What Eyes See Daily

People Pictures - exercise 2

2012-02-13T18:41:00.000-05:00

This is the second week in our group project of working through the exercises in People Pictures by Chris Orwig. This week's assignment did not involve taking any pictures but celebrating, collecting and critiquing photography.

To celebrate photography I went to the our local visual arts center and spent time walking around the two photography exhibits. They were very different in look and feel and interesting to compare and contrast.

To collect the suggestion was to review several magazines and tear out pictures that spoke to you. I did this exercise last October for the photography workshop where I met these wonderful woman and I still have them.

To critique there were several quotes written down and we were to read them and then develop our own. For me "A great photograph stops you in your tracks makes you forget about what you were thinking about a moment before and causes you to want to know more...to learn the story behind the photograph."

That is this week's assignment. I hope you all have a great week!

Please make sure and stop by the other ladies' blogs to see their interpretation of this week's assignment.

Binkies + Noseprints Photography -- http://binkiesandnoseprints.blogspot.com/
DC Group -- http://dc2011women.blogspot.com/
Abbey Road Designs -- http://abbeyroaddesigns.blogspot.com/
Claudia Muir Photography -- http://claudiamuirphotography.com/blog
Greta S Garcia Photography -- http://gsgphotography.wordpress.com/
Elaine Janet Photography – http://elainejanet.com/

People Pictures - exercise 1

2012-02-06T17:26:00.000-05:00

Last October I went to a photography workshop and met an incredible bunch of woman. Some of the woman I met have decided to do the 30 photography exercises in Chris Orwig's book People Pictures. I have decided to join them and will be posting my results here for the next 29 Mondays.

The first exercise was to shoot in manual mode and manual focus (this was my first time ever shooting in manual focus...definitely different but fun) and to take 10 portraits in 10 minutes. They were to not be stylized or posed just a person in their environment telling a story.

I chose my friend Melissa and since she is a fabulous knitter I took pictures of her knitting. This is the one I chose to post and I know it is not your typical portrait as you don't see eyes but I am happy with it. Please leave your comments and feedback. I am hoping to grow and learn a lot about my photography over the course of these 30 weeks.

Please check out the other ladies playing along;

Binkies + Noseprints Photography -- http://binkiesandnoseprints.blogspot.com/
DC Group -- http://dc2011women.blogspot.com/
Abbey Road Designs -- http://abbeyroaddesigns.blogspot.com/
Claudia Muir Photography -- http://claudiamuirphotography.com/blog
Greta S Garcia Photography -- http://gsgphotography.wordpress.com/
Elaine Janet Photography – http://elainejanet.com/
The New Diplomats Wife -- http://thenewdiplomatswife.blogspot.com/

P52 - week 5

2012-02-05T20:44:00.000-05:00

This week's theme is shadows. I struggled with this one a bit as I threw out my back early in the week and wasn't going out much at all and then realized that since our new dining room chairs arrived last Saturday we have new shadows on our walls. They make me happy as they are the last of the furniture we were wait to arrive since we moved back home in November.

Be sure and check out the P52 over on Darcy's blog.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

2012-01-29T22:25:00.000-05:00

You may recall from this post that I want to participate in more Scavenger Hunt Sundays that Ashley Sisk hosts over on her blog Ramblings and Photos. Unfortunately I wasn't able to participate in the first few of the new year but here is my interpretation of this week's prompts.

Smile

I am reusing my selfie that I used for my P52 this week.

Stand Alone

This is one of kittens we adopted in December and it is rare that he is not sitting with his brother.

Rusty or Something Old

Yesterday my husband and I went out for a ride looking for pictures for this Scavenger Hunt Sunday and we ran across this cool rusty thing...not sure what it was but I enjoyed photographing it.

Artificial

This was a tough one for me this week but I got this one from a distance of artificial snow on the ski slopes.

Repeating Pattern

This orchard had nice repeating lines of trees.

