Sweet Shot and Texture Tuesday

We are settling into a new schedule and with that comes more regular opportunities for me to choose sedentary activities (my favorite).  Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself while the boys are down for nap and Zion is finding a quiet activity.  Today I am choosing to spend a little time blogging and what better spur of the moment topic than a photo challenge (or two).  Especially since I just spent the weekend on a little getaway with a friend and have a ton of pictures.  Most of which I haven’t had the chance to look twice at but I do have a stand out or two.  For today, my sweet shot:

We were truly blessed to find this cross standing at the very spot we found to pull off to photograph the rainbow.  Wow, just wow. Thanks, God!

OK fine, I’ll post another.  After I picked up my friend we stopped at a camera store.  It’s the one I like to go to but a bit far off and not at all kid friendly.  I had some money set aside for a lens or maybe two and I wanted a chance to shop. I came home with a 50mm 1.8 and a 90mm 2.8 macro (sweet!).  While my friend and I had lunch before heading for home I took this one because she’s got great eyes and I couldn’t help myself:

Please go check out more Sweet Shots at My 3 Boybarians!

And for Texture Tuesday, hosted over at Kim Klassen’s Café (LOVE it there – go check out more!).

This one was taken with my new macro (I am SO in love with that thing, it makes my heart sing – funnily enough I wrote that line before I discovered that Kim had made this week’s Texture Tuesday theme “love”.  I’m so glad I did because now I can join in with the theme and feel like I’d intended that way, LOL) as we were walking around the grounds where we stayed.  We found a few snail shells placed randomly on rocks and in the flower beds, this one was partially buried.  I added a layer of Kim’s Corrugated Crack with soft light at 100%, adjusted the levels a little to brighten it, cropped it and added a light vignette around the edge. 

Sweet Shot Tuesday

I got a special blessing on Saturday.  I got to take the kids to an event hosted by the organization that my sister works for.  So many brilliant, genuine smiles to be photographed there.  What beautiful people.

One of my favorites, despite it not having one of those smiles, is of this little girl playing at the water table.  She was so into it and I love how the water was captured mid stream.

After that we took the kids to my niece’s boyfriend’s tattoo shop’s (that’s a LOT of apostrophes) 1st anniversary BBQ where all three kids got to ride a skate board for the first time.  I’m pretty sure Gideon would have slipped this one in his pocket to take home if he thought no one would notice.  Or it would fit.

Our day was STILL not done.  Then we went to Jamae’s apartment to swim.  Well, I didn’t but the kids did.  Elias has no fear of water and the only way he didn’t take a header into the pool was Jamie’s tight grip on the back of his shirt.

It was such an amazing day and I got so many sweet shots it almost seems unfair to the others that there three are the only I’m posting but I had to draw the line somewhere.

Click the button for more Sweet Shots.

Sweet Shot Tuesday

How to choose, how to choose?  Thanks to my outing on Mother’s Day I have many shots to choose from.  Too many.  I s’pose I’ll bypass all the beautiful flowers and scenes from my outing because the people in my life are more special than those.  Still, it’s down to two.

This was a sweet scene I discovered yesterday morning while in the mad rush to get breakfast for everyone and get Gabe’s lunch made and get us out of the house in time to make it to the bus.  I ran to get my camera and only got the one picture before they moved and the moment had passed.  I give you my oldest and my youngest playing at the train table:

And then there’s my good friend who I went out with on Mother’s Day for lunch and a little picture taking time.  Yay, us! 

(And if you want to see some of the other pictures I got that day check out some of my other posts and come back for more posts to come, there were a lot of photos!)

Sweet Shot Tuesday

Here is my sweet shot for Tuesday.

I am still new enough at photography that when I take a photo with all manual settings and it turns out well it feels really good.  As it is with this photo which I took on Friday while walking to the bus stop to pick up Gabe after school.  This is straight out of the camera as well, not even so much as a levels adjustment.  Not to say it can’t be improved but that it’s just a particularly sweet shot to me that it turned out as well as it did to begin with.

Please go to My 3 Barbarians and enjoy more sweet shots!

Texture Tue…er, Wednesday?

