Christmas Eve with the coyotes

It was a wet, mild Christmas Eve and it’ll be a wet, mild Christmas Day.

I can’t complain because I now have to drive to see family for Christmas, and if there’s one thing I hate doing, it’s driving in snow. I’d much rather drive in some rain.

Anyway, I was largely done with wrapping all of my presents, so I decided to have another Deanna Day Out. I started the day by going over to Rising Star Coffee on West 29th, and it was packed. The wait was long but worth it.

Then after that, I went to the Cleveland Natural History Museum. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get the full museum experience because they’re in the middle of a major renovation project. However, the progress looks great, and I know the museum will be amazing when it’s done.

I decided to stick around and went to a show. The focus of the show was about the upcoming total solar eclipse in April 2024. I definitely plan to get some eclipse glasses so I can view it next year. After the show, I went to the wildlife center and took some photos of the animals that were outside. There were some coyotes who were extremely sleepy and cute.

My last stop for the day was the Cleveland Botanical Gardens. There’s a winter-themed exhibit on display, so I decided to stop by. There were some great winter-themed creations inside and plenty of Christmas lights.

Overall, it was a fun afternoon.

About the photos

I shot in both landscape and portrait, but for some reason, my favorites from today were all landscape versions.

In the coyote photos and the photo above the elevator landing, I tried playing around with focus. I wanted the subject in focus juxtaposed against something out of focus. I feel like there’s a name for this technique, but I don’t know what it is.

In the photos of the coyotes, the coyote is in focus, the railing is out of focus. In the photo above the elevator, the elevator landing is in focus, the leaves next to me are out of focus. I feel like that makes the subject stand out a bit more.

For the most part, I shot in aperture priority mode. But for the photo of the waterfall, I went back to manual mode because the shutter speed the camera selected was too slow. I’m glad I did because I like how the photo turned out.