Hunter's Art Work

We finished our basement last year and I thought what a great place to display some of my photos of the kids. Over the past few years Hunter has come home from school with some of his art that he completed in art class. I told him I would display his work as well in the basement. He was pretty proud. Here are a few examples. One is a self portrait and the other I absolutely love. The vase of flowers. They studied Keith Haring this year so the top piece of art is from that lesson.

Each year the art teacher displays all the students art in the hallways at the school. Since I do the yearbook each year, I had the idea last year of taking random pictures of various art and doing a collage for the back cover of the yearbook. It went over well and is quite colorful.

New Green Tea Ginger Ale

We stopped buying soft drinks about two years ago but we indulge every now and then. We love ginger ale and have recently discovered Green Tea Ginger Ale. If you like ginger ale and are also fond of green tea then give this a try. Hmmm! I wonder how this would be with a little vodka added to it.......

I feel bad that most of the pictures on this blog belong to my daughter. She is with me most of the time. My son is not interested in getting his picture taken as he has better things to do like playing outside with his friends all the time. I can understand that. When baseball starts the blog will fill with action photos of him. I love photographing sports as you never know what you will get. Here is one taken while he was rollerblading.

A Day for Coloring

I love taking photos in our bedroom where I have a big window and lots of natural light. Like to practice alot in here.

Photography tips and techniques

Black and White Conversions

I do not proclaim to be a photoshop guru at all (far, far from it) but I did want to share some techniques that I have learned here and there from others. I often get asked about my black and white conversions. I put together a tutorial which I posted on http://www.dgrin.com/ I will share it here. The method is Kevin Kubota's so I cannot take any credit for it at all. http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=57194. You may have to join the forum to get to the link. Not sure.

I have also recently built my own gradients and may use two at a time. Adjusting opacity of one or the other based on the pic until I like what I see. One step to add after you add the gradient is to add a 'color balance' layer. Click on the layer and drag it below the gradient layers. You can now tweak your shadow, midpoint and highlights via the individual RGBs. Works like a charm or at least it does for me.

Another BW conversion method I use is by Greg Gorman. He has a tutorial on the steps on his website www.greggormanphotography.com and you can find an action for his BW conversion at http://www.atncentral.com/. I will use his method to convert to BW and them add one of my gradients for some tone, etc.


Color Pop

Two techniques that I have been using lately to pop the color:

1. Press the alt key and then click on the add adjustment layer in the layer palette. Select brightness/contrast and change the mode to soft light. Click OK. Choose the amount of contrast (I usually start with 8) and adjust accordingly. Now lower the opacity of this layer until you get the amount of pop that you are pleased with. Adding contrast can make faces become a little less than desirable in color. I then add a mask and paint back in the areas that I do not want to pop the color.

2. Another way to add some pop is to change the mode to lab. Ctrl/J to duplicate the layer and change the mode to multiply. Adjust opacity as needed. I also add a mask and paint back in areas that I do not want it to effect. Change mode back to RGB.

Hope you can follow my directions here.

Hunter tries out for the majors

Hunter had tryouts for the majors on Saturday. I am kind of excited about baseball season starting back up. He did really well, especially at batting. I think he will make the majors. Saw a few parents that have been on the same team over the past two seasons.

Will start again with the sports posters this spring. For the short time that I sold them last fall I did very well. All I had to do was show up with some examples and the parents approached me wanting to know how to get them of their kids. What really sets them apart is that they are printed on pearl paper. Really gives them a nice sheen and professional look. Here are a few examples.

Easter

Bought this dress yesterday for Caroline. She loved it because it came with a smaller version for her doll. Of course took advantage of the photo opportunity to get in a little practice with both of them. She has named the doll Lori after her imaginary cousin Lori. The last call she had with cousin Lori was with Nana Brenda a week or two ago. After the call she turned around and said "Cousin Lori is starting to sound like Nana Brenda." Well imagine that!

Abbey, our Spoiled Weimaraner

Abbey is our two year old female Weimaraner. Last year the kids wanted a dog and so the search began. First we were looking to buy a German Short Haired Pointer from a breeder. One Sunday I started searching the ads online and came across a picture of Abbey. I contacted the owner and they were selling her because their smallest child developed allergies after getting her. I contacted the owner and he said we could come look at her that day. It was about an hour drive for us. I was getting the kids ready to go when he called back and said that his wife had been speaking with a guy for the last month that may want her. They hoped we understood but he was coming out the next day to look at her. The kids and I both were disappointed. The more I thought about it the more I knew Abbey needed to come live with us. I called the owner back and said, " I understand that this guy contacted you first but if it is taking him more than a month to decide if he wants her I would have to wonder why it is taking him so long." I told him I would give him $50.00 more dollars than he was asking and would come get her right away. He said he needed to talk it over with his wife and he would call me back. We patiently waited by the phone and finally it rang. I wrote the check and we all jumped in the car for the hour drive to get our new dog.

My Three Kids

This is by far my favorite picture. It is the only photo that I have of all three of them. I asked them if they would let mom take a few practice photos. Reluctantly they agreed but jumped up on the bed for me and the dog followed. Took a few with closed eyes, etc. and just kept clicking away and calling their name. Didn't realize I had this one until I downloaded and started viewing them in bridge. Surprise!

I entered this photo in a contest for the month of February. I just received an email that it was selected as a finalist. Over 29,900 entries with 400 finalist selected. Just checked and the photo did not place 1st or second but good enough for me to be a finalist.

Settings: Manual mode, 50mm, 2.0 @ 1/125, ISO 125 Natural light

Where do I start

Thought I would try something new today-blogging! Please be patient with me as I learn to blog or become a blogger or whatever you call it. Whatever it is it seems everyone is doing it. Not that in my life I have ever followed what everyone else was doing. I prefer to do my own thing but it is a great way to document things that happen daily in life that down the road I may forget unless I write it down. So here I am with my blog page. First let me say that English was not my best subject in school. Please excuse my punctuation or lack of, sentences that are not properly written, so on and so on. I think I stared out the window most of the time in that class. Actually I think I stared out the window in most of my classes. The point here for me is to document what happens throughout each day or week as it happens around this crazy house. My kids are 5 and 9 so I should have plenty to write about.

So I begin...................