My 11 year old daughter and I enjoyed a beautiful photo walk this morning.  We went down to the river.  The morning fog was burning off.  We took images of the fall follage, the fog on the river, and the ducks.  I especially liked this image - a beautiful picture of a group of ducks swimming across the river with the reflection of the fall foliage.  This is exactly the type of photo that I would like.  And there is my daughter, enjoying the same scene with her own vision.  I'll keep this photo as a reminder to share what I love with the people that I love. 

BTW, here is the picture that she was capturing...

Pinkalicious!

I've been enjoying putting in entries to the http://www.weekdayphoto.com/ contests.  This Monday's theme is pink.  With two little girls, pink is close to my heart.  We have a parade of pink outfits, pink soccer teams, pink batting helmets, pink skates, and pink 4-wheelers.  Pink is part of the fabric of our lives.  Still looking through the photos, I had a hard time finding a photo that drew me in because of its pinkness.  I just loaded Adobe lightroom, so I decided to try it out with pink.  Here are some of the first efforts. 

I'm just starting to really understand composition.  I like this because the tree lines lead directly to the girl's face.  For the girl, there is a river of water play right behind her, but she is totally focused on the bucket.  The pink provides the bridge between face and bucket and provides a bit of interest. 

Another view from the same day.  Still involved with her castle.  While I like this angle, it doesn't have the same leading lines as the previous version. 

We had the pleasure of being the pink soccer team this spring.  I loved seeing the girls geared up.  While they wore pink, they were ready to rumble!

Weak and Strong

I took this photo of my daughter and nephew a couple of months ago.  I love the tenderness of my eight year old, gently kissing the baby with her hand so softly placed on his head.  While some might contest an eight year old to represent strength, I think of the times that she man-handles the now-20 pound crawler! 

Blue

I took this photo a couple of years ago.  It was great except for a significant crease in the front of the flower.  When I saw that weekdayphoto.com was going to have a blue theme, I found this in the archives, but was again saddened by the crease.  I'm happy to say that I'm getting better at using the photo tools that are available to me!  This fixed version was done in about 10 minutes in Picasa.  My husband ordered Lightroom and it is due next week.  I'll try another fix version then!

Just for fun, I thought that I would include some of my other 'blue' photos.  I would love to hear your comments. 

Creative colors #5

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been submitting photos to http://www.weekdayphotos.com/
they have a daily photo theme.  I'm submitting this one for 'overexposure.'  Clearly, some of the highlights are blown out, but the purple is so vibrant, it kind of makes up for the over exposure.  I like the surreal feel that this image has.  No post processing on this one...

Sunset #4

I took this photo nearly two years ago, but pulled it out again looking for a good sunset photo.  I like the clean sillouette from the bridge and the shadows in the clouds. 

Five Favorite Photos

I recently decided to start a photo club at my workplace.  To get started, I asked everyone to submit their five best photos of all time.  I spent a week or so thinking about it.  I might have a few other candidates in the archive, but here are my top six picks for now.  Which do you like?

Red

This is my first entry.  Hope you enjoy the spot of red.

Fear the Carousel

This is one of my all time best photos.  I took this image of my niece at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk as we were waiting in line for our turn.  At her last trip to the Boardwalk, she was too scared to ride the carousel.  The blur in the background shows the carousel speed - a million miles an hour for a 4 year old!

On the technical side, I took this handheld, so there is still a bit of unsteadiness for the 1/13s exposure.  F/10.0 to allow some more clarity to the horses.  I was still thrilled to be able to do all of the camera adjustments fast enough to allow this kind of shot in the moment! 

And for the record, my little niece conquered her fear by bravely riding the carousel with her Uncle. 

Batter up!

 I took this picture of my daughter a week ago.  She has pitched in only a couple of games.  But in this moment, she is prepared.  She is ready to show her skill.  She is ready to put it out there and get better.  In the background, her teammate is waiting to help and the skys show signs of trouble. 

I like this photo to start this new blog.  I hope that I can be so open to sharing my pictures with other photographers.  I know that I will get help to negotiate any trouble.