A Photo A Day – April

Sunday, April 8th, 2012

Ha! I figured out that the trick for sticking to my 365 photo project is to follow a shooting list!

I stumbled across Fat Mum Slim on Pinterest. Aside from having a really lovely blog, Chantelle posts monthly Photo A Day shooting lists and I’ve been following along this month. I love the creative challenge and being forced to learn how to use my cameras in different ways.

Check out the flickr group! It’s cool to see how everyone interprets the various subjects.

So I figured I’d do a weekly post of the photos here since “take a photo each day” is on my 10 for 36 list. =)

April 1 - Your Reflection

This was an accident — I didn’t know I was catching my reflection *and* I hadn’t seen the shooting list for April yet! We were just on a quick getaway to New Hope and I LOVED that sink. And the stenciling around the doors.

April 2 - Color

I showed you this one already, but I really love it so here it is again. =)

April 3 - Mail

We all know about my obsession with security envelopes.

April 4 - Someone Who Makes You Happy #photoadayApril

This is the first time Chompers put a hat on and left it there! He really loves his new Cookah hat.

April 5 - Tiny #photoadayApril

I think I like the second “tiny” shot better, but I really love both so here they are.

April 5 - Tiny (take 2) #photoadayApril

08.04.2012 365, Shootin' Comments Off

Tilt-Shift Photography Obsession

Saturday, March 31st, 2012

Pinterest. Gets me every. Single. Time. So I stumbled across this tutorial for simulated tilt-shift (using Photoshop Elements) and thought, hey! I could follow that! (If you don’t know tilt-shift, it is a way of making objects in a photo appear as if they are part of a miniature model by blurring some of the photo and keeping other parts in focus.)

Yeah. The instructions are awesome and I can totally do it, but I realized that I just don’t take the kind of photographs that lend themselves to this effect. I like portraits and snapshots and things that are small and all up in your face. I did take some landscape photos while we were in Puerto Rico, but a lot of them were from a moving vehicle so eh, I just have to go out and take different types of photos now. But hey! Look at what I came up with. Some of them are pretty ok and it was neat to take a trip down memory lane (some of these photos go back a few years haha).

These seem to look better when you click through and embiggen. =)

Toy Humacao

Toy Humacao – this one is my favorite. In Puerto Rico it seems like each municipality has a big monument announcing that you have arrived. Which is good because we were lost. A lot.

Toy Town

This was actually a photo of the tree in the foreground – Valentine’s Day is a huge deal in Puerto Rico!

Toy Houses

I want to live right there. In that one.

Main Street

But this is pretty cute too.

Toy Ferris Wheel 2

Have you ever been on the giant ferris wheel in Ocean City, NJ? It rocks! I think my kids might have been in one of those buckets.

Toy They Might Be Giants

They Might Be Giants. Or they might be little models in a diorama. I’d love to get this photo right because it lends itself to such an awesome title. =)

Toy Phanatic

Toy Phanatic. This was the year they got that nice little trophy had a big parade. But that was a lonnnnnng time ago.

31.03.2012 Shootin' Comments Off

PicMonkey. Cupcakes. Weekend. YES!

Sunday, March 11th, 2012

Been quiet over here…hiding out and being domesticated as the clock ticks down to my first day of classes.

And baking. There has been some baking.

Deep dark mocha cupcake batter.

Mmmmmmmmm

Courtesy of Joy the Baker, deep dark mocha cupcakes with coffee buttercream frosting. Mmmmmm. If you haven’t subscribed to ENJOY!, you really, really should. Surprises like that in the mail are way more awesome than bills and store circulars.

And I solved the problem of how to safely transport one cupcake:

Need to transport a cupcake? Put the cupcake on the lid of a takeout container, then snap the container on over the cupcake!

Just put a takeout tub lid on the counter, throw a cupcake on the lid, and then snap the tub over it. Easy!

And I am loving how photo editing is coming down to the level of effort I want to expend doing it! I have an amazing camera but I think I sometimes avoid using it because I am lazy about editing photos. And I really love Instagram with all of the cool filters and stuff! But I don’t love the quality of the pictures when I print them…they’re a little grainy. Conundrum!

SOLVED!

Have you tried PicMonkey yet? It’s free!

Yes, I know I could do most of this stuff in Photoshop…but it is so tedious and time-consuming. NOT relaxing!

