Sweet Shot Tuesday & Project 365 - Day 3

Canon Rebel xti ... ISO 200 ... Shutter Speed: 1/400 ... f1/5.6 ... 100mm 2.8L Macro lens ... PSE9

After running several adjustment layers (layers and brightness/contrast), I used to MCP's Touch of Light/Touch of Darkness and added one photo veil and one photo texture, both from Love That Shot.

To view more sweet shots:

365 - Day 2

The challenge with a project such as 365 is to make everyday things come to life through pictures. There are many days in the course of a year where nothing exciting happens and so it's difficult to find something interesting to capture. My goal is to not worry about capturing something exciting, but to capture our life as it is ... interesting or not.

Day two's picture (which was actually taken yesterday) is of a K'nex set that my middle son, Matthew, is building. He has always been the builder in our family and he constantly amazes me with his ability to look at a picture of something and figure out how it's put together. He definitely has an engineering mind - something he got from his Daddy and not me!

And because I know myself, I've decided to also take part in p52, a less ambitious one photo a week project sponsored by Darcy at Life With My 3 Boybarians, the same site that sponsors the weekly Sweet Shot Tuesday challenges that I like to participate in. I have no grand illusions that I will actually be able to post one picture a day for an entire year (although I'm going to at least try and take one picture a day), but I should be able to at least post one picture a week. We shall see...

Project 365 - Day 1

I've decided to attempt a Project 365 this year - a project where I will try and take at least one picture a day. Right from the beginning I'll admit that there will be days that I miss, but I'm going to do my best to get as many days done as I can. My hope is by the end, not only will I have a photographic journal of our year, but that I will also learn to be more creative and improve my photography skills.

Picture #1 was taken yesterday at my husband's family Christmas. We always gather the weekend after Christmas either in our hometown or in Ohio and are joined by two generations of cousins, my husbands aunts & uncles, siblings and parents as well as his precious 95 year old Grandma. She is the center of this family and the reason so many in the family make the effort to attend this annual Christmas celebration. We don't know how many more years we have with Grandma, which is why I cherish this special picture of my husband and his Grandma holding hands.

Sweet Shot Tuesday

It's official ... the orchid just might be my new favorite flower! When the flowers don't come to you because it's cold and snowy and wintery, you have to go to the flowers. This past weekend we took the family to visit the amazing Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan where orchids were in abundance. I could've taken hundreds of pictures of them because they were gorgeous!

Camera: Canon Rebel xti

Lens: Canon Macro EF 100 mm 2.8L

ISO 800 ... f/5.6 ... no flash ... WB: daylight

Edited in PSE7

For more sweet shots, visit:

It's a Bokeh Party!

The same site that hosts Sweet Shot Tuesday is also hosting a holiday bokeh party today. And since I absolutely love bokeh, I just had to join in the fun.

This first one is of the garland hanging on our banister...


And the second is of one of my favorite Christmas decorations. My mom painted this sweet nativity scene when I was a kid and I love setting it out each year.

For both shots, settings are as follows:

ISO 800

Shutter speed: 1/20

Aperature: f/2.8

No flash

Auto WB

Edited in PSE7

To see more beautiful holiday bokeh shots, visit:

Sweet Shot Tuesday

I'm totally in awe of the uniqueness and beauty of each snowflake...

Canon Rebel xti ... ISO 200 ... 1/80 ... f/5.60 ... 100 mm (macro) ... auto WB ... no flash

Edited in PSE7 ... Texture from Love That Shot

I {Heart} Faces: Fix-it-Friday

I LOVE Fix-it-Fridays and was so looking forward to having a photo to practice on after taking a break last week for Thanksgiving.

This picture is adorable! It makes me want to get a cute chair and take my daughter out for a photo shoot ... once the weather gets warmer of course.

Here's the photo SOOC:



And here's my edit (done in PSE7):

Isn't she a cutie? I'm loving her adorable outfit too!

I ran some various layer adjustments (levels, brightness/contrast) before running a creative action from Everyday Elements and adding a few photo veils from Love That Shot. I think when I first started learning how to edit, I went overboard and took the photo to a place where it didn't look natural anymore, so I've been trying to practice the "less is more" philosophy in my editing process lately. I like the sweet feel of this edit.

Thanks for stopping by!