Kate and Mark's Engagement Photos (september 2009)

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pictures from a wedding in the mountains - using a point and shoot camera!

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a wedding i shot last year... for a dear old friend!!!

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i haven't posted any music in a while.  today this song came on the radio, and i remembered that i really liked it and thus this blog post.

unfortunately, though, i can't embed it - you'll have to go to youtube to watch it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NONo10bU67M

mudcats

here's some pictures from our first baseball game of the year (last monday - april 19th).  the kid's loved it so needless to say, we'll be going to a lot more games.  (i don't like baseball, but the mudcats games are actually pretty good!)

(in regard to the last 2 pictures,  i used to "shadow"'/work with a sports photographer in washington,NC - we did a lot of kids' team shots but also action shots.  of coarse with him, i had a SUPER fancy camera with the lenses to boot (so heavy, my arms would be tired after about 10 minutes) - these pictures were taken from half way up the general admission section in the mudcat's stadium, too far away to really "still" the arm or bat motion!  if you blow them up, you can see the ball in both of them!)

no GMO for me.

for my husband who wondered why i search high and low for GMO free foods.

http://permaculture.org.au/2010/02/22/the-big-gmo-cover-up/

"More than 70% of the foods on supermarket shelves contain derivatives of the eight GM foods on the market—soy, corn, oil from canola and cottonseed, sugar from sugar beets, Hawaiian papaya, and a small amount of zucchini and crook neck squash. The biotech industry hopes to genetically engineer virtually all remaining vegetables, fruits, grains, and beans (not to mention animals).


The two primary reasons why plants are engineered are to allow them to either drink poison, or produce poison. The poison drinkers are called herbicide tolerant. They’re inserted with bacterial genes that allow them to survive otherwise deadly doses of toxic herbicide. Biotech companies sell the seed and herbicide as a package deal, and US farmers use hundreds of millions of pounds more herbicide because of these types of GM crops. The poison producers are called Bt crops. Inserted genes from the soil bacterium Bacillus Thuringiensis produce an insect-killing pesticide called Bt-toxin in every cell of the plant. Both classes of GM crops are linked to dangerous side effects."

 here is a movie about it if you ever have 88 minutes to watch it...
http://www.thefutureoffood.com/onlinevideo.html

phone pics

was cleaning out my phone pictures and thought i'd send these to my email and post them here.  they are funny ones to me.

the big ass cart i used at food lion today!  kendal and holly LOVED it (and yes, i sanitized it before they touched it... i am that germ-o-phobic!)

this building is at the stoplight in youngsville.  everytime we see it, kendal says "its dark in there".  today was no different even though he saw it from the other side of the light.  i just think it is the funniest thing.

this was behind the hotel we stayed at on our way home from florida back in march.  kendal got out and "touched" it. this is the background picture on my phone.  when he sees the picture (which is about 100 times a day) he said "touch airmane", "kendal touch airmane" or "i touch it" EVERYTIME.

5 pounds

oh my god.  if there is one thing i hate, it is the bloating of PMS.  well, and the food cravings that come with it too.  i think i could eat everything in the house and still not be satisfied.  i'm not hungry, but i want to eat.  i feel like my cheeks are stuffed and i look like a hamster.  i know my belly is bigger because my pants are tight (where they were previously falling off).  i had lost 13 pounds and as of yesterday, i "gained" back 5:  in less than a week.  i know this is just water weight and i'll come right back off, but still.  PMS sucks.

(not to mention the mood swings, the insomnia, the intolerance for anything and everything,etc.  my poor husband and kids...  uugh!  will i just start already!!!)

friday night blues

mom said last weekend "i've always wanted to have grandchildren that come and spend the night with me every friday night."  so last weekend they stayed with her twice (thursday night and saturday night).  the children love it - they happily screamed "BYE!" to me last night at 8pm.  holly didn't even want me to touch her, she was all about her mamaw (or granddaddy, whoever would hold her). 

however, at home, it sure is lonely.  something about NOT having them here makes unable to sleep.  (nathaniel does NOT have that problem.)

i suppose i'll get over it.

what i've learned in photoshop

here are some of the ways i can edit a photograph.

here is an unedited photo, straight from my camera:

for this one, i lightened the photo and brightened her eyes.

this one is the above picture, desaturated (removed the color).

next, i gave her a pop of color:

as for the borders, i can do both "burnt edges" (dark around the outside) or a vignette - in this example, i used white for the fade color.  i can do any color (even black) and, i can do it larger, darker, or in the shape of a rectangular or ellipse.  (this one is a rectangle.)

which edit do you like best?

baby a

isn't this the most adorable baby girl?  she stayed with us 2 weekends ago and i was so excited that i got to play "dress up" with her.   kendal, by the way, LOVED LOVED LOVED her and all he wanted to do was hold her.

so here is the baby almost 4 months old & sweet as can be!  she had a full belly and was happy as could be, even if it was kinda cool outside.  she even went to sleep i the basket.incidentally, it is ashamed i can't post "sounds" with these pictures because for the inside ones, she sang katelyn and me a little song! 

duke gardens

this past weekend, i got to visit duke gardens for my very first time.  i met an old friend and her family there for some practice picture taking!!!  we had a great time, her kids were sweet as can be.  i even got a high-five from her son when we left!  lucky for me, they are all VERY photogenic.

here are my touched-up results!  (not much touching, either!)

so many of the pictures were great.  it was hard to "settle" on just these.  However, this set of photos really grabbed me, so i put them together on one page.  isn't it adorable???

thanks for letting me practice on you guys!
and for anyone else wanting something REALLY cool to do for a birthday party (or adult ones too!) check out her website: she is the owner of lil' chef in raleigh.  i can't wait for my kids to get big enough to have a party there!!!