Be sure you check out the other participants over at Scavenger Hunt Sunday.

P52 - week 4

2012-01-27T15:08:00.000-05:00

This week's theme for P52 is self-portrait. I have to admit that other than a shot while getting my haircut I think this may be my very first self-portrait. I originally wanted to take it outside with natural light. Unfortunately, the weather this week did not cooperate. Lots of rain and today we have strong winds. So here is my attempt at an inside self-portrait.

Make sure you check out the other P52ers (I know that is not a word but it sounds fun, right?)

P52 - week 3

2012-01-21T23:19:00.000-05:00

This week's theme for the P52 is I Dreamed a Dream in honor of Martin Luther King's birthday. I struggled with this one at first but as I really thought about it I realized that I was making it harder than it had to be. On July 24th of last year our home was set on fire by a serial arsonist who hit 6 houses in our neighborhood. In the fire we lost our cat, our car and our home. Since then one of my dreams has been to be back in our home surrounded by the love of my husband and to hopefully have more cats not to replace Sylvester but to love and share our home with. The week of Thanksgiving the rebuilding of our was complete and we moved back and the week of Christmas we adopted two kittens: Bear and Gizmo. Here is a picture of my husband and our kittens in our home taken today.

Be sure and check out all of the other participants in P52.

P52 - week 2

2012-01-15T22:54:00.000-05:00

Week 2's theme is Made With Love. On Thursday my friend Melissa and I got together and made covers for our Nooks. I would love to say that it was all love and joy but this project had more than its share of grumbles too. However I love my Nook and I made the cover so it fits the theme, right? I still need to add a button which I will do this week. Here is the cover.

P52 - week 1

2012-01-09T00:02:00.000-05:00

As I blogged about the other day my word for 2012 is Knowledge. Two of the things that I want to do in 2012 is learn more about photography to take better pictures and to make homemade bread without a bread machine. One way to improve my photography is to participate in a P52, a photo a week for 52 weeks. Darcy over at Life With My 3 Boybarians is hosting a linky party weekly to help encourage people to continue their P52 and this week, the first week's theme is Resolution. Here is my photo that shows my first attempt at making bread. It is a No Knead Bread that is a very rustic bread. It was yummy.

Be sure to check out all the other P52 participants this week here.

Sweet Shot Tuesday

2012-01-03T21:33:00.000-05:00

I am excited to start 2012 off with my first Sweet Shot Tuesday. Yes, I know it is Wednesday but I am still linking up. The Wednesday before Christmas we adopted two kittens: Bear and Gizmo. I took this shot yesterday of Gizmo sitting in a large spoon before the spoon was hung on my kitchen wall. Isn't he cute?

Be sure and check out the other participants.

One Little Word 2012 - Knowledge

2011-12-31T15:23:00.002-05:00

During the last week of the year many bloggers and scrapbookers look over the last year and choose a word for the next year that will summarize what they want to accomplish in the new year. Ali Edwards is one person who has been doing this since 2007 and even has a class on it that is offered through Big Picture Classes. For several years now I think I am going to do it and then never really follow through. I have decided that 2012 is the year for me to pick a word and stick with it. At first I thought I would pick JOY as 2011 was severely lacking in joy but after thinking about it some more I decided that it was not the right word for me. I decided that what would bring me joy is knowledge. Knowledge is power and a wonderful asset. Peter F. Drucker said
"Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes."
I truly believe this so in 2012 I am going on a quest to learn many things that I have wanted to know.

How you may ask...well here is a list of things I want to learn and my very rough idea of how I will go about it. Warning: this is a very long post without any photos so you may want to grab a cup of hot cocoa, get comfortable and let me know what you think.

Photography

I want to learn how to photograph better at night. This was something I started to learn about until the fire stopped me in my tracks. I will be taking Kent Weakley's Night Photography eClass starting February 10, 2012. Won't you join me?

