Just Playing Around on a Rainy Day

We had some more wonderful rain today (never thought I would say that!) and this afternoon I decided to play around with some of my photos that I thought were ok but nothing wonderful. I did this in Paint Shop Pro v8 using the Curves tool and the Sharpening tool. Had a lot of fun!

click photo for larger view

Such a Day!

Yesterday was such a beautiful day. Warm (72-ish), sunshine, clear, breezy, just gorgeous. My camera and I had a good time. I found these first beauties dancing in the breeze next door to the high school. But they managed to settle down just long enough for me to get one good shot. They were dancing a little too vigorously in most of the other shots I took!



This stunner I found later in the morning and had to hold her with my left hand to keep her still. Fortunately there was a fence that helped me steady my camera. And as soon as I let this dancer go, she went right back to dancing in the breeze.



I haven't even included the wonderful little junked ice cream truck that I spent an hour photographing! I had a good time!!! All days should be as productive and fun as Saturday was.

If I Had Only One Friend

If I had only one friend left

I'd want it to be you.

Soft in Bed, Bath & Beyond

The first photo was taken inside Bed, Bath and Beyond. The store manager came up all important and fussy and wanted to know what I was doing. I explained that I was learning photography and our "assignment" this week was Soft and that I thought this display just radiated soft. His whole posture became "soft", he nodded his head wisely, said "perfect choice" and that there were some rugs about two aisles away I should look at too!!! And walked off smiling. (I did look at the rugs and I've posted that picture, too.)

Saturday I had the absolutely perfect photo op for this challenge. As I was walking through the mall I passed an older man sitting on a bench with a young toddler sound asleep on his chest. He had his cheek lightly resting on the little girl's head with his eyes closed and a sweet smile on his face. It was such a wonderful tableau that I turned around, walked up to them and asked (quietly) if I could take their picture. He smiled, yes, and I took 3 of the most wonderful photos. I thought. When I got home all three of them were blurred!!! I had the 70-200mm lens on the camera which is longer and heavier than the 18-55mm I normally use and apparently became very careless with the way I was holding it. I also had the camera set for aperture priority when I should have probably used shutter priority and a high shutter speed. I'm posting the picture just so you can see what an opportunity I missed. Another hard lesson learned.

Scary Night

Scary night here in Atlanta last night. A tornado whipped through the downtown area and did some pretty serious damage to some large, large buildings. The really scary part was that the SEC basketball tournament was taking place in the Georgia Dome and major damage was done to the building while a game was being played, and right next door in the Phillips Arena the Hawks had a game going on and that building was damaged also. But no one was seriously hurt. If you took a map and drew my route to work through downtown, you would be drawing the path of the downtown damage.

Driving to work Monday will be an adventure.

Two new offerings for your viewing pleasure:

First Ever

This is my first ever attempt at doing watercolor. Don't laugh, we all have to start somewhere. I did a quick sketch in pencil, inked in the lines I wanted to keep and then used my new Cotman Travel Kit. And, yes, it is that colorful. I deliberately made my handwriting messy since my normal handwriting is a little too "organized" for what I'm trying to achieve. I think, however, with the handwriting all I achieved is illegibility. Back to my normal handwriting next time. And just in case you're curious, it reads, "a cup of vanilla latte, a few photography magazines, a comfy chair at Borders - Life is good. And my first watercolor attempt."

Good thing very few people read this blog, I would never have the courage to put this out there otherwise!!

Spring is Coming!!

Spring is coming, spring is coming!! You can feel it. Oh, we'll have a little more cold, at least one snap of it, but it won't last and spring will be here.

Unstable

No work for this gal, today. VACATION DAY! It was certainly an interesting weather day today! Woke up to a deluge of rain, drove in to Atlanta around 10:30 a.m. in beautiful sunshine and high 50s, the afternoon was slightly overcast and around 62 degrees. Early evening saw more heavy rain, followed by a tornado warning (emergency sirens and everything) and tonight is supposed be very cold with a possibility of snow when I wake up tomorrow. That pretty much covers all of our weather spectrum except the high summer heat!!

Marriage

"People shop for a bathing suit with more care than they do a husband or wife. The rules are the same. Look for something you’ll feel comfortable wearing. Allow for room to grow."

~Erma Bombeck

It's that kind of day -

Cold Fire

Taken at Buffalo Wild Wings. I'm loving the fiery look! (You know, we seem to hang out there a lot for some reason!)