Diet Coke with Lime

Just When I Was About To Quit

William recevied an Indiana Jones hat and whip for Christmas from Santa.

He looked so cute, I just had to get a picture.

So I tried to get a nice natural light shot, but this was all I was getting...

...blurry messes.

I kept trying different settings, hand holds, etc. but nothing seemed to work.

But then, with just an ounce of paitence mixed with an ISO adjustment...

I got this!

...and this!

 

Not sure which I like better and neither really show my little Indiana Jones.

But I don't care, sometime the best photos - or at least the ones I like the most - just happen.

...like a gift from the man upstairs.

A Little Slice of Heaven

I took these photographs one day just before my morning laps. Although I'm not sure five stokes, flip... five stokes, flip... is technically laps. Maybe I should just call it my morning dip.

Everyone else was sleeping and the sun was just peeking over the house next door.

It is my favorite time to take a dip. Having a pool of my own has always been a dream of mine. I love swimming - the feeling of being totally surrounded by water - it is exhilarating for me.

This particular morning, as I stood about to dive in the pool, I noticed something different. The colors all around me were extra vibrant. I ran inside and grabbed my camera. 

It started with the blue of the pool water and then the greens... and reds...

As I walked around, I couldn't believe I was in the middle of a desert.

Everything was glowing...

The sun made the water from the sprinklers dance in mid-air.

I was in heaven. Bear was in heaven.

(Bear is the name of our redwood dog... get it? You always see carved bears, so when we ran across a carved dog, we bought him, took him home, and named him Bear.)

Speaking of dogs, Charlie joined me this morning as he always does.

He always follows right behind me.

Well, until he sees a rabbit... or a gopher... or a gecko... or a...

Silly little dog. Doesn't he know he's a perfect 100 calorie snack for a coyote?!

I hope he survives living in the desert. He's such a cool dog.

See that plant next to Charlie? It's called an Ocotillo. It is one of my favorite desert plants. Sometimes they just look like dead sticks stuck in the ground, but give them some water and voila...

They become alive.

I read that they even bloom beautiful red flowers in the spring. I can't wait.

And these Peacock Flowers...

While they are always beautiful...

This morning they were on fire.

Especially against the clear blue sky.

I couldn't photoshop such brilliant colors. (Now that's a brand... Photoshop... it started as a software program and it's now a verb! Where would be be if we couldn't photoshop a photo or google a word?)

Anyway, back to my yard... and my Queen Palm...

It all was just... a little slice of heaven.

There is Hope

I am the proud mother of two boys - Jack and his younger brother, William.

I am also a typical mother who has tons of photos of her first child, and just a scattered few of the second. I took the time to photograph Jack in different artist ways. Many of those photographs are hanging in frames around the house. There are none of William.

So I feel guilty. I have felt guilty for a long time.

Five years later, almost six now, I am still agonizing that I take more, and the one I did take were, well, average in my book. So yesterday, I looked through some old photos to see if any of my new editing techniques could bring them to life. Here's what I came up with.

This is William at the Denver Children's Museum. I liked the composition, his face, and his eyes... oh, those eyes make me melt.

Nice photo, but it's a bit dreary.

And I don't like the color of the cork floor.

I tried a quick conversion to black and white. Oh, I love black and whites... which is really grayscale but we won't get into that now.

Blah. Muddy. Dull.

I went to work...

A little Lightroom adjustments,

a lot of Photoshop work,

and voila!

William.

My baby.

My beautiful baby boy.

Then some black and white adjustments in SilverFX and...

...it's a wall hanger!

Amazing what technology can do.

There is hope.