Two boys- one having fun at home, one having fun at preschool!
Day 324- Henry and Mr. Frog
Henry had his first experience with my puppet apron this morning while his brother and mama were at preschool. This relic from my preschool teaching days when my own children were small has five pockets, each with a puppet which goes along with a song. At Henry’s age, Miles would sit quietly and do all the motions with each song. We knew this wouldn’t be the case with Henry the whirlwind. He loved the puppets- but especially loved taking them in and out of the pockets (Nite-nite, monkeys!). Here he is playing with Mr. Frog.
Day 323- Gym Time
We spent much of the morning at the community center gym, which is filled with equipment for the kids. It is in the same building as Miles’ preschool, so Caitlin was able to get a bit of work done too. Miles’ favorite activity right now is swinging on the rope; Henry likes the balls and being pulled around on the scooter board. Both boys had a great time playing firefighters and hiding from “bad guys”.
Happy Henry!
Miles is so proud of being able to swing on the rope.
“The bad guys are hiding under here, Henry!”
Day 322- Field Trip
Family outings these days require two vehicles- Justin, Miles, Papa, and the dogs in the truck and Caitlin, Henry, and I in the Subaru. We drove east through the park, stopping a few times to photograph bison and finally getting out so the boys could climb on the rocks.
The obligatory Yellowstone bison photo:
Brothers!
Miles and Papa:
Day 321- Grandbaby Love
We’re here!
Miles is his Papa’s biggest fan and is seldom more than a foot away from him. He has grown up quite a bit since September- and is currently obsessed with his office supplies (checkbook, business cards, lists etc.). We gave both boys some new clothes, and Miles quickly cut off the tags- not because he wanted to wear the clothes, but because he needed them to add to his business cards.
Here are the two best buds:
Henry is still his exuberant, active, friendly, talkative self- at absolutely the cutest stage ever. His language skills have grown even more since we last saw him; every thought that goes through his head is immediately expressed. Miles was an observer and a thinker at this age (he still is). Henry is an explorer and a talker. And, like his mother always said, he says “I do it myself.” And like his Uncle Matt, he puts on his boots , says, “I go to work,”and walks out the door. The latest home improvement project is latches for the doors.
Henry is trying on some new clothes in this photo; he is trying to figure out the buttons.
Photography note: I am SOOOO glad to have the external flash for this visit. I remember my frustration last Thanksgiving getting my exposure correct. There was no way I could have taken photos inside in the late afternoon today without flash. The sun was so low in the sky even at 3:30 that I would have been using maximum ISO for every shot.
Day 320- P U R P L E
What to photograph?????
Well, the theme is purple, it’s lunchtime, so here we go . . .
Confession: my yogurt wasn’t purple today. It was pink (strawberry banana). So I changed it in Lightroom. Shhhh- don’t tell Flickr!
Day 319- Grain and Me
There are so many aspects of photography that I still don’t understand. One of them is the whole area of noise and grain. About half the time, I remember to use the noise reduction feature of Lightroom to reduce the noise in photos I have shot at a high ISO- but I often forget. And then there is the whole sharpening issue- I don’t totally get all of that either.
Today’s topic in my daily challenge group is grain. The photos posted so far have been wood grain or grain as in wheat, but I decided to interpret it as grain as referred to in photography. I’ve always been a bit very confused about the difference between noise and grain- especially because I’ve heard them referred to interchangeably. Noise always seems to be a BAD thing; we use noise reduction to get rid of it! But grain is sometimes added to photos to simulate the look of old film photos or movies. There is actually a slider in Lightroom to ADD grain. I googled noise and grain today to find out once and for all what the difference is. As I understand it, noise happens in digital photos that are taken at a high ISO (knew that. . .), is regular in shape and size (1 pixel) and can include color noise (horrible!). Grain is irregular- no color (I think it’s actually silver) and more pleasing to the eye. That’s as much as I care to know.
I haven’t done a selfie in awhile, so decided to do a grainy self-portrait. This isn’t a very scientific demonstration, because I took the photo early this morning in low light with a high ISO (1000)- so there is digital noise already in the photo- especially because it was underexposed.
