Those are the words I uttered to the hubs while I was trying to figure out where I would shoot today.

But before I talk about today, I’ll back up to yesterday.

Yesterday my shutterbug buddy (“Sarah” ) and I thought it would be a great idea to get out and shoot together.

Meet “Sarah” , I’ve talked about her a few times on the blog and here she is again.

I’m in awe of the images she captures. She and her hubs are amazing professional photographers.

And I feel blessed that I had the privilege of meeting them and becoming friends. We had a ball of fun.

I thought it would be fun to play with one of the shots I took, you know, take it over the top in Photoshop like so. Made me happy.

After our nice little outing that consisted of lunch, a stop by Sarah’s house and a nice photoshoot, it was time to call it a day.

But for some reason, I could not for the life of me figure out what to shoot for our foreground/background assignment. While I have all 40 shots ready to turn in, two of them need to stand out above the rest.

I have one in the bag, but I still needed “The One” to make that a total of two for critique.

I fretted all night. Woke this morning fretting and wondering, where should I go.

I was in favor of our nice cloudy skies but the choices that rolled around in my head included:

• The Beach
• Pier
• Boats
• The Hills

Head for the HILLS! It washed over me when I saw a beautiful picture on the weather channel, it’s right where I wanted to go, the great big hills with deep dark clouds.

This is the path. And I drove deep into the hills. Up into the clouds. And all felt right with the world.

Soon I had the urge to make a turn off the beatin’ path, so I did. I found myself  winding my way down a road I had never been.

And came upon a really cool antique car junk yard.

The security gate was WIDE open, so I pulled in.

I had no worries because my camera was with me. It’s fun being a photographer because we have a really GOOD excuse when we are where we may or may not belong.

My car was the only “civil” car on this huge chunk of land. Soon I hit the locks on my car and away I went.

Only I got stopped in my tracks just a few steps out. It was an elderly woman coming towards me from the gate on the other side of my parked car.  Long story short, turns out I was standing on a chunk of her 18 acres.

Oops I uttered under my breath *with a great big friendly smile* I squared my shoulders and said –

Good day! What a beautiful place you have. I’m a budding photographer in school with a really big assignment. I see you have an amazing tractor in the distance, may I take some shots of your tractor? It would make a lovely image. I also noticed the old cars way over there on the other side, what great shots they would make. May I take some shots of the cars too?

The nice woman said – You are free to shoot this tractor by the barn and that tractor in the distance. I also have a windmill, you are free to shoot that too. But that’s about all. That land with the antique cars is rented, so I can’t give you permission to go over there.

I thanked her kindly and wished her a lovely day before I set out to shoot.

The woman didn’t say anything about this lone car out on the dusty road on the way out to shoot the windmill, so I took the shot, in fact, many.

In the distance, I could see dust stirring from a truck heading my way. As the truck approached, I stepped over to the side of the narrow dirt road. The truck slowed and came to a stop, right next to me.

Down went the window of a young man looking at me rather puzzled. I broke the silence stating I met the nice woman up the way…

With a grin crossing his face he said “she’s my grandma”.

I explained to him that she had given me permission to shoot some pictures on her property.

He exclaimed “Take your time, it’s ok”.

And I wished him a lovely day and thanked him for his generosity AND for taking such good care of his grandma.

Oh the pictures I snapped. And the thought that such lovely folks let me on their property to shoot brought a smile and added joy to my day.

Now to sift thru a boatload of pictures to figure out which one to use for the assignment.

I feel blessed.

Blessings – Debbie