I played around with PicMonkey and some photos from Puerto Rico and hey! Way cooler than Instagram! See!?!

Feet!

So much faster than Photoshop! The quality of this photo is so much better than those grainy Instagram photos in the beginning of the post.

LOVE! And now I can go back to loving my “real” camera.

11.03.2012 Bakin', Noodlin', Shootin' Comments Off

Fun Thing Friday!

Friday, January 27th, 2012

So cute how toys look at the end of the day before tidying up!

Chompers' toys.

On their way home for a rest after a hard day of work being Chompers’ toys.

Happy face!

And quite relieved not to be driven all over for a bit.

27.01.2012 Fun Thing Friday!, Shootin' Comments Off

365?

Sunday, January 15th, 2012

Taking photos makes me happy. It’s one of the reasons I like blogging so much..capturing the boys’ lives (and all of the other stuff I squeeze in around them) in images tells stories in ways my words cannot. (Uh, duh.) I’ve never taken the time to learn my “new” camera (a Canon T1i, which I’ve had for over a year now). So I’ve been reading the DPS blog for ages and they do a weekly photography challenge that I’m going to try to keep up with. I love how this will help me learn the camera *and* get me thinking a little more creatively about subject matter. It’s been a lonnnng time since I’ve had space to just create and sometimes I feel like those pieces of my brain are starting to get squeaky and *gasp* rust shut. Not good. This week’s challenge is Time. I have a few ideas and it will be interesting to see if they work out as planned.

In other completely unrelated news, an alpaca!!!!

This is my good side.

And a lizard!

I'm pretty sharp.

And I think this is a llama since the sign said to keep the doggies away from the llama right next to his cage, but it could have meant the other cute fluffy long-necked creature in the pen with this one. Or maybe this was the one in a pen by itself and is actually an alpaca? Livestock identification skills, I lack them occasionally.

I know I'm not as awesome as that alpaca over there.

Whoa, giant doggies.

I can totally see how they might be skittish with dogs this size running around.

We went to the Greater Philadelphia Pet Expo yesterday and it was really cool! I got to pet an alligator and hold her hand and that was a little weird. But awesome!

15.01.2012 365, Shootin' Comments Off

In which I attempt to learn my camera.

Friday, August 19th, 2011

Sooo…it’s be awhile since I’ve done a “real” blog post here, but I’m just going to jump back in and pretend that I haven’t been a naughty, lazy blogger, kay?

Well, haven’t been lazy. Just a bit really fucking busy. Got married. Got pregnant. Stopped working. Had medium boy drama. Had baby. Had biggest boy drama. Separated from husband. Started working. Office move times two. Dealt with epic STBX nonsense. Bought a house. Moved. Breathed. Not a bad bit of work for two years, eh?

So let’s just jump right in, kids, and maybe we’ll talk about all of that some other time.

My precious:

Yeah, I have no idea what I'm doing
I look like I know what I’m doing, right?

No. I’m just learning.

Waterfail the First
Exhibit A: Waterfail. (You see what I just did there, don’t you?)

Waterfail the Second
Exhibit B: Waterfail…again.

But…
Waterfall
Got the water, forgot the composition. I still really like this shot though.

Big brother
This guy (Biggest Brother) gave me some pointers, since he actually knows what he’s doing. That thing he’s sitting on? It’s a curved bench. If you whisper at the bench, the sound travels around the curve and amplifies the sound. Creepy!

Eagle
Maybe my first good photo of the day.

Don’t you just want to jump across the water on these things?
Lilypads
*boingboingboing* I love the texture and intelligent design.

Near
Practicing near.

Far
Practicing far.

Soft Rush again
Practicing focusing on what I am trying to focus on. There’s enough going on with this weirdo plant that it was hard to screw up get it right.

Living wall
The Doors to Salvation. Seriously, the wall is cool, but those bathrooms were air conditioned. They had high ceilings and skylights and were almost like little potty pods with changing tables. It’s weird to be looking for changing tables on outings again.

Grrrr
Grrrrrrr.

Sweaty zzzzzz
Zzzzzzz.

Sooooo…I checked and managed to not take even one picture that looks like all of the other photos I’ve taken at Longwood Gardens over the years. Win!

And that is how I spent my summer vacation. The end.

19.08.2011 Shootin' Comments Off