The new man in my life!

I get one more handsome fellow to add to the list of 'men' in my life. Here is my friend's little boy who I am babysitting this week. He warmed up to me and the camera today and here are a few of the pics I got.

Giggles and Grins

f/3.2 1/640s ISO400

More blue lips...

f/2.2 1/320s ISO400

Couldn't you just eat him up??

He is just SOOO sweet!



f/2.2 1/1250s ISO 400

I had my ISO high because I was in some shady spots where I needed a fast shutter speed. How did I get this picture you might ask? I gave him a popcicle! I converted to B&W using Robin Purcell's method... because his lips were BLUE, from the popcicle!

Sweet little boy!

Isn't he the cutest??? And, NO I am NOT biased... hehehehe :)

The little green monster

Wait.. that's no monster! That is Aiden! And the green on the trees and the green grass have cast their evil green-ness onto his light hair and fair baby skin! This picture is straight out of the camera and looks hideous! What do you do when you didn't set your white balance out in the great green backyard? You turn to Photoshop of course!!

Here is my first attempt at correcting the color on this picture. I tried reducing the green slider on the Hue/Sat/Light(HSL) adjustment. I tried lightening the picture to get rid of the shadows. It looks better, but you can see it has this weird pink tinge to the picture now. You could try to reduce the red and magenta in the picture using the HSL sliders, but that would leave you with a gray mess where those pink colors were. So we have to figure out another way to get rid of the pink!



And here is the final result after even MORE tweaking. I went back to the orginal and ran an action from the Canon Action Set called "Reduce Greens." It basically takes the cyan levels a notch down on the color balance adjustment. Then with a myriad of other adjustments, such as 3 curves adjustments, a photo filter, more color balancing, and some tweaking in HSL, and adding some contrast, I think I got it about as good as it is going to get!

Gettin' Hitched

Two very dear friends of ours eloped this past Thursday. (Announcements have been sent out so I am safe in posting about this now!) Matt and I were asked to come be a part of their special day, and of course I took some pictures (Amanda asked me to get some good pictures of them). I wasn't really sure what to do and I didn't want to pose them and prop them very much. JP and Amanda haven't seen the finished pictures, they just saw them on the camera that day. It was quite chilly for May on the parkway, and the rain held off until the ceremony was over.

I hope they are pleased with them. We had no 'photographer' at our elopement, but then again, the Raleigh Police Department doesn't provide QUITE the picturesque backrop that the Blue Ridge Parkway does. No matter how you get married, I feel having pictures of the occasion is important and I hope these pictures are special to the newlyweds.

Click on the thumbnails for a larger view.

Goin' home...

Back at our old 'stomping grounds,' I was able to get some really nice pics of the area where we grew up. It stinks that we now live where it is flat and boring... No matter how far away we go or how long we are gone, these mountains will always be home to us.

Here is Looking Glass Falls



This is looking at Upper Falls (the teeny tiny rock outcropping you can see in the center of the picture) which is accessible from the Graveyard Fields trail.


Here is a view of Looking Glass Rock as seen from the Blue Ridge Parkway. It is the dome in the middle of the picture.

Aiden at the Park

These are from a park trip over Mother's Day weekend. Matt was out of town, so Aiden and I spent some time at the park to help us not miss Daddy so much...

Condor, no wait, I mean Connor

These are some pics of Aiden's little 'friend' Connor. When his mom is in town we normally try to get together to let the boys play together. What an adventure that can be at times! Connor is quite the ham, so he enjoyed me having the camera out and in his face yesterday! Here are some pics!

Aiden's name twin

This is a photoshoot with a little boy named Aiden and his mother. My Aiden and this Aiden were born only 5 days apart! We went to a park so I could do some pics of them just playing around. These came out pretty nice. The post-processing was diffucult due to the bright sun and harsh shadows, but I am pleased with what I got, and the mother is too.. and that is what counts!

As always, click on the thumbnail for a larger view.