Lady bug boy

My son Allston really wanted to be a lady bug for Halloween, he does look so stinkin cute in his costume if I say so myself.

Cool experience

My husband and I took our son to a baseball game tonight and he was given a baseball that was used in the game. Ous son thought it was so cool and was so excited!

I don't really know what word these would go with but it has been a long time since I have posted. We are in the middle of adopting a baby so I have been super busy. We were at my parents the other day and my mom was nice enough to let me use her studio to take some pictures of my son.

the one above is my favorite

grass and fireworks

My husband had to work tonight but I still wanted to do something fun for my son so we went and got a small pack of fireworks. My sister is staying with us for the weekend and while we were doing fireworks they were teasing eachother and sticking small blades of grass in eachothers ears and nose.

And this counts and patriotic because we were outside having 4th of july fun!

Sea World summer

Nothing says summer to me like a hot Saturday at Sea World

Express yourself

We were at the beach watching all the surfers. Being from Utah we have NO idea how to surf, so with all the "cool" surfers watching he grabbed the boogie board and headed out. I think he got more than a few laughs but he didn't care he is never afraid to have fun or to express himself.

Natural lighting straight out of the camera no photoshop can you believe it?

Natural fun

My son Allston having fun in all things Natural, well except for the shovel.

Everyday Bridge

Over on the East side of the country bridges are something you see and drive on every day.

A good sign

Our son Allston is still a happy boy and thats a good sign because we still have a lot of driving hours ahead of us!

Curious Emotions

We are getting ready for our vacation and set up our tent outside to make sure it was in working order. My son was so excited to help set up and then play in the tent. Here he is watching his dad put the tent together.

Allston G.

I am glad to be the first to post since I missed the last challange. This is a portrait of my 2 year old son Allston G. and his faithful puppy that accompanys us everywhere. Allston has really bad asthma and has been really sick the past few months so we are very glad to have him feeling better. I love this picture it really captures who he is, from his extra pink lips to his green eyes like his daddys. He is leaning forward because he was ready to sprint away as soon as he heard the click of the camera. I am glad we did this challange because I got quite a few great pictures of my perfect boy.

Tuesday Tutorial

Sorry I'm a little late in the day, I have been out buying things for my 25 day cross country road trip thats coming up

Here is a quick before and after. It's hard to show on here but try it on your pictures and you will see some small but really nice improvements on your pictures

For todays tutorial I just wanted to show a few basic thinks on Photoshop that I do on every single picture I fix up. You have to look closely to see a huge differance but they are little things that really help

Here is my picture right out of the camera.

On the top bar click on Image (2 buttons to the right of the File button) then adjustments then Birghtness/Contrast slide the contrast bar up to about 8 (Sometimes I do it a little higher, depends on the picture just play with it and see how much you like. I like doing this better than saturating, sometimes you will have to adjust the curves again after adding contrast.

Then click on Filter-sharpen-Unsharp mask. Make the amount 27 the radius 10.5 and the Threshold 0. This just makes all the edges sharper and more defined. When you do it to your picture go to the history and look at your before and after that will show you the biggest difference.

Then I just burned the edges a little bit and I think it just makes a nice picture a little better. Try it out see how it works with your pictures

More water

Everything in my yard needs more water than I seem to be able to give. It's ok though because the warm weather is worth the work. We got a nice spring shower today so I didn't have to water anything except my neighbors flowers that are under their car port (they are away on vacation).

This picture is of the water spewing out the the faucet outside in my flower bed. I love the colors and the look of the water. I played with it a lot in photoshop in filter galleries and I can't remember exactly what I did. I know I sharpened it and added contrast.

Colors of spring

I didn't know which challange word I was going to pick so I decided to just take lots of pictures, pick one I like and tie it into one of the challange words. So I chose the challange color, I love the colors that come out in spring. My flowers are blooming and I even have some new colors this year that I didn't have in my flower bed last year. I love these flowers I think they are called flags. Last year they bloomed so big and heavy some fell over.

Cure to a rough week

I have had a rough week! I had to get a ton of dental work done and it sucked. I spent 8 hours in three days in my dentist office (its a good thing I have a great dentist). But last night we had some friends and their 2 kids over for food and a water balloon fight. It was just what I needed to fix a rough week. I wish I would have taken my camera to the dentist but I was to ornery to think.

Picture taken with no flash just outside lighting. Used photoshop to sharpen add contrast and saturate.

Everything changed

Everything changed for this girl today, today she became someones wife. She was beautiful and glowing and it was her perfect day.

The only thing that wasn't perfedt is there was almost no lighting at all the whole ceremony, so the pictures are dark and it's been hard to edit them and I am never going to get them perfect and that annoys me.

Perfect balance

When I was a kid we used to put the sprinkler under the trampoline when we would jump and we would get souked and have a great time doing it. So today I put the sprinkler under the same trampoline that I used (a 4th birthday present) for my son. He loved it as much as I did so even though the trampoline is old it looks like it will still bring joy for many years to come. New fun with an old toy, a perfect balance. Also my son was falling all over the place because it was a wet surface and he has NO balance. See it is all around a picture about balance:)

Taken with natural lighting and a little off balance (clever I know)

Click on it to enlarge it, it's better bigger!

Play in key

When I saw the challange word was key I thought it didn't leave much to take pictures of. But when I looked up the work key in the dictionary and the thesaurus I got so many ideas that I couldn't decide what to do first. I started thinking of my violin and how much work it takes to actually play in KEY. Violins are such pretty instruments and I think mine is especially pretty because it has a pretty brown color not the orange wood that most violion have. Most people like the orange color on the violins but I love my brown violin, it just makes it look old and special and it makes me think of the poem "Touch of the Masters Hand"

Square Foot Garden

I have always wanted to grow a garden and my father suggested I do a square foot garden and there was so much wisdom in that suggestion. It makes gardening so fast and easy and has kept me from getting overwhelmed or frustrated. I can't wait until everything I am growing is fully grown and ready to eat, I have never been so excited for vegetables. If you are interested in easy gardening I suggest the book called "The All New Square Foot Garden" The guy who wrote it is also full of gardening wisdom!
Taken outside lighting no flash on automatic settings and sharpened and saturated in photoshop.

One special day

I did bridals yesterday and my mom who is an amazing photographer let me use her super cool camera! I can't remember the settings for this picture because I had to change them a lot for every picture because it was so sunny.