62/365: Tulips to put some Spring into Winter

After being teased by the prospect of Spring, Winter reared its ugly head again. Today, highs in the 20's and a wicked wind from the Northeast. I should know, I had to run against it this morning.

So, I went out an bought some tulips, and I NEVER buy cut flowers.

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Random Picture Challenge

Lindsay introduced me to a fun random photo challenge over at 4 little men and girly twins.

This week, go to your 11th folder or September 2007 and find photo 11:

The 11th picture in my collection from September 2007:



A plaza in downtown Chicago, where Scott and I spent the weekend celebrating our 15th anniversary. Near the Theatre district, I'm sure the fountain has an official name, but I don't recall. We enjoyed walking around the streets of Chicago, walking around Millennium Park and experiencing the musical Wicked. What a great weekend!

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61/365: Friday's Self Portrait

I have been having a bit of photographer's block on Fridays, so for the 2nd Friday in a row, I opted to set up the tripod for a self portrait.



I am bundled up in a robe because the Spring-like weather has turned back to Winter and I was COLD. Tonight's activities included our Ladies Book Club meeting where we sort of discussed John Irving's The 158 Pound Marriage. The consensus of the group - skip it - even with the racy theme (swinging couples in the 70's), the characters were unlikeable and odd.

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60/365: Morning Fog

Every morning on the way to work, I pass by an abandoned lot adjacent to a lake. There used to be a lakeside restaurant on the lot, but it was torn down, leaving three concrete piers that supported the restaurant.

With this morning's fog, I stopped to take pictures.

With 'No Trespassing' signs posted at the driveway and along the parking lot, I felt as if I was doing something illegal. I was on the property for a maximum of 3 minutes and captured several images.





Here's the before on the vertical picture. I straightened, adjusted Levels and cropped. I wish the finished picture showed more detail of the trees/bushes along the far side of the lake, but I overexposed. I probably should have taken more time instead of being concerned about those No Trespassing Signs.

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59/365: Small Signs of Spring

Today's weather - 60's and sunny. You can feel a bit of spring in the air.

I surveyed my garden for some tangible hints of the impending change of season and only found some subtle signs - tender red branches on the Maple, some buds forming on the Lilac and Viburnum bushes.




This week's theme at 2Peas is Before and After, showing the effects of Post Processing.

I Post process as little as possible, because I don't want to spend a lot of time in front of the computer (I do that enough at my other job!). But I recognize the power of being able to manipulate the image files and love the effects available.
Things I always adjust -
White Balance. Because I am too lazy to take a preset.
Exposure / Levels. Because my camera tends to underexpose.

Straight out of the Camera:


Adjusted WB, Exposure and I added some sharpening.


Any comments / critiques are welcome!

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58/365: Funny Hannah?

We are lucky Hannah is such a good natured kitty - she puts up with a lot.

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57/365: Crazy Hair Day!

In preparation for next week's Illinois Standardized Achievement Tests (ISAT), Brian's school is letting loose this week with School Spirit Week.

They dubbed today as "Crazy Hair Day". This means silly hats, wigs and hair styles. Brian opted for green hair. We pulled this off by mixing green food color in shaving cream and applying the green goop to the top of Brian's hair:





Most of the green had faded by the time I picked him up after school, but there was still a "tinge" of green present. During his dentist appointment, the dentist could detect the green hue.

Tomorrow is Backwards day. Could be interesting.....

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56/365 - Hard Drive Clean up

Seriously boring stuff today, but long overdue - with 2 gb of disk space left on the PC hard drive, several files needed to be moved to the external hard drives. We have an external hard drive continuously hooked up and a 2nd one used for back ups only. I pulled out the 2nd hard drive and started to copy files of my pictures from 2007 and 2008.



I now have two full copies of my photo files - one on each external hard drive. The PC hard drive only has pictures from 2009. And we now have almost 20 gigs of space. Let's see how long it takes to get back down to 2 gigs.

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55/365: The Tornados

One more week of indoor soccer left and Brian's team (with friends George and Drew) are undefeated. Today was "picture day" - parents bring their cameras and take pictures of the team.

