Pima Air & Space Museum

Today, we went on a last minute trip to the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson in honor of Labor Day. We had a great time and were surprised at how large this museum was, especially the amount of aircraft they carried. I took over 160 pictures! As you can imagine, I had a difficult time choosing what photos to post.

How cool is this -- we were on the actual
Air Force One that operated during the
Kennedy & Johnson's administration (1961-1965)

Just taking a reflection photo of myself on the stairway
heading up into Air Force One

My two men had a great time together!

Scottsdale Train Park

These are photos I took today at our visit to Scottsdale Train Park. What a beautiful park! But it would have been a more pleasant trip if the weather wasn't so hot. The price you pay for living in the desert, I guess. :)

• PP for top photo: texture layer, curves layer, sepia photo filter, sharpened
• PP for middle photo: monochrome channel mixer, sharpened, vignette
• PP for last photo: sharpened, vignette

Summer Rain

What a nice surprise to our scorching hot Arizona weather -- a summer rain! It showerd for a brief time this afternoon, wind and all. The best part? The after effect.... cool, breezy weather. Ahhhh!

I decided to take pictures of the rain on our front walkway. I added a texture layer and adjusted the sharpness/contrast. Btw, if you can't figure it out (my DH couldn't!), the red thingy is a small fallen flower. :D

Virtuous Maidens

Raising up maidens of virtue towards Biblical Womanhood,
for the glory of Christ and for His Kingdom!

Post processing: Texture layers, unsharp mask, photo filter, vignette, noise reduction. Below is the original photo I took. I accidentally shot the photo with the wrong (higher) ISO, so there is a lot of noise. I continue to be amazed at being able to salvage a shot post processing in Photoshop.

Cactus Flower & Texture Layer

Can you believe these beautiful, pink flowers grew from cacti?? I still can't believe it myself. This was taken back in April, during our trip to the Sonoran Desert Museum. I'm loving how vivid the color of the flowers turned out!

The two shots show the difference in appearance when a texture layer is added. I've posted several texture layer shots before, but what I just learned is how to remove the texture on places I don't want it to show (ie: faces, flower petals, etc) and still keep the tone of the texture on those areas.

The first shot has a texture layer applied to it, but notice the texture does not show up on the petals. And yet, the tone of the texture is still kept throughout the entire photo. I'm so excited to learn this! :) The second photo is the original.

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.

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.