Caroline – 4 mths

Caroline – 4 mths

I’m not sure what to write here. It’s all pretty self-explanatory. This is Caroline and the photo was taken one week before her 4 month birthday. I took it because she’s adorable, her mommy and daddy let me and because it brings me joy. I don’t think there needs to be any other reason.

Mountain cabin

I could be happy living here….’cept there’s no grocery store nearby.

I wish I could say I took this picture last week in the mountains near Aspen. But, in fact, it’s been just under a year since I beheld such a sight. March 29, 2009 was the exact date, if you were interested. Gorgeous landscape though, isn’t it? There in the back center, you can see the Maroon Bells mountains. I do love me some Colorado!

This photo was taken with my little point and shoot Canon digital Elph while riding up the chair lift. I wasn’t about to bring my big SLR up with me. I never know when the next nasty spill on my snowboard will take place. Those kinds of things tend to sneak up on a girl. And when they do, they take everything with them. My downhill momentum, my confidence…and any large and expensive electronic devices I might have on me at the time.

Beautiful Venice

Venice canal

It’s been a while since I posted a new photo in this section of the blog. Wintertime in Ohio doesn’t offer a whole lot of opportunities to take pictures. So I searched back through some things on my computer and decided this photo was worth putting out there.

The photo was taken while walking over one of the many bridges that cross one of the many canals in Venice, Italy. With the limited days that we had over there and with trying to see as much as possible of the country, we only had one day to enjoy Venice. That’s obviously not near enough time to even scratch the surface of all there is to see and do. As a matter of fact, the only thing we had time to do besides a lot of walking over and around bridges and canals (mostly due to getting lost. We did that a LOT in Venice.), was visiting the Gallerie dell’Accademia Venezia and checking out St. Mark’s Square. Even with limited time, it was still amazing. I still loved it. And I would still go back in heartbeat, given the opportunity.

For us, the place we stayed in Venice was the best lodging of our whole trip. It was an A-DOR-A-BLE hotel called Hotel Falier. So clean and quaint and so darn cute. There was definitely no extra space to spare in the rooms. Saying they were small is an understatement. But we both loved it anyway.

Hotel Falier

Winter horizon

My parents live in rural Wisconsin. They have one house on one side of them and no one else immediately in front of, behind or on the other side. Sometimes it’s a hassle to be out there because it’s a long drive to anywhere. But I see why they like it. It’s more peaceful and quiet than the city.

This Christmas, we spent the long weekend with them. It had snowed a couple days before and the day after Christmas. There was a LOT of snow on the ground and it was beautiful. The morning before I left, I went out and took some shots in different areas of their yard. This one is basically what they see when they leave their house every day. Well…every winter day.

Winter Horizon

No swimming

I took these photos at the site where Camp Rap-A-Hope takes place in Mobile, Alabama. It was a BEAUTIFUL location. I mean…it was stunning! The day was perfect. Brilliant blue skies, slightly chilly but not cold and sunshine, sunshine, sunshine. I can only imagine the joy that is had there when the place is filled kids, young and old.

If you can believe, I took every one of these photos with my point and shoot PowerShot SD550 digital Elph. It’s an older camera but clearly it’s still holding its own on color and clarity. On this first photo, I was toying with the Slow Synchro flash mode. Turns out I like that mode pretty well. It allowed me to meter for the background lighting and still flash on the image in the foreground. I had to hold really still while taking it but it seemed to work.

Gulf Coast

I was in Mobile, Alabama this past weekend at a conference for oncology camps for kids. (Pardon the mild bout of alliteration there.) We stayed at the Renaissance Riverview Plaza Hotel which was right on the water downtown. Our room overlooked the Gulf.

Whenever I could manage to barely open one eye to a slit at 5:30 in the morning, I almost saw that the sunrise could possibly have been something that I might wanted to witness. You know….given the opportunity. One morning, I managed open one eye fully and noticed the early morning left some fog on the water with a battleship silhouetted within it. It was quite cool. I almost thought I was seeing things. I got up and grabbed my camera, stumbed to the window and attempted to get a few shots before I crawled back in bed. I’m finally looking at those shots again…several days later. I guess I wasn’t seeing things after all. Turned out to be a pretty cool sight. Only thing I’m bummed about with the image is that you can see reflections in the glass that I was shooting through. Oh well, I was 19 stories up. It was through the glass or not at all.

Fruit bungalows

aaaaahhhh.....to be at Matachica again....

For our honeymoon, my husband and I went to Belize. We stayed at an awesome place on Ambergris Caye called Matachica. If I remember correctly, there were 14 individual bungalows and each one was decorated as a different tropical fruit. We were Kiwi (far left in the image). We became friends with Mango.

Muddy waters

The other day, I was walking around the future site of the camp for children with serious illnesses that my husband is helping to build. (check it out if you’re curious! www.flyinghorsefarms.org) It’s going to be beautiful when it’s done. But as of now, they’ve just started moving dirt around and changing the lay of the land to accommodate the cabins and other buildings. We’ve had a lot of rain lately and the ruts made by the heavy machinery have turned into pools of muddy water. Add to that the fact that it was Halloween day, October 31, and many of the leaves on the surrounding trees have hit the ground. Thank God for my cool Hunter boots or it would have been an ugly mess!

Anyway, I noticed while walking around how beautiful the colorful leaves looked in the murky water. I had my little point and shoot camera with me and decided to grab a quick shot. I didn’t frame the image or look for just the right collection of leaves or anything. We were walking rather briskly to another point and I just held the camera out and took the shot almost without looking at what I was getting at all.

I downloaded the image to my computer and I started playing with it in Photoshop. I used a Pseudo HDR action followed by a Modelize action and then I put two different textures over the top. Both textures were variations of rust. One was desaturated and had a 60% opacity/Overlay and the next was 25% opacity/Hard Light. Here’s what I came up with. I know. I know. You can make almost any image look great if you spend enough time with it in Photoshop. You’re right. So if you want to see what the original looked like, just click on the photo below.

Muddy Waters

Baby photog

One of the things that I have always thought would be fun to do is be a baby photographer. Sure there would be days when the child is just not happy to be participating in such an event and they let you know it. That might be a little trying on the patience. But for the most part, they are so beautiful and bring such joy to be around. Seems to me that the good days WAY outweigh the tough ones.

This weekend, I went to my friend’s house to try and take some Anne Geddes-type, sleeping baby photos of her 12-day-old little girl. But even after a 75 degree house and a 25-minute feeding, that child was wide awake and not looking to fade off any time in the near future. So we ditched all effort and props that were gathered for the sleeping baby poses and moved forward with shots of her simply wrapped in a blanket. It actually turned out not too bad. This one might be my favorite of the day. It makes me giggle every time I look at it. Man! I would love to do this for a living.

Old bikes

I was visiting my sister in Louisiana again. Man, do I enjoy that! I miss her and her family like you wouldn’t believe. But that’s a whole different post from what this one is intended to be. So anyway, while she was setting out Fall decorations and picking up her yard, I was taking photos. For some reason, my totally tidy sister had a couple of her kids’ old bikes parked up against the side of her house. Pine needles and leaves had gathered around them and I thought it looked pretty cool. She walked by at one point and wondered aloud at what I could possibly find interesting or pretty to be taking photos of in that pile of crap. Here’s what I saw. I thought it was interesting anyway.

Two old bikes

Bike detail