Brian, George, Alex, Conor, Drew, Michael and Erin.

Of course, you have to have a silly pose, too.


This program has been great for Brian - an hour of running around with friends in the dead of winter. Much better than lazing around all Saturday in PJs (been there, done that!).

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54/365: Just the Girls Today

Another self portrait. Can you tell it is another gloomy winter day?


Kathleen's back - she and Erica watched the movie "Stardust" in the Master bedroom. At least that where they started out - the DVD player in the bedroom showed a lot of static, so about 30 minutes into the film, they relocated to the Family room. Of course, Kathleen spent the night.

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53/365: Playing Violin

A little bit of a self portrait today. I was inspired by pictures of Allyson, whose Project 365 involves taking pictures of herself. Every Day. I don't know how she does it - it was a challenge for me to orchestrate today's picture.



So while I won't be taking daily pictures of "me", I'll try to incorporate more of "me" in the future.

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52/365: Headless Brian and Some Cookies

This is what the kids resort to when Mom pulls out the camera:

Scott made Black and White cookies for tomorrow's work potluck.


I made my classic Chinese BBQ pork. I think my co-workers would revolt if I didn't bring it in. Maybe I'll take a picture of it tomorrow.

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51/365: Heart of My Valentine's Rose

Scott bought both Erica and me a rose each for Valentine's day - a yellow one and a pink one. The yellow one didn't live up to its expectation - it never opened up and turned brown. But the blush pink rose opened up beautifully:



I took the picture by placing the flower vase on the floor, on top of Scott's black fleece jacket. I steadied the camera by looping the strap around my neck and under one of my arms so that the entire strap was taut. This made a big difference in keeping the camera shake down (a trick I had forgotten about). I pointed the lens down over the flower. I adjusted the WB, Levels and Brightness, then cropped into a 4x6. I think I want a larger print of this guy, so I'll play around with a 5x7 crop later.

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50/365: Morning Run

President's Day means a day off for us, which also means a weekday morning run for me.

Over the frosty bridge:




I went back to the bridge after my run to take the pictures (it's not very far from the house and a nice way to cool down).

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49/365: Special Baptism

A very special day for Erica - today she publicly professed her belief in Jesus and was baptized by Scott.

One of my favorite pictures from today - playing the waiting game.


After being immersed:

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48/365: Dinnertime

Our first family dinner at the new table.
Erica and Brian were forced to share the bench seat. They didn't kill each other, but certainly talked about it constantly.



We love the extra space, extra seating, and its counter height.

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47/365: The New Kitchen Table

Our new kitchen table, complete with Friday's bowl of popcorn.



More pictures and information at my other blog.

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46/365: Love and Kisses

Since Erica is adverse to being in photos, I asked her to pose for this shot, where she would be blurry and the Hershey Kiss would be in focus.

OK, so the Kiss isn't quite in focus, but I only got two shots at it (that's the attention span of a 6th grader) and this one was the better of the two shots.

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45/365: Valentines

We picked up Valentines for Brian's class today - he chose a sports theme, and got to work separating the perforated sheets, folding, and then addressing them to his classmates.

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44/365: Soccer "Practice"

Today's soccer scrimmage started at dusk, after Scott arrived home. He challenged the kids to a pick-up game, which quickly degraded to a feet version of "keep away".

Erica wasn't fast enough, so Brian stole the ball from her.


Note - the Wal-Mart smiley ball is really a volleyball, but the kids are all about re-purposing their stuff.

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43/365: Spring Fever

With little wind and temperatures in the 60's, the kids played some ball outside. A nice change from the cold, snow and ice.


In addition to football, impromptu soccer and kickball games were enjoyed by all, including the cat!

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SS Photo Challenge Week 6 - Rule of Thirds

In this week's ScrapShare Photo Challenge, we played with Composition, utilizing the Rule of Thirds.

To illustrate this basic principle, I took two generic pictures of my daughter sitting with her cat in the middle of the yard - nothing spectacular, and the only pictures my daughter will tolerate these days.