Here I am with no grain added and some noise reduction applied (there is still some digital noise present, alas- in the shadows especially). And, for my friends who know that I ALWAYS re-touch photos (skin-smoothing etc.), I DID NOT do any of that in these photos in order to not mess up the scientific results! 🙂
And here I am with LOTS of added grain. At first I added grain by adjusting the Lightroom grain slider- eventually to maximum. But to really show OBVIOUS grain, I ended up using a preset. I’m not sure WHAT it did, but yes, it is really grainy. Not sure this is pleasing to the eye, but I’m considering that it could potentially hide wrinkles!
UPDATE: I just looked carefully at the sliders in Lightroom to see what the preset actually did to make the photo so grainy. It not only pushed the amount of graininess way up, but also increased the size and roughness of the grain (I had ignored that part).
Actual settings for grain:
amount: 79, size: 47, roughness: 100
Just in case you want to try this at home!
Day 318- Sunset on the Strait
For the last few years, my husband and I have developed some routines (old people routines, our kids would say). One of them is Taco Tuesday- actually Taco SALAD Tuesday. We thought we had invented this until our son informed us that Taco Tuesday is a real thing- at least in San Diego. Anyway, we almost always have our Tuesday night dinner at Sandovals downtown and often schedule it around watching the sunset down by the water.
Lots of sunflare here- yikes!
The last photo is textured with Kim Klassen’s kk_printed texture- at very low opacity.
Day 317 Bottom of the Barrel?
I am coming to the end of my second year of my Project 365. Next year, although I will still continue posting photos to this blog, I am not committing to taking a photo a day. This decision is based on days like today, when I am busy, the creative well is dry, and my easiest option is going with one of the daily challenges.
Today I am using yesterday’s challenge, which is hair. Good thing my husband got a haircut today. . .
Today the sunflowers get thrown away, so here is a bonus macro sunflower shot.
Day 316- Fall Color
My neighbors have beautiful fall color in their front yard; my intention today was to capture some of it as winter is fast approaching. I did manage to snap a few photos for this layout before my toes totally froze in my Birkenstocks. I need to get my winter clothes out for our trip, as the temperature at Yellowstone is zero today!
Day 315- The Wall
The theme of my challenge group is walls today, so I set out in search of some photoworthy walls. My husband actually pointed out these shadows of the railing onto the low concrete wall down by the waterfront today- he’s good that way! I took a few more street photography type shots, but really like the lines of this one, one of the first photos I took. I’m giving the credit to Lonnie- it was his suggestion!
Day 314- Sunflower Triptych
I bought sunflowers earlier in the week and didn’t photograph them. I have sooooo many photos of sunflowers, so just couldn’t seem to compose a shot in a new way. So, I ended up doing split-toned black and white conversions- which I like- but it does seem to ignore the whole essence of sunflowers . . .
Day 313- Pumpkin Muffins
Don’t worry- they are Weight Watchers (2 points, if you remember to eat just one. . .). 🙂
Day 312- Baby Borrowing
It’s ten more days before I get to see my own grand-babies, so I borrowed my friend, Debbie’s new grandson, Trevor! His mama, Marissa brought him over today, and I got to hold him and take photos!
Can you believe that hair?
And those eyes!!!
I know he’s a big baby (over 9 pounds), but his feet look so tiny in his mama’s hands!
He is such a doll- I think I’m going to have to insist on photographing him again!
Day 311- Tuesday- Textured and Not
I am linking up with Kim Klassen’s Texture Tuesday again- one of my favorite photography/artsy things to do! The theme today was to choose a favorite photo, textured or not. A couple days ago I ordered a 16X20 metallic print of one of my photos of the Point Arena lighthouse, which I took on our trip to Mendocino last month. I would never have ordered anything so huge normally, but the print came as a freebie with Matt Kloskowski’s Lightroom 4 Kelby Training seminar, which I’m attending next month with my photo buddy, Carol. I did not add a texture for the print- especially because of it being printed on metallic paper and not being sure of how that would do with the texture. I haven’t had many photos printed and feel a little out of my element making printing decisions.
But for today, I did add a texture, Kim’s dusty rose at 40% and masked off the lighthouse. I really like what the subtle texture does to the photo. Pay a visit to Kim Klassen’s Cafe to see some beautiful textured photos by other photographers!
I also took some photos for the topic, circles, for my Daily Challenge Flickr group. I was uninspired, but decided I liked the bokeh circles best.
melinda anderson photography 