One Picture Can Say It All

One picture can tell the whole story.  Like when my niece, Lynne, surprised all the ladies at our Tuesday lunch group this week (before Mother's Day) by giving us free ice cream and some beautiful roses.

 

The problem is that the picture didn't start out like this.  It was like the picture below where it is hard to see the people in the picture, we are just too dark.  I knew this would be a problem because of all the windows in the background.  The camera was fooled by the outside brightness and underexposed us.  I could have used my HDR app on my phone, but my husband was taking the pictures.  If I had to set up the two boxes to expose correctly for the brighter windows and the other for us, then run around and get in the picture, then have him hand me the camera after each shot so I could adjust the HDR and contrast and color and save it, no one would sit still for that.  So I just decided to have him take the shots and  throw the best one in Photoshop Elements afterwards. 

      At home, once I found the best shot with the best expressions on each face, I made a selection of just us ladies.  I opened the levels and brightened the mid tones.  Then I sharpened this selection.  I then reversed the selection and darkened the mid tones to tone down the background and foreground a bit and I did not sharpen.  I then cropped the picture to cut out the uninteresting ceiling and have the picture just concentrate on the main subject, us.  Now you can see us better.  Happy Mother's Day! 



 

The Old Truck

My motto is to always have a camera with me.  It came in handy tonight.  We were driving down Greenbay Rd and had to stop for a long line of traffic.  (Don't you just love road construction.)  I then noticed an old truck on the side of the road.  I grabbed my camera out of my purse, rolled down the window and took a few shots before we had to move on.  When I got home I had fun playing around with a few photo apps to add a grunge look and blur and vignette the background and put a frame on it.  Below is the results:

Taking Matters into Your Own Hands

  Just when we thought the snow was gone for the year, it snowed an inch over night. So sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands. I found these cute tulip sidewalk night lights at the dollar store, but the ground is so frozen I had to lean them up against a tree to stand them up.

Spring is Coming

Time to get out and take some pictures as spring is coming.  Wayne and I went out to Fox Lake a couple of days ago and saw a flock of migrating American White Pelicans.  They are coming up from the Gulf Coast and heading north.  This flock will probably summer on a nice lake in Canada, but I like to think they are part of the group going to Yellowstone.  Sigh!

Jellies is More Than a Grape Flavor

I took a trip to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago this week.  I finally got to see the "Jellies" exhibit.  It was fascinating to watch these creatures. It has been one thing on my bucket list to be able to see and photograph them.  The entire museum was amazing.  I know about your every day bass, whitefish, salmon and cute little Nemo, but here are so many fishes, so many sizes, so many colors, so much variety from all over the world. Sea life is not just fishes either.  From whales and sea lions and penguins to sea horses and sea dragons and jellies.  Also snakes and sea turtles and little poison dart frogs.  Then there is all the plant life as the multicolored coral reefs.  This is all stuff we don't generally see, all tucked away in our rivers, lakes and oceans.  On the fifth day God created whales, and every living creature that moves, which the waters brought forth abundantly.  And I was surrounded by them....AWESOME!

 

 

Inspired by the Olympics

The winter weather has been lingering on.  So what is a person to do? Well, I have been watching the Olympics this past week and they are pretty inspiring.  Say,  I still have my old cross country skis in the attic.  Could I still possibly use them?  I hate to say that the last time I used them was in my mid 20's, but hey, why not give it a shot.  I waxed them up and headed to Illinois Beach State Park.  The first time on them was not too pretty.  I probably didn't wax my skis quite right and I spent more time on the ground than skiing.  And my gear is pretty old and so the rubber lock releases broke off as did the pole baskets.  The next day at work I was pretty sore, some serious muscle strain.   I came home and watched a few videos on You Tube on how to wax skis and how to ski correctly.  I went out today and things were a bit better.  I had a goal of going around one trail at Illinois Beach and I made it.  Senior Olympics here I come!  Ha! 

Extreme Window Frost

What is there to do on a cold winter afternoon?  I did something I haven't done in years.  Took pictures of window frost.  The last time I did it was when I used a film camera.  All of our downstairs windows have been replaced since that time and so there is no window frost.  We do still have some older windows upstairs.  With the cold weather we have had this winter I was able to think again about doing some shots.  And now digital is great as you can see immediate  results and make changes as needed to get the picture.  Lenses have also improved.  I have a 1:1 close-up lens.  I used some of my older close-up filters with this to get an even closer look and it was pretty easy.