For the first picture, I placed them directly in the center of the viewfinder.


In the second picture, I placed her in the lower third of the scene.


Yeah, even with a plain picture, the one employing the rule of thirds looks more interesting (well, at least to me).

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42/365: Hannah Enjoys the Sun

Yesterday's Big thaw continued today, with temperatures in the mid-40's and ample sunshine. Hannah decided to hang out with Scott and me in the dining room where I was hemming Brian's TaeKwonDo uniform (yeah, me, sewing - that's a RARE occurrence).

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41/365: Straight No Chaser Performance

The highlight from tonight's a cappella 2009 concert - 10 guys from Bloomington, Indiana called Straight No Chaser. You may have seen a video of the 1996 original group's performance of the 12 Days of Christmas on YouTube (apparently over 9 million people viewed it - and it led to a record deal with Atlantic Records). Do a search for "Straight No Chaser 12 days" on YouTube and you'll see who I'm talking about.

These are the current members of SNC, and their performance was top notch.

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40/365: At the Car Wash

Finally, a day in the 40's, and with the sun, it feels like 50 degrees. Scott gently reminded me that the Corolla would appreciate a nice shower of soap and water. [I never wash the cars]

Of course, the lines at the car wash formed 3 cars deep, except for the automatic bays (which cost more). I was in a rush and I was wearing my nice shoes. Into the automatic bay we went:



Even *I* felt cleaner afterwards!

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39/365: Move Over John Deere Stool....

... there's a new kitchen stool in town ...



Actually, there are two of them. Read the backstory, all the way back on day 7 of my 365 days of picture taking.

Coming soon - the John Deere stool in the Garage. There will be much rejoicing (at least from me)!

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38/365: Mario Kart ..... Wii

Scott bought Mario Kart for the kids at Christmas, but somehow I think he was thinking about himself, too.



To give you an idea of how much Scott plays - he has unlocked all of the special character and races. His Mario Kart prowess is closely matched by Brian, who plays after school.

We now have a compliment of 4 Wii-Motes, which allows us to play as a family. Of course, I stink at the game - I have a good race when I come in 10th. I'm just trying to build up my kids' self-esteem, I say.

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37/365: My Favorite Tea

It's another cold day on the Prairie, complete with single digit temperatures, fresh snow, blowing winds and icy roads. So the Tea might seem fitting on a day like today, except I enjoy my favorite Tea iced, in the summer. I look forward to that warm summer day when I can brew up some Mango Iced Tea. Today, I just have to wrap myself up in a blanket.

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36/365: Waterfall and Shutter Speeds

At ScrapShare, Terri G is leading a series of Photography Challenges, and last week, she encouraged us to experiment with Shutter Priority Mode.
I was also inspired by Pat's flowing water pictures and knew that I would have to decrease my shutter speed to get that silky water effect.
The results? Today's waterfall pictures, taken from our fish pond:

First, a fast shutter speed:

EXIF:
Exposure: 0.002 sec (1/640)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 70 mm

Slowest shutter speed I could get in S Mode without the camera warning me that the picture was going to be over exposed:

EXIF:
Exposure: 0.125 sec (1/8)
Aperture: f/22.0
Focal Length: 70 mm

Lastly, I "went crazy" (maybe because I was getting pretty cold at this point and my knee was starting to hurt from kneeling in the snow), and shot in Manual Mode.


The image straight out of the camera was pretty overexposed, and I adjusted the exposure level and curve to darken it. I was trying to get a more silky water effect, but it doesn't look too different from the 2nd shot to me.

EXIF:
Exposure: 0.3
Aperture: f/22.0
Focal Length: 70 mm

So I learned that it doesn't take a super long shutter speed to get those cool silky water effects.

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35/365: Superbowl Shin-Dig

A picture from our annual Superbowl Party. This year we had 27 people over - only one rabid Steelers' fan, Dave, who became increasing frustrated with the rest of us for rooting for the underdog. He had already left when the Cardinals took the lead with 3:00 left in the game:



Wasn't that a great game?

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