I want to learn about Lightroom 3. I purchased LR3 in November but I have heard several times that to get the most out of LR3 you must set it up correctly from the beginning or you will make it much harder on yourself so I will be replacing my external hard drive and one of the wonderful woman I met at a workshop in October has offered to get me up and running.

I want to improve my overall photography. Of course the best way to do this is practice, practice practice. Unfortunately the events of this year had me not picking up my camera that much so in 2012 I want to participate in P52 which is a photo a week and in 2012 Darcy over at Life with My 3 Boybarians will be hosting a linky party to show your photos. The issue for me is there will be themes and I am not sure how well I will do with that but I will try. I am hoping that Ashley Sisk will continue to host Scavenger Hunt Sundays so that I may participate in some more.

One of my big struggles with photography is lighting so I am hoping to learn more about lighting in 2012. I also want to learn about food photography and one of my Christmas presents from my in-laws was Plate to Pixel: Digital Food Photography and Styling by Helene Dujardin so I am excited to dive into it and see what I can learn.

Household

I would love to build these Ten Dollar Ledges from over at Ana White's blog. These would be perfect to hold my rubber stamps. Unfortunately, we lost most of our tools in the fire that took our house. I am hoping to get the tools and make these in 2012.

Another fabulous project from over at Ana White's is this farmhouse bed. I really, really want to make two of these. One for our bedroom and the other for our guest room. If you know me you know that my father and both of my brothers could whip these up in no time flat. However, they live in other states and due to my mother's ill health can not come and help and I am not skilled like them at all. So again I am hoping to get the tools and the KNOWLEDGE to make these.

As we just moved back into our rebuilt house the week of Thanksgiving we still have nothing on the walls or windows. My friend Melissa is making our living room curtains and I am hoping she is going to teach me how to make curtains for the rest of the house. Again KNOWLEDGE or lack of knowledge is keeping me from doing this and KNOWLEDGE can allow me to make them.

I have always wanted to make bread from scratch and I want this to be the year to do it. Let's make it happen!

Well this post is getting very long and if you are still hanging in I really appreciate it. I will continue to add on to my list in the coming year. Thank you for checking out my blog and supporting me in this year of many trials. I am very happy to see 2011 end and to start a new year fresh. Happy New Years everyone!

Updated to add a link to My Heart Art where Geri is having a linky party for you to add your word of 2012.

Christmas Survey

2011-11-25T08:00:00.001-05:00

I have seen this survey on a few blogs and I thought I would join in the fun and give my answers here.

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Absolutely hot chocolate!

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? He wraps some and so does Mrs. Claus

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? White

4. Do you hang mistletoe? No, but if I can find a mistletoe ball I like l this year I will.

5. When do you put your decorations up? Usually the weekend of Thanksgiving. Unfortunately I don't think that will happen this year.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? We always have a breakfast casserole with danish and orange juice for breakfast. Yum!

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? We always put our gifts in groupings by person and then the kids sat on the floor in the morning and handed gifts out to our parents and opened our gifts while breakfast was cooking. After eating we had to get ready for company and it was always fun to see our relatives.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I don't remember

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? No, always on Christmas morning

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? lights and ornaments

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Love it if I can stay home and snuggle under blankets. Hate it if we have to go to work.

12. Can you ice skate? As a child my dad built us an ice rink and I used to skate often. Unfortunately, now I have no coordination.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? I always got great gifts so it is very hard to pick just one but one year my dad picked out a tennis bracelet for me and if you know my dad you know he NEVER shops so this was and is still extremely special for me.

14. What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you? The most important thing for me is that we get to speak to all of our family on Christmas. Living in Maryland with both sets of parents living in New England we stay in Maryland because we have been stranded before and can't afford to do that again. We make sure to call everyone and talk on speaker phone so that everyone is involved. We of course would prefer to be there.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? I can't just pick one of these because somethings are only available at the holidays and I love them all. So here is my list in no particular order: Ribbon candy, Ghirardelli Peppermint Bark, Christmas cookies, peppermint ice cream, Friendly's Jubilee Roll

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? I am not sure that this qualifies as a tradition but I love that my husband and I just get up when we want, I start breakfast so it is cooking while we open gifts, we call family and just relax all day. It is so nice to have this one day to just spend together without all the other distractions.

