Fall Flowers

I'm in love with the flowers that survive into the Fall season. It's been on and off Indian Summer this year and I've enjoyed every sunny day.

A Photo Shoot For A Friend

A friend agreed to allow me to shoot her family here recently. She has a little boy just younger than my son. Her youngest daughter is my older daughter's age, and her older daughter is my step-daughter's age. It was so much fun to shoot someone outside my family.

I was itching for some new equipment after that. It really made me wonder how you achieve professional studio lighting without breaking the bank. Here are some of my favorites from the shoot. Most of my successful shots were shot with my flash bounced off the ceiling or else they were super closeups of the baby under my lights. My lights are 250watt each and while they seem to blind the subject, they don't end up being nearly bright enough for moving subjects.

Her baby boy is an absolute doll.

Playing Around

I've been playing around with Photoshop tonight. Mostly, I've been playing around with this tutorial:

http://pshero.com/photoshop-tutorials/photo-effects/calculations-and-colorization

The tutorial is all about converting to black and white using Image > Calculations, and then adding a gradient to the black and white image.

The Calculations method of converting to black and white is really dramatic and super easy. There are so many interesting methods of converting to black and white. One of my other favorites, I write about here:

http://createdforinspiration.blogspot.com/2009/03/black-white-baby-portrait.html

But, this method seems simpler to me and gives you a different result.

Of course, you can also simply:

Image > Adjustments > Desaturate.

Or,

Image > Mode > Grayscale.

Or,

Create An Adjustment Layer (Round Black/White circle at the bottom of your layers pallette) and choose Black & White from the pull down menu, and play with the sliders.

Or,

Create An Adjustment Layer and choose Channel Mixer. Then, click the Monochrome box in the Channel Mixer and play with the sliders.

Here are some images I made tonight with the Calculations and Colorization tutorial listed above. I used the exact tutorial on my flower pictures. Then, I used the high contrast black and white conversion using Calculations to adjust some photos that never quite showed the full range of colors or contrast that I saw with my eyes, using different blending techniques (soft light and overlay and different combinations of opacity for various layers).

Even enhanced here in Photoshop, this photo didn't do justice to the BLUE, BLUE stream I saw here at Yellowstone. Unfortuneately, we drove by it at noon day and then stopped by when the light was lower in the sky. The irradescent blue bacteria in the stream were really cool.

Truly, the Grand Prismatic pool at Yellowstone has all these colors and more. It's a sight to behold. Make sure, if you ever go to Yellowstone, to stop at this one.

I Heart Faces - Angles

This week's theme at I Heart Faces is angles. So, I submit a photo I took at an interesting angle. This photo was taken just after a late spring rainstorm and jumping in puddles and being silly is a lot of fun after it rains. So, I got a lot of fun photos on this particular day.

I Heart Faces - Bundled Up

I Heart Faces theme this week is "Bundled Up". This photograph popped right into my mind. It is one of my absolute favorites. I love the rich tones and the sweet moment in time when my littlest girl was all bundled up. Although we had no snow to speak of this year, I think this photo describes that theme perfectly.

A Few Pictures

I saw my middle girl outside today without any shoes and I had to run outside and try and capture her. This is so my daughter. As soon as she learned to take off her shoes, if the car ride was over five minutes long her shoes would be off. And, while it was a "warmer" day today (in the fifties) those are cold, red feet. She was out there for well over an hour without those shoes on.

My oldest daughter makes the greatest of faces and totally ignores me when I come around with a camera.

And, while not the most engaging picture, this picture means a lot to me, because it shows the shear curli-q-ness of my toddler.

Violinist

Playing Outside

Here my middle daughter playing outside. She's organizing Heather flowers on an old cutting like it was a Christmas tree.

The Moon

This was the moon tonight. Not completely full, but according to my husband very close to the Earth right now and it was way huge when it was on the horizon (which, of course, is really the atmosphere bending the light and making it look bigger like a zoom lens).

Now, why will my moon shots turn out, but not my star shots? I mean I know the reason - the moon has enough light to make it f250 at ISO 100. But, who is successful with digital camera star shots and what camera do you have and what is your technique?

Braids For The Toddler

My toddler got braids today. I can't believe how long her hair is getting. She definitely has the most hair for her age of my girls. And, despite being a brunette myself, I can't help but fall in love with her curly golden locks, as is the case for most everyone she meets. Natalie got in on the action too and I got a shot of her. ETTL 50mm flash bounced off ceiling, 60 mm macro lens, 2.8/250.

Christmas Ornaments

I am a little behind on this post, but here it is nonetheless. Here are some of our Holiday Decor photos for the You Capture weekly photo challenge. Next week's challenge is Your Holiday.

The following hand-painted ornaments are painted by my mother-in-law each Christmas for each of the grandkids. Isn't that amazing talent?

Light Show

Check out our lightshow this afternoon, just before sunset.

And, here is my oldest daughter standing in the orange glow admiring the clouds.

Fantastic.

An Ordinary Post

I know everyone out there in the blogsphere is posting Christmas posts. I am getting ready to enjoy the Christmas season...really I am. I just take a while. I feel like I have to have my X's checked off, then I can enjoy things. I've learned in my life to not get too involved in anything at typically busy times in life. I'm just not the sort of person that enjoys that sort of thing.

What I do love is Christmas day alone with my lovely little family, reading the true Christmas story out of Luke, listening to the girls sing Christmas songs, and realizing that they really get what the real meaning of Christmas is. So, I still will wait on the Christmas posts.

Today I was heading out with my lovely eight year old to go shopping - a day with just her and I. It was a little tiring for her (and I), but I think it was a good experience and a bonding time, nonetheless.

On the way out of our place, I thought, "what a typical day it was today weather wise for this time of year (and beautiful too in it's own way)". So, I wanted to share some pictures of the landscape (and weather) as I was driving out.

Below is our home. You can only see a small bit of it. The trees are the property line on one side, but our little "farm" extends to the left far beyond this picture and way down the hill along the trees, where you can't see it. This fogged in look is typical. It really isn't foggy per se. It is rainy and those are clouds hitting the foothills. Usually when there is fog in town, we are fortunate to not get any right where we are because we are a little higher than town.

The following is looking back to our little valley we live in and you can see the foothills rising all around - foothills to the mountains. No volcanos right nearby, but there are plenty of almost 4000' mountains just a little to the East.

Isn't this next picture striking? I've always thought that one Oregon White Oak in the middle of the Firs to be striking. There are a lot of tree farmers in our area. Those small trees will be big in a few years.

Moulton Falls