Photos and excuses.

A pretty good weekend here!  (Though I always come away from the weekend feeling like I got less sleep than I did during the week, if at all possible.)  It may help if at some point my children started sleeping through the night...


BUT, I managed to snap some photos.  And make a few rolled rose barrettes, for those of you who may care...  suffice it to say that my goal of getting them into the mail by YESTERDAY failed.  However, they are well underway and should be sent soon.  Phew.  


Here are my photos for this week's Sunday Scavenger Hunt at Ramblings and Photos:

Capture the Sky

Capture the sky??  Really???  In February?  I'll let you in on a secret.  Around these parts, the sky looks like the above from October until about May.  Gray.  Gray, gray, gray.  One humongous stratus cloud covering all the lovely blue.  Rarely starry, even more rarely sunny.  Sometimes MORE cloudy and often snowy.  So, taking a picture of the sky right now = boring.  I made sure to get some branches in the picture, to break up the gray.  I also added a little texture to the photo post-process.  Because, like I said, it was boring.

Everyday

Nap-time: everyday, same time, same place,  no exceptions.  Except we don't call it nap-time anymore, we call it quiet time.  Because SOME people - no names mentioned -

do this all nap-time, instead of sleep.

Furry 

This shot is completely luck.  Taking a picture of my cat is nearly as impossible as taking a picture of my children.  None of them ever stop moving.

Life

I LOVE how full of life the kids are.  They really have an excitement and zeal that I've obviously lost... 

Blurred

I call this:  The Dancing Bear.  Actually, I picked this one because I like how you can see bug's eyes behind the blurry bear.

The Trendy Treehouse Shutter Love Tuesday theme is "Swing". 





And I've got this golden oldie:

An addition:
A bloggy friend of mine is starting a new challenge to learn more about editing.  




I thought I'd try it out this week, since I have so much fun playing with picnik.  Since I really only play with photography at this point, I don't have any photo editing software, besides what's available on iphoto or online.  I LOVE picnik.  LOVE.


Here's her shot:

Here's my edit:

And I'm supposed to explain what I did with edits.  So, first I adjusted the exposure and contrast, manually.  Then I cropped it so that the cutie was all the way to the right.  Then I used the rotate tool to tilt the picture just a little, so that her head was in the corner of the frame.  I've learned that it's better to off-center your main subject, rule of thirds and all... Then I used the touch-up section to boost the blue eyes just a touch and used the eye brightener tool to add some reflection in both eyes.  I also added just a touch of blush to the cheeks - faded way down.  Then I used the "cross process" tool (I think it's my favorite) and faded it way out.  I think it warms the photo up a lot.  I used the "Fancy Focus" tool and centered it right on the eyes, so that area would be more of a focal point and the background would be faded and softer.  I used just a little bit of a vignette - made it smaller, boosted the strength a bit, and faded it down.  I didn't want the photo to be ALL vignette, I just wanted a little bit of a vignette at the edges to draw the eye in more.  And that's that!


If you use picnik at all, I really suggest purchasing the premium.  It's worth it.  There is soooo much you can do with it, and it's super user-friendly.  I know NOTHING - and I mean NOTHING - about editing, I just make it all up as I go.  But I've taught myself all the tools from picnik, so I'm pretty sure you could too!




So guess what tomorrow is.  Go on.  Guess.

*Be sure to check just below for all the fun parties I link to!