New Violin - "Tartini"

Our son outgrew his violin (again!) and has now upgraded to a 1/2 size violin. This is a photo I took of his new violin ~ a Tartini Strad. The sound is so beautiful and so much more rich! Our son loves it and plays quite handsomely on it too. (I'm such the proud mama). :)

This photo was also my submission for DPS forum's last assignment ~ the "Five Senses". Obviously, I was focusing on the sense of hearing in this shot. The assignment allowed us to capture either all 5 senses or just one. This isn't the best shot I would've liked to submit for this assignment, but it was well enough due to lack of time. :) Hope you like it!

Btw, did you notice the "gallery print" I created for the shot? I love the look of it with the large white border. I learned this from my new favorite photography book: Photoshop CS2 for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby. Totally fun!

My First OOB!

Isn't this image effect so (if I must say).... COOL??? :) I just learned about it and could not wait to try it. This effect is called "OOB", which stands for "Out Of Boundary" images. I'll definitely be trying this effect on other shots. :)

If you're like me, you're probably dying to know where the tutorial is. Well, here it is....
http://www.logicscape.com/oob_tutorials/

Enjoy!

Visiting A Friend @ SHH

Yesterday after church, we visited a dear friend of ours at Scottsdale Healthcare Hospital. Our friend, Ron, has had severe health issues since his car accident over 20+ years ago when he was hit, head on, by a drunk driver. By God's grace he survived the near fatal accident and became a believer in Christ! Even though his health is an up and down roller coaster for him, he praises the Lord for the work in his life and for His sovereignty. We had such a precious visit with him! Praise the Lord he is recovering well from his recent surgery.

The photo for this post is the entrance to SHH. The original shot was rather bland (over exposed). In addition to sharpening and adjusting the exposure, I also added a "neutral density gradient filter" on it.

An ND filter is a filter that can be attached to a camera lens, which intensifies the color of the sky (among other things). Since I do not own an ND filter for my camera, I learned how to create the same effect in Photoshop. Here's my first attempt... :)

My Precious In-Laws

I love my in-laws! And today we were blessed to spend some time with them, as part of a belated Mother's Day celebration. We ended up going to Mimi's Cafe for lunch.....

...then we came back to our house so they could rest a bit before their hour-long drive home to Peoria. Our son also entertained his grandparents with a mini-concert with his brand new 1/2 size violin (more on that soon!). As usual, it was a lovely time with family!

A Stroll with Lola

I love shots like this! There is something about photos taken from this perspective that stirs up the heart. At least, for me it does. :) This is such a sweet photo of my mom with our son during our recent trip to CA. It is one last stroll with Lola ("grandma" for you non-filipinos, heh heh!) before heading back to AZ. This is multi-generational vision in action!

I couldn't decide which photo I liked best, so I uploaded both! The only difference is the first photo has a texture layer.

Cloudy & Blustery Day

Yesterday's strong winds gave way to a blustery day today! This photo was not taken today (it didn't dawn on me to take one!), but it represents well the day's cloudy weather prior to the heavy rain in the afternoon. I actually shot this photo during our son's track meet last month.

Our Fallen Tree

I just had to take a shot of our poor tree that fell over during the strong winds we had today! Actually, the photo above was taken after my husband came to its rescue and had it upright again. But this time, he did not attach it to a single wooden stick like before. He had it staked to the ground with 3 wires. (Can you tell I'm not a gardener?? I don't know the lingo! LOL)

Post processing: unsharp mask, overlay layer with gaussian blur

A Princess at Rest

Our friend's youngest daughter getting a little rest by a fountain before we all made the drive back to Arizona from CA. Even tired, this precious little princess looks so cute! Why can't I look that cute when I'm tired?? :)

I played around with the brush tool for the border effect, as well as slightly angling the photo. I also did my typical post processing in converting the color image to b&w, with a sepia photo filter.

An Apple a Day....

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed,

which [is] upon the face of all the earth, and every tree,

in the which [is] the fruit of a tree yielding seed;

to you it shall be for meat.