A day late but not a dollar short.  I’m rather pleased with how this turned out.  Zion was in a dress-up sort of mood today so I took advantage and shot a few pictures.  We just got back from Bible study so I thought I’d get the pics off my camera and play around a bit. 

Here’s the original:

Here’s my edit:

This is with a levels adjustment, a little desaturation of the colors, Kim’s “sweettreat” texture on soft light at 87% and Kim’s “serendipity” texture on overlay at 70% and that’s it.  My pretty little fairy is a little more dreamy now.  I like it.  Go ahead, click on the picture and make it bigger, it’s even better. :)

Came back and did a second one.  I love the wistful (is that the word I’m looking for?) nature of this one:

This one is also using “sweettreat” and “serendipity” but I added a layer of “sweettart” in between and desaturized the colors even more.

Now click on the button to go to Kim’s site and check out more Texture Tuesday offerings.

At pretty much the last minute I also decided to put this up on My 3 Boybarian’s Sweet Shot Tuesday.  It’s been a busy week and I haven’t been feeling well so the fact that I decided to do on Friday something I should have done Tuesday shouldn’t surprise me.  It takes that long for my brain to make a decision right now.  ;)

Sweet Shot Tuesday

I came so close to posting another Tulip photo.  So very close.  But as I was scrolling through my photos for the week I saw this one and it just had to be.  That cute little monkey butt and those chubby piggies just begging to be nibbled.  This little piggy went to market…

*sigh*  Pure heaven.

Of course there are many other sweet shots posted, check them out at My 3 Boybarians.

Sweet Shot Tuesday

Hadn’t planned on joining up today, had a busy day and wasn’t sure I had something worthy.  I flipped through the photos I got in the last week and found this one though.  I’m tired, have a headache and have to say goodbye to my husband for nearly three weeks tonight and this just seemed like such a bright spot at the moment.  I’ll take what I can get.  :)

I can’t find the darn button to copy over here (yeah, my headache is bad) so you’ll just have to click on the link instead.  Go see My 3 Boybarians for some more sweet shots and bright spots.

Sweet Shot Tuesday

Getting back into photography is helping to sharpen my decision making skills and BOY do they need sharpened.  I’m the worst.  I hate making decisions, choosing a favorite.  My favorite can change from day to day.  It didn’t take me tooooo long to choose a shot for Sweet Shot Tuesday.  Here’s my offering:

My sweet girl entertaining her “guest” at an impromptu tea party.  Eva is very nearly the most tolerant cat I’ve ever met.  I am so happy that we got such a good kitty.  I clearly recall my kitty growing up tolerating me putting him in doll clothes and the baby swing.  I feel safe putting that in writing because Zion can’t read yet but, please, nobody say it out loud around her.  She doesn’t need any more ideas.

Head on over to My 3 Boybarians to enter your own sweet shot, you know you have one, and/or see what others have put up.  It’s quite fun, I promise!

Sweet Shot Tuesday

So maybe it’s not Tuesday here yet but at the risk of posting late due to things getting busy (not that things ever get out of hand in our home) I’m putting this up now.  By the time you see this it will most likely be Tuesday – OR it already is Tuesday FOR YOU! 

Though this photo isn’t technically impressive and likely isn’t the sweetest shot I got in the last week, it does represent how truly sweet it was to be able to take a personal getaway last weekend.  Just me.  No hubs.  No kids.  No pressing matters.  Just me, a hotel room, my camera, my laptop and my knitting.  And, clearly, a bed worthy of jumping on.

To participate in Sweet Shot Tuesday, head on over to My 3 Boybarians and follow the directions to post and link up.  And even if you don’t post about it still head on over and check out the pics people have put up.  They’re great! 

Sweet Shot Tuesday

My favorite photo meme, SOOC Saturday, hasn’t run in a while so I was very excited to learn about Sweet Shot Tuesday from My 3 Boybarians.  Here is my first offering:

It is very easy to participate.  Post a picture on your blog or flickr then go to the Sweet Shot post and link up.  Then the real fun begins, go check out other people’s sweet shots!  Comment, love, encourage, be inspired, have fun!