Daddy!!!!

Matt was outside yesterday burning the limbs and twigs from the trees he has cut down (seven is the count now!). Aiden, of course, wanted to be out there with his daddy, and was standing at the back door crying for Daddy. I thought it was a great opportunity to capture a little bit of his personality at that moment, wishing he could go outside with his Daddy.

You can see him crying in this one. There's something I really like about this shot, even though he is crying! I think I did a great job using the 'rule of thirds' for composition of this picture.


A shot from behind. The original image was super dark, you really couldn't see any detail on the left side of his body. I bumped the curves down and added some contrast, but it still seemed 'off.' I did a B&W conversion and it seemed to help. I like the shot, but I wasn't able to pull it off quite as well as I would have liked.


This one is just adorable. Nothing else needs to be said about it!


Here is the same picture, Duotone Dream action run on it, in blue. Is it too blue?

Florida, Everglades, and Key West

This installment is the first of a series of some of the best of our vacation pictures. Since I have become slightly (emphasis on the word SLIGHTLY) more proficient with my Photoshop skills, I decided to go back and have fun with the pictures I took when I didn't know as much about photgraphy.

Included in this installment are three pictures from our Florida vacation in 2003.

This picture was taken near one of the southern entrances to the Everglades National Park. We had stayed overnight at Flamingo and did a little bit of trail walking on our way out of the park.



I love this next picture. It is far from being technically correct due to the intense backlight of the late afternoon sun and the resulting lens flare in the image. However, I just love the shot of the flag against the sky. This was taken at the infamous Key West Cemetery. I ran an action on it Photoshop called Duotone Dream.



It's rare for us East Coast folks to actually see a sunset at the ocean. Thanks to the Florida Gulf Coast it IS possible! This was taken from Manasota Key, in between the cities of Venice and Englewood.

Fun with Toys!

Pictures from Today...

I had tried to get a couple pics of Aiden while he was sleeping this morning, so I bumped the ISO up on my camera... well anything 100 and up is super grainy on the G2, and I forgot to put it back to 50 when I was taking these shots of Aiden. Luckily, I was able to correct it some and they don't look that bad.

Here's the bookworm shot:


Another book shot:


Here is his adorable little grin!


And here is the resulting storyboard!

Evil Knievel!!

Here he is... performing death-defying feats!! 

Depth of Field Understood!

Today is the vernal equinox, aka, the first day of spring!! And here in NC, we have a temperature of 43 degrees with sleet coming down as I type! The pictures I got of the sleet on our back deck inspired me to write a little blurb about Depth of Field in photography!

There are many different factors that create an amazing photograph. Of course there is the subject and how he/she/it is composed in the frame. Altering the shutter speed can make action stop or showcase the fluidity and smoothness of motion. Another facet of photography is understanding depth of field and how to use it to create a really stunning photograph.

Depth of Field (DOF) is the distance in front of and behind the subject which appears to be in focus. A photograph can be taken with a shallow DOF or a very deep DOF. The key to understanding how to use DOF creatively in a photograph is to understand the aperture and F-stop on a camera.

The aperture is something that restricts the diameter of the light path through one plane in an optical system. The aperture stop, known more commonly in the photographic world as the F-stop, is a measurement of how large or small the opening of the lens is. F-stops, depending on the lens, can range in value from as low as 1.4 all the way up to 22 and above! The backwards part of this value is that the higher the F-stop value is, the smaller the aperture, and, the smaller the aperture, the larger/deeper resulting DOF. Conversely, when the camera is set to a lower f-stop value, the lens opening is larger, and a more shallow DOF is the result.

Here are some examples showing the change in aperture and the resulting DOF:


f/8.0 = larger f-stop value = smaller aperture = larger DOF



f/2.0 = smaller f-stop value = larger aperture = shallower DOF

Notice in the second photograph, with an f-stop of 2.0, how blurry the background and foreground are, and how small the area is that is in focus as compared to the first photograph. This is because of changing the aperture which changes the DOF in the image.

Changing aperture size can make such a difference in the creativity of a photograph!!

Livin' for the Weekend

This weekend brought the warmest weather we have had this year! It was almost like summertime. So of course we spent a lot of time outside. Here are some pictures.

Fun in the Kitchen!

The Apple Corer
Originally uploaded by Cat.

This is my photo of the day. I love having an apple corer. Who would have thought that having such a small little tool could brighten your day? It makes cutting up apples much easier!

I know.. I have officially entered into 'dorkdom.'

Happy Tuesday!

Pictures from 3/5/2006

Here is Aiden working on his balance! I love this shot!


And this is sick little Aiden. You can see his puffy eyes, and if you look closely, you will notice dried snot on the end of his nose! He's not a fan of having his nose wiped!


Here he is, kickin' back and relaxin' in a rocker on the porch. Gotta love the dimple!!!!


I am trying to take all my pictures in manual right now. I suppose since I do not have a DSLR it makes it a little bit easier. I totally understand shutter speeds, apertures/F-stops and the resulting depth-of-field, but using them to get really creative shots is where I struggle. I can't wait to get my hands on an SLR. I can't wait to see what my photos are like then!