17. What tops your tree? An angel I bought at a craft show

18. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving? Giving, I try really hard to find the right gift.

19. Candy Canes: Yuck or Yum? Yum

20. Favorite Christmas show? There are so many good ones but my two favorites are Miracle on 34 Street and One Special Night

21. Saddest Christmas Song? I am drawing a blank on this one.

22. What is your favorite Christmas song? Breath of Heaven by Amy Grant. Since I used to work in D.C. I also enjoy Christmas Eve in Washington by Maura Sullivan

Graffiti Alley

2011-11-16T08:00:00.001-05:00

In Baltimore there is an alley called Graffiti Alley and I went there Sunday with a friend. Here are a few pictures from the alley. The address is Howard Street and W 19 1/2 Street behind Load of Fun. If you are local you should stop by, my understanding is the artwork changes pretty regularly. Art is expressed in many ways and this is one more way.

As you can tell I like the people images.

Here the artist covered wires and other building objects.

I know many people disagree with graffiti being called art and that is not an argument I want to get into on this blog. I feel it has a place and in this alley it is done legally and art students from a local art college can come and use the alley as a backdrop for their photography. I enjoyed checking out the alley and taking pictures.

Sweeet Shot Tuesday

2011-11-14T22:32:00.001-05:00

During the World Wide Photo Walk (WWPW) I met Melissa and the two of us decided that we would get together again and do some shooting. On Sunday we were finally able to do just that and it was a lot of fun. We went to Baltimore to check out Graffiti Alley and afterwards we went to the Papermoon Diner. I had never been there before and LOVED all the decorations inside and out. Check out these two, aren't they great?

I want her in my garden, wouldn't that be fun?

If you are in the Baltimore area and you haven't been there before be sure to go and check it out!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-11-02T19:19:00.000-04:00

Sweeet Shot Tuesday

2011-11-01T22:16:00.000-04:00

It has been awhile since I participated in Sweet Shot Tuesday over at Life With My 3 Boybarians so I decided today would be a great time to jump back in. Last Saturday morning my husband and I were in Pennsylvania when the snow started and here is the barn across from where we stayed Friday night. Kind of crazy that we got so much snow in October. I hope this isn't a sign of what is to come this winter.

Be sure and check out the rest of the participants over at Life With My 3 Boybarians.

Week In My Life Day 1

2011-10-11T19:11:00.000-04:00

I needed a kick in the pants to get blogging again on a regular basis. So when I saw that Melissa from over at Adventuroo was hosting a linky party and asking people to blog about a week in their life I figured it was the perfect opportunity.

As many of you know on July 24th our life was changed forever. Our home was set on fire by a serial arsonist that was terrorizing our neighborhood. In that fire we lost our cat, our car, and our home. We are in the process of rebuilding but it has been a long and emotionally draining process that we could not get through without our family, friends and faith. The one bright spot is that the arsonist was caught almost 2 weeks ago and is being held without bail. Having said all that my pictures this week will be a lot of going over to the house to check on progress and answer any questions I can.

My husband was off today so we went by the house to check on things and found that our kitchen cabinets, trim and doors had been delivered. Yippee!!

After that we off to Home Depot to pick out lighting fixtures and paint colors. I have to admit that last week when we went to pick out flooring I figured it would be painful to get us to agree and we agreed on everything right away, it was scary. However, lighting fixtures were not so easy. Oh my goodness why do I want all the expensive fixtures???? Oh well that is not to be but we did finally agree, for the most part, and I will give the list to the project manager tomorrow.

