and its beauties, but I am also very grateful for the chance I’ve had (and continue to have) to travel many places around the world and also close to home. When my husband and I got married, he hadn’t traveled much. A couple of years after we married, I convinced him that we needed to take a trip to Great Britain to visit a nephew who had been transferred to London for a year, along with his wife and three boys. It was the best thing that could have happened to us. Since then, we have made a few more trips across the pond to the east, across the pond to the west, and headed down south for my first experience in Mexico (besides Tijuana). I’m looking forward to many more adventures around this amazing globe we live on in the near and distant future.

Thankful November 10th: Family

I know that I’ve already mentioned my parents and my siblings in individual posts, but I have a lot more family. My husband’s family is very large (he is the youngest of eight kids). I have a wonderful group of aunts, uncles, and cousins. I inherited four wonderful children when I married my husband. And then there are people who aren’t blood relation, but are still family. Family is very important to me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.