Week 20 good to WOW SOOC Chalk Drawings

Thankfully we had some sunny days this week and a whole big tub of 52 pieces of side walk chalk.  Unfortunately, that is making it very difficult to narrow down my photo choices.  If one stood out as spectacular, then it might be easier.  As it is, I did what I do best--I captured every moment of our play time but captured so many details in the photos I'd rather avoid.  For example, my absolute favorite photos I cannot put on the blog because Sunflower's dress got caught in her underwear somehow; yes, she is still only two, so it looks pretty cute, but NOT something to put out there on the blogosphere.  Also, where else do you play with sidewalk chalk but on the driveway?  The driveway lined with cars, garbage cans, and weeds; half in sun and half in shade?  Makes for a great set edited, but doesn't stand out as fitting in the good to WOW category.  That isn't to say I regret the photos I took.  It made for a great afternoon and a fun blog post over on my real life blog.  Also, one can learn a lot from one's mistakes.  I am just finding it hard to chose what to share with you.

So I picked one favorite of each of my children that I have not yet edited.  Who can go wrong with such beautiful children?

Sunflower   1/100    f/4.5     ISO 200      102mm

SnapDragon      1/80     f/5.0     ISO 100     135mm

Huckleberry    1/80   f/4.8    ISO 200     125mm

He was contemplating the question of why he had labeled his pirate ship with AFC.  Turns out he didn't know; it just looked nice.

Be sure to check out Jill's blog for more Chalk Drawings*!  It is always fun!

* I was looking up the links to add when I figured out the theme was chalk drawings, not sidewalk chalk.  I do not know why my mind automatically made the assumption we had to draw on the ground.  The downside (one and only) to having kids, I guess.  Now I am even more excited to see people's photos since there is bound to be a lot of creativity.  Plus I feel the desire, no need, to add a photo that actually has a drawing in it!

The two pirate ships meet in battle.    1/80    f/4.0      ISO 200     55mm

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

It is time to see how everyone interpreted last week's hunt items!  This set was really difficult for me.  I couldn't even come up with the basic, simple interpretation of the theme, let alone a secondary clever one!  So I am really looking forward to seeing what everyone else did because it is bound to expand my limited mind.

My Passion:
So dull, so trite, but still so true.  My current passion is taking pictures of my kids--not my kids--but taking pictures of them.  It is NOT their passion and very difficult to get them in a cooperative mode at the same time.

These pictures were originally taken for my attempt at "Sound of Music" but I decided to go a different route...

Sound of Music:

...once I remembered I actually have the sheet music for the Stage Musical of "The Sound of Music."  We saw it in New York in a theater on a street very near to Broadway a long, long time ago (before kids).

Inner Beauty:

That a person has inner beauty in addition to outer beauty is a pretty well-known idea so I could say that is why I chose this picture.  However, really it is because it has lots of rimmed with light (most of it cropped out) which made it very ethereal to me, but nothing says ethereal less than an 11 year old boy, but I wanted to use this photo in this hunt.  And my son, he does have a lot of inner beauty and strength and integrity and intelligence and...you get the picture (pun completely intended).

So I had to choose something else for...

Ethereal:

The Orchids were a gift from many of my friends as I passed on leadership of my MOPS group to another lady and friend.   So far I have been able to use them in two photo challenges.  They may never bloom again for me, but I am going to get those most out of these blooms.

Sharp:

That's all folks!  Be sure to check out more Sunday Scavenger Hunts over at Ramblings and Photos and Happy Hunting!

Week 19 good to WOW Edit Umbrella/Rain

Thursday again!  This week proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that getting it right in camera makes for the easiest and simplest edits--because I definitely did not get it right in camera.  To be fair to me, I am not sure I could have gotten it better without a lens that could have a wider aperture at 116mm focal length than 5.6, a tripod, and an external flash and possibly a reflector thingee.  (The guy who published a book of pictures that he took around the country with his iPhone could, but not me.)  I did try some pictures with my on camera flash, but they were even worse--still missing the details on the side of her face, but with scary eyes!

Here is the original:

I only edited this picture.  It took me many days and attempts to be satisfied.  I did attempt the other picture because even though I liked her expression better in this one, the other one was taken at 800 ISO and this one is 1600 ISO.  I thought the other photo would have less noise, but it actually lost more detail around her face making it a much harder image to "fix."

One of the reasons I liked the other image was that there were no people in the background.  So today, in the spirit of learning from Ashley's tutorials, I did a new clean edit and cloned those people out.  Here is my final simple edit without the people.

 

I had done a simple edit in the week that somehow I did not keep except for after a crop that I do not love.  It is however the edit I worked with in order to get my final image and, except for the people still being in it, I like it better.  So to make my post longer than it needs to be when I could actually have a short post, I'm going to show it to you, too.

 

I had done a little more skin smoothing here and ran a noise reduction filter in PSE--I know it doesn't work as well as the outside program Ashley and others have recommended, but it is what I have.  I cannot remember what else I did, but I do think this is almost a photo I would print.

Then I took the non-cropped version and ran some actions.  I played around a lot, but what I ended up liking the best was PW Beauty BW with a PW Colorized ran right after it.  I then adjusted things and added a multiply layer for her face because it was too washed out.  Added a little more color to her eyes and lips (maybe more than I should have) and finalized it with a vignette.  Oh, and then this morning I cloned out the people, because they were starting to bug me. Given what I started with and the fact that I have only been editing pictures (except for cropping and maybe an occasional auto correct) since March 5th, I don't feel too bad about it. 

I think she looks adorable.

Be sure to visit Ashley's Blog to view other Rain/Umbrella edits.  I saw most of the SOOC, and the edits are bound to be awesome!

Oh, and here is my before and after so you don't have to scroll up.