From there we went to Barnes and Noble to pick up a camera guide for my camera since I lost all my reference books in the fire. Unfortunately they didn't have the one that someone recommended so I had to order it. I figure when you can't get what you want you should eat ice cream....nice motto huh? Works for me.

We decided comfort food was the order of the day so we ate baked mushrooms for dinner. Now you know I am not the healthiest of eaters. These were delicious. Unfortunately, I forgot to white balance for our apartment's lighting and since I couldn't figure out my lightroom 3 trial today I couldn't do any post processing on any of these photos.

I hope everyone participating in a Week In My Life is enjoying it and I look forward to seeing your posts. If you want to see everyone's posts be sure and check out Melissa's blog.

Worldwide Photo Walk

2011-10-01T22:39:00.000-04:00

Today Arthur and I went on the Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk trying to make the best of gray skies and sporadic rain showers. I can't say that I got any pictures that I love but that happens and it was a good day of shooting and meeting people. Here are 3 photos from the day.

The above is a close-up of detail in a wrought iron fence.

Flowers along the walk.

This is probably my favorite as I like all the different roof lines, textures, and shapes.

I hope if you got to participate in the WWPW this year you had a great time and if you didn't get to walk this year that you do next year.

A house update

2011-09-23T12:18:00.000-04:00

It is truly hard to believe that tomorrow will be 2 months since a fire destroyed our home. The fire ran the roof life of our house so that all the ceilings had to be removed to be able to stop the fire. A lot of the damage was due to water, soot, smoke, debris and of course the fire itself. Here are some pictures that I have taken over the last 2 months.

Here is a photo from the first day after they tarped our house. As you can see the car didn't make it.

This is after the new carport and side wall was built.

This is as the new siding was going up. The siding is now finished.

As progress is being made we are still trying to understand all of this. I haven't been on here much as I try to deal with my emotions over the fire. I am going to try to get on here more.

A Fun Day Out

2011-09-01T20:57:00.000-04:00

This past Sunday my husband and I met up with Alissa from Have Stroller Will Travel, her hubs, and her little dude for a Frederick Keys game. The Keys are a High A class team here in Maryland. It was a good time and it ended up being a double header since their Saturday night game was postponed due to Hurricane Irene. We met the team mascot Keyote, isn't he cute?

Alissa's little dude ran the bases after the game and did a great job! You can see here his hat was falling down over his eyes but he still made it across home plate, greeted by Keyote with a big smile on his face!

Way to go Little Dude!

Getting by 5 minutes at a time

2011-08-27T21:10:00.000-04:00

I can't believe that tomorrow will be 5 weeks from the fire. We have truly been getting by 5 minutes at a time so it is hard to fathom that much time has gone by.

Once the fire was under control one of the firefighters brought out our cameras. They happened to be in the kitchen since I had used mine earlier in the day. My camera was wrapped in a Domke Protective Wrap and it saved my camera. The wrap was wet, smelly and filthy but when I took my camera out of the wrap it had some water but had it not been wrapped it would have been ruined from all the water and debris the kitchen table received. I brought my camera to our local Nikon certified service center and they removed the moisture that did get in. Thank you Strauss Photo-Tech!! If you don't have a wrap for your camera I highly recommend it! Sometimes I just want to put my camera in a tote bag and go and I always wrap it before I do and Domke wraps are fantastic for this, they cushion your camera and keep it safe. My husband's camera wasn't wrapped and his camera smells horribly of smoke. We are now seeing if the company that is working on our electronics can get out the smell and if not then he will be buying a new camera. I got my camera back last Saturday and I have taken some pictures of the progress going on at the house that I will be sharing soon. Here is the picture that I took when the fireman handed me my camera not my best but pretty good for a camera with some water in it. If you look in the window to the left of the front door you can see there was still some flames in the house.

**I am not affiliated with Domke in anyway I just wanted to let you know of my experience. I believe in promoting good products and this one is fantastic!