(Genesis 1:29)

Can you believe this apple is actually a tiny baby apple?? Taken at my aunt's house during our CA trip, this apple stands only about 2" tall! The only PP I did was to sharpen it a bit. We're big on the importance of organic, raw food, so I wanted to keep this photo as "pure" as possible, and in its raw photographic state without a lot of post production in Photoshop.

Makes me hungry just looking at it! :)

Just Plain Cute!

Okay, this is one of my favorite shots and post processing work thus far! Ain't he just the most darling little guy you've ever seen (next to my own son, of course!)? :) This shot of my cutie pie nephew was taken over the weekend during our trip in CA.

Post processing: The original photo had the focal image (nephew) slightly blurred with a very sharp background. I was able to sharpen the focus point and blur the background, which included adding several layers with varying blend modes such as overlay and multiply. I then added a texture layer and vignette to finish it off.

Trip to Legoland!

We just got back from our trip to LEGOLAND in Carlsbad, CA! It was "homeschool day" and all homeschoolers received a significant discount on admission tickets. What a fun trip this was. We went with my sister and her precious family......

...as well as with our good friends the Ward's and Eaton's. The only downside to it all was the cloudy and very cool weather (high in the mid-60's!). But nonetheless, our time with family and friends was worth it all.



I took over 400 pictures on our 3 days trip. As you can imagine, I had a hard time choosing which photos to include in this post. I think I'll just have to do a "Part II" post!

A Bug's Life

One of God's precious tiny creatures in the midst of golden floral beauties! If only I had a macro lens to get an even closer shot. Another photo from our trip to the Sonoran Desert Museum, I was excited to get my first "bug in action" shot.

Femininity in Dress

As the addage goes, "A picture is worth a thousand words". The words this lovely photo expresses to me are femininity, grace, simplicity and purity. And that is exactly how to describe this precious young maiden, a daughter of one of our church families.

It is rare to see such beautiful qualities in young ladies in today's society, but I praise the Lord for raising up a remnant of virtuous daughters! And our church is blessed to have a large handful of such daughters in our midst.

Post processing: sharpen, photo filter with sepia tone, and vignette

Jumping for Joy

Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, ye righteous:

and shout for joy, all [ye that are] upright in heart.

(Psalm 32:11)

This was such a fun picture to shoot! This was taken at the baby shower we attended a couple of weeks ago. I am laying on the grass with my camera facing upwards towards the sky. I used the burst (aka: action) mode on my camera and kept taking pictures of the boys jumping as high as they could. Totally cute!

It's a little on the dark side, but it's because I forgot to change the ISO. I had it at 400 ISO, and it should've been at 100. Ugh! For newbies like me, higher ISO numbers are better for darker shots with low light. Unfortunately, this was a big lesson for me because most of my outdoor shots at the shower were taken at 400. I forgot to check that I was on the right ISO sensitivity.

Live and learn! LOL... I still could not resist posting this photo. :)

Post processing: sharpening with unsharp mask technique, added vignette, added warm photo filter.

Assignment: B&W (#2)

My second submission for the B&W assignment on the Christian Photographers' forum. What a precious little princess! I couldn't resist taking a photo of my friend's daughter. This is another photo taken at our homeschool p.e. class.

Assignment: B&W (#1)

"Lo, children [are] an heritage of the LORD: [and] the

fruit of the womb [is his] reward."
(Psalm 127:3)

The Christian Photographers forum's next assignment is "Black & White", which also includes sepia tones. We are allowed to submit up to 4 photos, which is nice. So, here is my first submission which I am titling "Kids at Play". I've given it kind of a vintage look, as well. This is another photo from my homeschool PE class photo shoot! :)

Post processing: converted color image to b&w, added sepia photo filter, added a texture layer.

Assignment: Converging Lines

Well, here is my official submission for this week's "Converging Lines" assignment on DPS. This photo is the outside of a tennis court. It was taken yesterday during my homeschool PE class "photo shoot" (lol).

Post processing: I sharpened it a bit using the lab color/unsharp mask technique and added a sepia color filter to it.

Homeschool PE

Our son had P.E. class today with our homeschool group. The theme for the last two classes of the year is "wacky water games". Yes, it is already warm enough here to do water activities!

In trying to find a photo for the converging lines assignment, I decided to take some pictures during the class. I got a lot of great shots! The above photos captured best the overall feel of the class.