Some Tweaking

Before

After

I have heard many different opinions about editing photos. Some people think you should edit every one. Let's face it, there is always something to improve on in a photograph. It can be something as simple as sharpening. And then I hear others say they hate editing. Well, in my opinion if you are taking photos for others, you are doing them a disservice by not making the photo the best it can be. You can't take a perfect picture every time. People are paying you for your very best. If that involves some tweaking so be it. No one's perfect!

I don't know much about editing. I am learning about different editing  techniques. There is a lot of trial and error. There is a lot to learn. For now, I am having fun and taking it one photo at a time.

Wordless Wednesday

Rain, rain go away...

(taken at the end of my driveway)

Practice makes perfect or at least less crappy photos

In the past 6 months, I haven't spent much time with my camera. Aaron, for a Valentine's Day gift, signed me up for an Outdoor Photography Workshop. Very cool and creative gift I thought! The workshop was this past weekend both Saturday and Sunday.

I learned all about f/stop, apertures, shutter speed, etc... I learned a lot about how do everything manually with my camera. Not easy. Now that I have learned some valuable lessons, it is all about practice. I am not posting any pictures from the workshop because I didn't really like them. I was working so hard on figuring out the histogram, I didn't really get great shots. Oh well. This gentleman's pictures are pretty cool CLICK HERE.

[Side Bar: Some of you were asking if the title picture was from the workshop. Nope. That butterfly had landed on our driveway in KY (2007) and I couldn't help but try and capture the beauty of it's wings.]

The workshop also made me realize how much I missed my camera. It isn't easy in life to focus on yourself but this is one thing I really love to do and am looking forward to learning more. Not too mention practicing A LOT! I like photographing the outdoors but I am hoping to get better with humans! I don't need to be great just good enough to capture our life's journey.  I hope Kinley is ready for it. ha ha! Poor girl.

Here are two pics of the pumpkin I took today. I am posting these as a jumping off point. In a few months hopefully, I will have much improved pictures to share.

Random Pictures Taken Recently

Took some pictures of the mountains on the way to Wasilla the other day. Yes, I took them driving down the road. I love this place in the winter. The snow makes the mountains around here come alive!

I saw a bunch of bald eagles hanging out across the street from the VFW again the other day. There are always so many there. It is amazing! These were the only two I was close enough to to get a decent picture.

I had the camera on the wrong settings and didn't see this pic until I got home. I thought it looked pretty cool. The clouds are pretty funky. I took it the same place I took the pics of the eagles and as you can see in their pics, the sky is really blue.

I hope you all had a Happy Valentine's Day yesterday. I had some ladies over for dinner and we had a great time eating and talking. The picture is of the table setting I had for each girl. Nothing to exciting but I had fun putting all the stuff together.

(As always, click on the picture to enlarge any photo.)

Winter Wonder

Pics of ice on my front door. I used my macro. Love it!

Random Pics from A Fall Day

It's Been Awhile

While I was out driving around the other day, I took some pictures of mountains. It is really hard to capture their beauty. I feel like I don't really do them any justice but I liked this one. Now, I where the photo has been stitched together is obvious. It has been awhile since I have tried this, so be kind!

As always, click the photo to enlarge it.

The leaves are turning now and some of the mountains are starting to get snow on their very tops! And I noticed tonight that it was completely dark by 9:00 pm. Boo!

Wordless Wednesday

What a place to gather you thoughts!

I took advantage of another beautiful day and ventured to the local botanical garden. Is there a better way to spend a warm, quiet day than wondering around a giant garden? Today there was not. I had a great time in the stillness of the place. As always click each photo to enlarge it!

My favorite! It maybe top five of all the pictures I have taken.

(Just so you know I made this out of focus on purpose to focus on the yellow middle.)

As you can tell most of the photos are extreme close-ups. I attached my 10x macro lens to my 18-55 mm lens. It was pretty awesome how much detail I could capture. I look forward to experimenting more with my lenses.

Random pics of our day

Yesterday, Aaron and I drove toward Seward to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. It was a fun place to visit but most of the animals we saw were animals we saw in the wild on the way up to Alaska. I did enjoy the bears! It was a beautiful day for a ride.

Animals We Saw Along/On the Alaska Highway

We started out on our trip excited about the possibility of seeing lots of wildlife. When we entered into the Yukon Territory we were more than amazed to find that the animals own the roads. They would stand/lay right in the road and we would have to go around them. It was so cool! I may have had a different opinion had it been raining or foggy but we got to drive the road on a beautiful spring day. We were able to spot the animals before they became any kind of hood ornament!

Can you believe the bison lay that close to the road? We saw more bison than any other animal. We must have seen over 50(+). They were everywhere. And where you didn't see them, you saw their poo. There was A LOT of it! Nasty.

These elk were the farthest animals away from the road but they were still close enough to see their details.

We were so busy looking at the sheep on the hill, we almost missed the one staring at us on the side of the road.

We scared the caribou off the road. I love their coloring!

These sheep wouldn't budge! They did not care that we could run them over. They were not moving. We pulled up right beside them. They shifted a little when Boone started barking but other than that they acted like we didn't even exist!

We came across these horses just grazing on the side of the road. They were gorgeous! There was no fence holding them back. They were wild horses! Isn't that crazy!? I loved the gray one! If I would have thought there was room in the trailer with Aaron's Harley I would have tried to capture him and take him home. (I know that never would have happened but the little girl inside of me can still dream right!?!)

We also saw one mangy moose but since I already posted some nice pictures of moose in the neighborhood I will leave it at that.

Next post: Places We Visited Along the Way