The Fire

2011-08-07T21:01:00.000-04:00

This blog post is the hardest I have ever had to write. Two weeks ago my husband's and my life was changed forever. We lost our cat, car and house to fire. It happened in the early hours of Sunday July 24th. The article in the local paper can explain it better than I and it also has a picture of our house in flames so I am linking it here.

The emotional roller coaster that has been the last two weeks can't even be put into words. We are trying to start over again but it is very hard to figure out what to do first, second, etc. I ask for your thoughts, prayers, and support as we go through this crisis and start to rebuild our lives.

Covered Bridges, shout outs and shooting raw

2011-07-17T22:26:00.000-04:00

In my county we have 3 covered bridges and for the four years I have lived here I have wanted to go find them and today was finally the day.

First up is the Utica Mills Covered Bridge:

The second one had people playing underneath so I decided to check out the roof lines. Here is Loy's Station Covered Bridge.

The last one is the Roddy Road Covered Bridge.

I haven't been posting much for a bunch of reasons but one is that I do not do well in the humidity and this area has been blanketed in humidity for a couple of months now and after working all day all I want to do is hang out in the air conditioning. Ashley from Ramblings and Photos has blogged about her mojo not being around in the heat and every time I read her saying that I think to myself "Yes, I hear you sister! I think my mojo is hanging out with yours in an ice cream parlor" I thank her for the validation. Then I go over to Jill's blog at Jill Samter Photography and she is taking these great summer shots that I wish I could get out more to capture the moments. I thank her for the inspiration. Yesterday Alissa from Have Stroller Will Travel blogged about the season of fun and it was a great reminder of all the things to go out and experience. It totally helped me get up and out today to go check out the bridges. Thanks for the push Alissa!

The other day Andy from at Nevercap and I had a good discussion about shooting RAW and so I decided to go out and shoot RAW for the first time today. I need to work on it and I desperately need help with how to shoot using natural light better but it was fun to get out and play.

Thanks to all the bloggers out there that inspire daily, today I just wanted to give a shout out to a few of my favorites.

Happy 4th!

2011-07-04T20:29:00.001-04:00

Today we went down to the Great Frederick Bathtub Races at Culler Lake in Baker Park. It was fun to see all the boats and the creativity that went into them. Team SRE (sophisticated redneck engineers) won and here they are as they were getting ready to dock after their win that put them into the finals. Congratulations SRE!

Happy 4th!

Flower

2011-06-15T22:37:00.000-04:00

Today as I took a walk through one of the gardens in D.C. I saw this pretty orange flower and loved the green leaves and the one white leaf. I have no idea what this flower is so if anyone knows please feel free to let me know in the comments.

Night Photography

2011-06-13T22:13:00.000-04:00

I have started Kent Weakley's Night Photography e-class this week and in just a few days have learned a bunch. Maybe I should say Kent has taught a lot but it is not part of my memory yet and I look forward to the day when it is. I took the picture below tonight of the Baker Park Carillon

I look forward to sharing more of my night photos with you.

Silly Sylvester

2011-06-09T22:46:00.000-04:00

Our cat Sylvester can be anywhere in the house and when he hears you making the bed he comes running. The other day I was making our bed and he ran and jumped on the bed and immediately laid down and stretched out. I continued making the bed by putting the top sheet on the bed and as you can tell Sylvester wasn't in the mood to move so here he is looking adorable. This is actually the bottom of our bed and right after I took a couple of pictures he jumped down.

Memorial Day

2011-05-30T20:01:00.000-04:00

On this memorial day I want to take a moment to thank the men and women who serve our country. I can never thank you enough for all you give and continue to give but know that you are all in my thoughts and prayers.

This photo is from Arlington Cemetery taken on April 9th of this year. It was overcast and I decided not to lightened this picture as the overcast skies lent a somber feel to this final resting place for thousands of our service men and women.

God Bless!

Chalk Drawings - Good to Wow - edited!

2011-05-26T10:36:00.001-04:00

On Monday I shared my Good to Wow Challenge. The theme this week is Chalk Drawings.