wild weekend!

i'm sit here at my computer - nearly midnight, editing pictures - and i'm noticing my right hand (especially the fingers on my hand) is actually sore.  the mouse clicking is nearly enough to put me into tears.  i've tried massaging my hand, but i'm not sure it helps.

i took about 450 pictures this weekend - in a matter of 24 hours, really!  first was kate's bridal portriats (too bad i can't post them), and today i met an old friend, susan, and her family out at duke gardens for portriats.  click, click, click... i nearly filled up my 2gb drive two times!  (ok, so not THAT nearly, but i was 2/3 the way there on both occasions.)

i have to say, though, that i'm really happy with what i got!  yesterday, i took about 200 of katelyn in two locations in all sorts of poses and zooms... and it was hard to delete even 30.  they were all so good, she's gonna have a hard time picking ONE for printing/framing for her bridal portrait.  from this morning, i took about 250 pictures over a 75 minute walk-around and only had 43 that i could delete because of shut eyes, open mouths, funny expressions, or my error (out of focus, over/underexposed).  keep in mind that a lot of these shots are duplicates in the same place - getting 2 to 4 people to look in the same location, have their eyes open, hair in place, smiles, etc. all at the same time is a hard job and i though the odds were stacked against me.  but, maybe not!  the entire family is quite photogenic, so maybe that was why i had good luck! i can't wait to share pictures from today!  susan will be most pleased, i think!

saturday afternoon after pictures, kate and mom and i went to the mall  (actually, only Belk's) and i got some cute clothes (which were desperately needed since last year's clothes are HUGE and falling off of me - thus why i opt for wearing yoga pants all the time.)  i went to have help picking out a dress for kate's rehearsal.  i already went a couple of weeks ago, but i need help when it comes to dresses.  we tried on SO much stuff.  it was hard to slim down my choices, but i'm happy with what i bought!  all of it was a good deal (regular sale plus coupons...)

so this afternoon (after the pictures) we had stamp club.  that was fun too.  those girls are a hoot, and i'm glad they are going to continue with a club because i'd miss them if i didn't get to see them every month.

oh, and the last thing that happened this weekend:  kitty escaped outside on friday.  we thought she may be in heat, so we looked and looked for her.  we couldn't find her.  we didn't hear anything friday night but on saturday morning, i heard one loud howl in the yard but i still couldn't find her.  about 30 minutes later, nathaniel went outside to see if he could find her.  he saw kitty and our local tom cat, gato sin nombre, outside laying beside each other.  nathaniel got kitty (who didn't run from him this time) and brought her inside, her neck was slobbery and her backside was wet.  he said "well, we don't have any virgin cats anymore!  she looks like she needs a cigarette."  it was hilarious.  ever since, she and lacy have been growling a lot.

tomorrow, kitty is getting spayed.  we aren't having any kittens...  especially crazy, feral, tail-less ones. 

metaphor

i saw this quote attached to an email that i got today - you know how folk's add signatures to the bottom of their emails.  this person had 5 or 6 quotes and this was one of them.  interesting, huh?

Calling an illegal alien an 'undocumented immigrant' is like calling a drug dealer an 'unlicensed pharmacist'

homemade play dough

while the kids were eating lunch, i decided to make them some home-made play dough and use up the old food coloring i had in the spice rack.  it pretty much is all the fake colors we have in the house.  since they won't be eating this (i tasted it, YUCK!) i'm not concerned with the use of them. 

so here is the recipe.  i got the cheapest stuff i could find for it (generic everything possible):
4 cups plain flour
1 cup salt
1/2 cup cream of tartar
4 Tbs oil (i used canola because it was what i had)
4 cups hot water ( i heated it in the microwave before i poured it on)

you put this on med-low heat and stir - it is sticky and nasty and your arm will hurt from stirring.  i used a large metal pot and a wooden spoon.  i started with a plastic spoon but it was so hard to stir that the spoon kept bending.  you let it "cook" until it isn't sticky anymore - i just left it there and stirred every couple of minutes from the bottom of the pan, maybe after 10 to 15 minutes it seemed like it was thicker.  i turned off the heat and just let it sit.  it was way too hard to stir.

i got out 7 little tupperware cups and put a handful in each one so that it would close.  then i got them out one by one and kneaded it with a lot of food coloring, mixing to make the proper colors. the white, by the way, is just plain (no color).  it took a lot of red (like maybe 15 drops) to make the red, orange was about 8 yellow and 4 red, yellow was about 10 yellow drops, green was about 15 green drops, blue was about 20 blue and 2 green drops, and the purple was maybe 8 red and 12 blue drops. you may have to adjust it because my blue was doing more squirting than dropping and i didn't really count when i was making it.  i just know that orange and purple was not an even split for mixing the colors.  red is a very strong color so you have to use less.  and for the blue, i wanted it to be a little brighter thus the 2 green drops.

i kneaded it with my hands until it was smooth - which took quite a bit of work!  i think they turned out pretty though!

so then while i was outside, i decided that maybe i made this playdough for me to take pictures of and not so much for my kids.  they still haven't played with them... it was nap time - maybe tomorrow they can play with it. 

i ended up playing with the settings on my camera while shooting the dough- mainly with the program settings, aperture, and the manual focus (not all at the same time).  i came up with this series.  i thought it was kinda neat (the focus moves from the white to the purple...) - and yes i know they are crooked. i wasn't paying attention to that, i was more paying attention to the settings.  these photos are untouched.

and then this one has them all pretty much in focus (but very crooked - i was using the manual focus).

oh my god. i love this camera.  have i mentioned that lately???