Quickie

Just a quick post of more pictures from yesterday's outing.

Rediscovering Joy

For a while I was using a point and shoot camera...for a long while! When I got my DSLR (maybe 2 months ago) I was concerned that I wouldn't use it to it's full capacity. Well, my friends, these past two days I've been having fun shooting with just the manual setting. Ahh, it feels so good to have the power to control the exposure, depth of field, and then edit my results! I forgot how awesome it is to be so creative (after all, one of the ways we are different from animals is our creative abilities). I'm almost angry with myself for letting me get so far away from a hobby I love so much, but then I remember...I was busy going to school full time, during which I got married and had a baby, then I graduated and had another baby, and moved. So, ok, I've been busy, but what joy to rediscover photography!!

I have been blessed by God in many, many ways. One way is my amazing neighbors!! Not only are they fantastic people, but they are all beautiful and willing to let me take their pictures. So, here you go.

Two for your consideration

I have two pictures of Popper but done in different ways. Which do you like? Husband doesn't seem to like either one.

I'm a godmother!!

I have been blessed by being asked to be the godmother for this precious baby boy!!

What an honor!! While he slept, I practiced taking portraits of his sisters.




And, I just couldn't resist posting this heavily edited one of Peanut. The original was a very flat, uninteresting picture. I like it this way.

Hurray for leaves

It seemed to take forever for the leaves to finally fall off the trees here. Who doesn't love raking leaves and jumping into the giant pile?

It took me 4 attempts to edit this picture until I was satisfied. It seemed like everything I did to really pop the color of the leaves made Popper's eyes look fake. I guess that's what happens when you have AMAZINGLY blue eyes (I'm just a little biased).

Must run, the natives are getting restless.

Portrait Attempt

I was trying to use natural light to take some portraits of my daughters. Well, that's not an easy task when they refuse to sit still, and you just end up with pouty children and an angry mommy. Not a good combo. Peanut (so called because she is SO small for her age) at least sat in a chair to color, and, as fate would have it, there was some good natural light coming through nearby window. She didn't sit very still (lots of moving from side to side...I think she had a song stuck in her head), but I did manage to get this picture. I like it, but wish I had a little more of her face in it. Perhaps shouldn't zoom in quite so much and crop to what I'd like.

Apple Picking

In September we went, with a few of our neighbors, apple picking. It was my first time ever doing that, and it was wonderful. We traveled to an orchard that was 10 minutes from where Bear and I rented our first home as man and wife. Being out in the country brought back the yearning for moving out there again. How did we ever leave?? The weather was perfect, the mountains were beautiful, and the apples were plentiful. Popper (my oldest daughter) had so much fun picking apples that we wound up with two pecks!! I made three batches of applesauce (so good), carmel apples, apple coffee cake, apple/bacon/cheddar grilled cheese sandwiches, and apple pie. We still had plenty of apples left over on which the girls happily snacked.

Here I practiced using photoshop. I didn't really do much: popped the eye color, boosted the apple color, and softened some of my little girl's face (typically I don't need to soften her face at all, what AMAZING, creamy, perfect skin).

Going to try something new

Well. I'm really, really bad about blogging, aren't I? Since my life is so boring...or something...I'm going to try something different with my blog. I would like to start a photography business (doing children/family portraits). I'm not ready to start this now (need a new computer, perhaps an external hard drive, need to learn how to use either photoshop or lightroom, and would like one more camera lens and perhaps some filters). Anyway, what I'm going to try to do is post at least one pictures a day (either an old one that I've edited with photoshop or a new picture) just to keep my creative juices flowing and to learn more about my camera and it's settings.

So, this is going to become my photography blog, which I think is pretty exciting. :) If I don't start it this week, you'll see the changes next week.

Wish me luck.