Again here is the SOOC

For today's edited version I added the Boost action from The CoffeeShop Blog and lowered the opacity a little bit. As I am brand new to actions I would love to hear your feedback.

Thanks for visiting and be sure to check out the particpants over on Ashley's blog to see their edited versions.

**Edited to say that when I look at these on my laptop at home you can definitely see a difference the sweatshirt and drawing itself look lighter in the edited one but now that I am at work they look almost the same. Can someone tell me if they see a difference? Thank you.**

Sweet Shot Tuesday

2011-05-24T21:50:00.000-04:00

Darcy over at Life with My 3 Boybarians hosts a Sweet Shot Tuesday every week and I am sharing a picture I took on the Beyond the Garden Gate tour this past weekend. For some reason this rose reminds me of Peppermint Stick ice cream. What do you think?

Please go over and see what the others have posted as their Sweet Shot Tuesday.

Chalk Drawings - Good to Wow!

2011-05-23T13:27:00.000-04:00

This week's theme over at Good to Wow is Chalk Drawings. I try to always take something new for challenges but with this theme I had to go back in my archives for when I first started my blog and you will see why. My very first blog post was about an artist who came to Union Station in D.C. and drew an ad for Buick using chalk on the concrete floor of the outdoor part of Union Station. Here is one of my pictures from his visit on September 17, 2009. His website can be found here.

This is straight out of the camera I just added my watermark and re-sized for the web. Come back Thursday to see what I do to edit it and please be sure to check out the other participants in the Good to Wow challenge over on Jill's blog.

Beyond the Garden Gate

2011-05-22T22:35:00.000-04:00

This weekend was the annual Beyond the Garden Gate Tour in Frederick. This is a great way to see what others do with their gardens and become inspired to make some changes in your own space. This year there were a couple of gardens with musicians and several others that had artists painting in the gardens.

Below Glen is painting the chicken sculpture in front of him as a remembrance for the homeowner as it has been sold and will going to its new home soon.

It was great to finally feel good enough to go out walking and to spend time outdoors. Arthur and I really enjoyed the tour. Thank you to the homeowners who open their gardens and to the committee that puts together this great tour every year!

Being Productive While Being Sick

2011-05-14T17:07:00.000-04:00

I know the title sounds like an oxymoron but I have been sick with one thing or another for the last month and nothing has gotten done so I decided I would try to at least accomplish a few things today. Yippee for having some energy to try and get some things done! Now understand I am still camped out on our living room couch but I figured out what I could do while laying there and here is my list.

Reconciled my bank account on Quicken and Backed up the system
Backed up and updated my blackberry
Moved over the last of my pictures to my external hard drive and deleted 3,676 photos from my laptop. Now that was scary!
Installed Photoshop Elements 9, which arrived this week
Made a folder on my desktop for PSE actions - I have never used an action and I really want to learn how so I thought I would take the first step by making a folder to keep them in.
Put my new camera strap on my camera.....I love it! I will take a picture of it this week to blog about

Whew, it may not sound like a lot to you as the computer does most of the work but I am thrilled to get some things off my to do list!!!

I have not taken one picture this week so I won't be playing in Photo Scavenger Hunt Sunday and probably not Good to Wow either which is a bummer since I enjoyed playing in both the last 2 weeks but I am hoping that the meds will kick this thing once and for all.

Have a great weekend and I hope to be back with a photo post soon.

Mother's Day - edited for Good to WOW

2011-05-11T20:42:00.000-04:00

As I said last week I am not really familiar with Photoshop Elements (PSE) but my PSE9 arrived today and if I wasn't feeling so lousy I would already have it installed. However, after battling the flu and bronchitis a couple of weeks ago it seems I now have a sinus infection, allergies and the lingering cough from the bronchitis. I just want to sleep at this point. So PSE9 will have to wait for another day.

