unThemed Tuesday

Usually I like to tie my pictures together somehow, but I've been doing such random shooting recently in an effort to practice using my new speedlight and absorb what I'm learning in my photography class.  Really it is good to expand my repertoire...really I have more in my life than Sunflower...but I do so like to match!  Hopefully the real artists that visit my site are a little more accepting of an eclectic mix.  Flexibility, flexibility, flexibility...some day I'll get it.

I know we are not the only family who entertains ourselves by taking things apart while Mommy takes pictures.  Many a pleasant afternoon is spent in such a manner.

Of course there is the ever fun Wii games...chewing boy not withstanding...I am the Queen of Mario Party (Okay, maybe Oak/Sunflower won.)

Now my favorite way to entertain myself is by taking pictures...even before reading big books...and Huckleberry spent a cold 20 minutes letting me practice with my new speedlight.  Now just to narrow the 30 or so remaining pictures to one or two since he was standing and smiling exactly the same in every one of them.  I guess I need to practice my posing instructions more, too.

Though telling Sunflower to pose is a useless waste of time.  I can still capture some sweet photos of her, though.  However, in the interest of full disclosure, I am lying down on the little slide with my feet up on the larger slide per Sunflower's instructions "This is your bed, Mama!"  Sunflower is standing at my feet leaning over me with the sun behind her.  I happen to have my camera on me because that is the deal...Mommy will go outside and play IF she can take pictures, too.

Then, of course, I do love playing with photos!  I probably have enough photos to edit I could just stop taking pictures for the winter, but what would be the fun in that?  In the meantime, I did finally have a chance to play with textures because textures are fun!

This is Kim Klassen's Serious Magic, 100% screen.  This photo was taken on our photowalk early, early Saturday morning.  It really was as cold as it looks.

Kim Klassen's Stained Linen, Soft Light 100%, though I circled the bird and ran a Gaussian blur on him to remove the texture from him AND Magic Edges Screen 100%.  Birds don't take posing instructions well, either, but I think they were too cold to move.

The birds did stay really still at times and let me get awfully close to them, making for a few sweet shots.

Do you see the little ripple in his neck feathers?  That was the wind.  We went to breakfast once the wind started picking up!