Well, they say if you want to hear God laugh tell him your plans. They also say the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Today was one of those days.

I’m currently participating in The SITS Girls Pinterest Challenge and photography tutorial. Today’s task was to take a photo at Golden Hour. I was over the moon when I read what today’s task was. I love the Golden Hour and Sunset and the Blue Hour. These are my favorite times of day to shoot. So of course I was thrilled with today’s task.

I spent an hour or so looking through books and websites for good advice on exposure and aperture settings. I wanted today’s photo to be perfect. I plotted and planned a shoot with Blue, the big blue monster. I dreamed of sunlight streaming through our front yard tree, Blue happily hanging out in the beautiful sunshine and bubbles, lots and lots of bubbles.

Imagine my surprise when I stepped out of the shower at around 5pm (golden hour happened at around 6pm) to find the skies had turned cloudy and gray and windy. Well kids I decided to try my hand at the photo shoot anyway. So I shuffled out front in my hoodie to set up my tripod and helped Blue into the tree. I dug out my bottle of bubbles and set the timer. More than once I ran into the tripod thus knocking the angle of the camera and still other times the wind blew and sent the bubbles away from the tree and yet more times the bubbles dissipated or blew away before the timer released the shutter. In a word it was frustrating.

But you do what you gotta do and make lemonade from lemons and you just go with it. So here I present to you two photos taken in natural light during the golden hour with a humble blue monster in a tree. Enjoy!

Blue, the friendly blue monster in a tree

Blue, the friendly blue monster in a tree with bubbles

Above photos were taken with 1/50 exposure, f/5.6 aperture and 200 ISO with white balance set to cloudy.

And just to demonstrate that I can actually take a proper golden hour photo I’m including this blurry but oddly pleasing to look at fave from November 2011.

Above photo was taken with 1/4000 exposure, -1 EV, f/5 aperture and 1600 ISO with white balance set to cloudy.