Picture A Day

It's harder than you  think to come up with an interesting photo for each day of my life.

Makes me feel like I should get a life,

Do SOMETHING interesting.

It's going to be a long 344 days . . . .

http://www.photoblog.com/viewfromthegrove/

Stuff

I spent my day yesterday watering all my plants.

Apparently I've neglected them with all the STUFF going on lately.

I logged onto this blog thinking maybe it had tried to curl up and die like the plants.

Appears not.

But it does look pretty neglected.

Unlike these little specimens of plants I saw in Hawaii two days ago -- (Where it was 80+ degrees and I was sweating like a pig dressed in flip flops and capris . . . )

Good times at the botanical gardens in Hawaii!

Look for more good stuff in the days to come, and I don't just mean about our trip,  We've got plenty happening around the house too.  Plus I find myself more opinionated then ever -- so I'm sure you're gonna want to hear that too!

How Not To Fall Asleep

How not to fall asleep on your drive home from Flagstaff. . . ..

Practice photo taking!

(probably burned my sensor out on this one)

How does this magic happen?

Freakin' lucky I made it home safely!

Moab

Following the race we took a little drive out to Dead Horse Point and took some photos.

The kids did some hiking,

Melanie jumped on rocks,

I limped around a little.

The next day we went to Arches National Park and did some more hiking.

Nothing too serious, since it was FREEZING cold.

It was fun, and when I combined the photo taking with some Photoshop tutorials, here's what I ended up with:

All in all it was a pretty darn good weekend!

Scouting Western-Style

I've combined the fact that Josh needed photos for his Eagle Scout

with the Old West Photoshop action from Pioneer Woman.

Here's what I ended up with.. ..

Shoot!

Went photo shooting practice last week.

Lisa introduced me to the joy of Thanksgiving Point.

WOW!

I wish my photos had turned out a little better ~

Or my photo editing was better ~

But the boys are adorable!

Picture This!

So . . . . I'm suppose to present something at homemaking in September.

The theme has something to do with digital photos and what to do with them.

Here's my dilemma:

1. We are meeting at my house next Friday to discuss it -- and my house looks like CRAP and I think it will still look like CRAP next Friday.

2. What would someone want to know about digital photos?

If you can help with either of these two problems, I'd appreciate it!

Photo Homework

Here's some of my results from the Outdoor Lighting class last Thursday.

It was great, challenging and made me think!

Not sure these are great, but I am loving the practice.

No sun flares - but an okay sunset.

Learning HDR

I've been playing around with photomatix and HDR photography today.

I've not gotten great results since I've got wind blown foliage in all of them, which gives a weird ghostie effect.

Otherwise, I think it's pretty cool. You should see the HDR that Greg and Jacquie have done . . AMAZING!

P.S. On the photos in the previous post these are my camera settings:

Silhouetted: ISO: 100 Exposure: 1/1600 sec Aperture: 5.6 Focal Length: 194mm

(this shutter speed definitely makes it too grainy)

Non Silhouetted: ISO: 100 Exposure: 1/160 sec Aperture: 5.6 Focal Length: 194mm

Photo Homework

A study in Backlighting:

Not sure if I did these right, but they seem cool.

Photo Homework

A little look at this week's Photography Homework

(This last one is taken at 5 Guys Burgers -- Jeff is totally digging this restaurant lately. Meanwhile, I'm loving Zupas!)

Homework

Oh . . .

Someone got a new SLR camera!

And she's taking photography classes!

And you have to look at her homework photos ~

Every week!

Yippee!!

This week's lesson is about aperture:

(So, I got a new camera and took photos of a garbage can at the pool -- Jeff's got to be so proud)

Check back on Monday for some BIG news