Today, however, I will show you what I did with my PSE7 and I used Ashley's very first tutorial in the Good to WOW series - Basic editing techniques to get my feet wet. I did not realize I could open Adobe Camera Raw in PSE so that was a major lesson for me and then I applied most of her tips and here is my before and after.

Here is the SOOC from Monday:

Here is my edited version for today:

I noticed my edit removed the blue hue that the photo had but other than that I am not sure exactly what I did...oops. I am hoping to get more practice in with PSE this year by starting with Ashley's tutorials.

Sweet Shot Tuesday

2011-05-10T08:00:00.006-04:00

Darcy over at Life With My 3 Boybarians hosts a Sweet Shot Tuesday every week. The only criteria is to post your favorite shot of the week. This week I had a couple I really liked but I showed some on Scavenger Hunt Sunday #2 so I thought I would post one that has not been seen yet. I took this shot of a llama at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival on Saturday. Isn't he cute?

Please go over and check out the other participants in Sweet Shot Tuesday.

Mother's Day (Good to Wow)

2011-05-09T09:56:00.000-04:00

This week's Good to Wow prompt is Mother's Day. Since my mom lives 7 hours away and I wasn't able to go visit her for mother's day I took a different approach. On Sunday Sugarloaf Alpaca Company had an open barn event so my husband and I went over for about an hour. There was a cria (baby alpaca) born 2 days ago and was very cute. My original plan was to try and get mother and son together for a mother's day photo, however, the little boy was running around trying out his new legs so much he didn't want a whole lot to do with mom. So instead I got this little boy and I am not sure how old he is but when I look at this photo I think he must be looking for his mom to wish her a Happy Mother's Day. I hope all the mother's out there had a wonderful day.

This shot is SOOC. I just added my watermark and re-sized for the web.

Please make sure and check out the other participants in the Good to Wow Challenge.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday #2

2011-05-08T07:28:00.000-04:00

I enjoyed participating in last week's Scavenger Hunt Sunday so much that I decided to participate again this week. Thanks to Ashley for hosting over at Ramblings and Photos. This week's themes are SOOC, Sprouting, Isn't It Ironic, Lazy and Smells Like Spring. Here are my interpretations of the themes.

1. SOOC - I took this photo yesterday at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. This is a llama that I thought was adorable. I only added my watermark and resized for the web for this straight out of the camera (SOOC) shot.

2. Sprouting - here is another picture from the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. This little guy is 2 weeks old, his name is Romeo and you can see his horns are already sprouting.

3. Isn't It Ironic - I had a really hard time with this one. I had an idea but couldn't get the photo so last night while we were downtown walking a bride and groom just showed up in front of us and I thought it was ironic that there were tons of people downtown just enjoying the day and they looked up to see a groom helping his new wife walk down the road.

4. Lazy - last night we went to First Saturday in Frederick and when we walked into one of the art shows I found Dulce hanging out on her back just waiting for people to come by and scratch her belly. I don't know if she was lazy or just smart because lots of people stopped by and gave her great belly rubs. She totally lives up to her name, she is one sweet dog.

5. Smells Like Spring - I originally wanted to photograph cut grass but it rained almost every day this week so no one was out cutting their lawn this week including my husband. So I went with my second idea which is the smell of rain. These are raindrops on one of our hostas.

Be sure and check out the other participants here.

Growth - edited for Good to WOW!

2011-05-05T22:30:00.000-04:00

This is my first week participating in the Good to WOW photo challenge. This challenge includes posting a straight out of the camera (SOOC) on Monday over at Jill's blog and then editing it and posting the edited version over at Ashley's blog.

Here was my SOOC picture that I posted on Monday:

Now this is my edited version. I am not very familiar with PSE yet so I forgot to write down what I did but I know I followed Ashley's directions using the unsharp mask. Thanks for that tip Ashley! I think I probably went too dark with this but I am still trying to figure it out. If you have any tips for me I would love to hear them in the comments.

Be sure to check out the other participants here.