Sometimes I Can't Help Myself

Last week I took the kids to the park after lunch. This is a cool park with a playground, walking paths, a pond and bridges, so we always enjoy going there. It was a fairly brisk day with the wind, and I was hunkered down on the park bench trying to keep warm while watching the kids play some imaginary game that burned off some energy.

I happened to look up over to my left and saw this magnificent tree without it's leaves. The sky was a bit overcast, and the sun was trying to shine through. I tried returning my gaze to the kids having fun, but I had already formed the photo of the tree in my mind, so I had to pull the camera out of the bag (which was sitting next to me, of course). Miraculous though it be, I do occasionally take photos of a subject other than my children. :-). Not to worry, we went on a little hike after they got tired of playing, so I got photos of them, one of which may become our Christmas card photo. ;-D


Here's shot #1 straight out of the camera. Not bad, but not spectacular.


Here's the same photo after I enhanced it in Photoshop. Definitely has that sunset feel to it, no?



Never content to leave my camera settings alone, I opted to switch the white balance to fluorescent because I learned a few years ago (from playing around with it) that it cools the colors for a wintery feel. Here's the photo straight out of the camera. Again, not bad, but not spectacular:



And here's the same photo after it encountered Photoshop. It's gone from a daytime to nighttime photo (I really like this one the best too).



I'm glad that sometimes I can't stop myself from taking photos. Sometimes it's worth it to drag the camera around with me everywhere we go.

My Cat On Drugs

I don't know what it is about cat nip that drives cats crazy. My cats are nutso when I rub it on one of their toys. I couldn't find one the other night, so I just dumped some dried cat nip into a little plastic basket of the kids' and Milo was all over that. Mike and I were just cracking up as he tried so hard to get every last little crumb. The container's size would not deter him.

A Rare Occasion

It's a rare occasion that I catch a genuine smile from Eric when he's in front of the camera. I had rather hoped his fake-pained smile would pass quickly, but it's been hanging on for a couple years now. This week we've been getting some really nice autumn weather, the leaves are plentiful, so the kids were outside playing in a huge pile of them. There's no way I could resist a photo op like that, so I joined the kids to watch them in their fun and capture it for their scrap albums (if I ever get around to printing out photos from the past 18 mos.)

I tried the photo below in color and black and white. Both look good, but I'm a fan of black and white photos. For some reason it looks a little darker on my blog than it did while editing it, but that still doesn't hide the fabulous expression I caught on my 'lil man's face!