Race

Mark was in a bicycle race yesterday. He came in eighth!



Here he is, on the right, kind of at the back of the pack. This was at the beginning of the race.




Mark's number was 123.





Struggling up the hill on the last lap, getting close to the finish.








After all the effort, he was still smiling.

Sunflowers

I know it has been a while. I have been taking pictures, but I have not continued to do a new type of picture each month. In May (or was it June?) when I was doing portraits I found myself seeing things that would make good pictures and thinking, "Well, but it's not a portrait" and then not taking the picture. Also, we've had a lot going on and other priorities, so I have not spent a lot of time on photography this summer.



That's not to say I haven't been taking pictures, however. The part I haven't been spending time on is the uploading, editing and posting. So I will try to get caught up in the coming weeks by posting pictures I've taken this summer. I'm starting with these sunflower shots which I took just this week. Hope you like them.

"Dye Dye" to My Thursday Girl

Those of you who followed my blog last year remember that for the last couple of years I have babysat the daughter of my good friends (I used to watch her on Thursdays, hence "Thursday Girl"). Well, those good friends are moving to Chicago, and despite all my pleas, they are taking their daughter with them (I have tears in my eyes as I write this...)





I took this picture of the two of us so she could keep it in her room and hopefully remember me. I'm sure there will be visits, but I will miss her and her parents terribly.





Those of you who have been around young children who are learning how to talk may have figured out the title of this post translates to "Bye bye"--for some reason C., although she can make the B sound, says goodbye like this. (At first I spelled it "Die Die" but I thought that might be a little startling for the title of a blog)

Friends

My good friends just had a baby in April, and when she was about four weeks old I went to take some family portraits. This photo shoot was when I really decided that portraits was not a good way to start my second year of pictures. Portraits involve people, and technically portraits involve people who know you are taking pictures of them (as opposed to candid shots of people, which,at this point in my photographic adventure, I much prefer over formal portraits).

Again I tried to use my tripod, and again I was very uncomfortable. There is too much fiddling that needs to be done to get things just right. With an audience, I think it would have been easier to hold the camera and use a good flash to prevent blur.

After this shoot I thought I would be lucky if I ended up with even one picture that I liked. Although none of them turned out to be the beautiful family portrait I was hoping I would get, I did get some pictures that I felt weren't too bad to post.

Goodwill Style Show

The Goodwill in our area has lots of vintage and antique clothing going all the way back to the late 1800s, and to raise money they put on style shows for various events. My mother-in-law volunteers as a model every now and then, and in May I went along to a church women's tea to take some portraits.

It was fun to see all the clothes, but I think my favorite part of taking these pictures was learning about Photoshop Elements. I have a book that gives all kinds of tips for touching up portraits or other photos, and I spent lots of time editing (which is partly why it has taken me so long to get these posted).

I set up my tripod to get some nice portraits just before the models went out to the "catwalk" (really they just walked around the tables where the ladies were sitting).

It was kind of hectic. The models had to get dressed quickly because many of them were modelling several outfits. I wasn't very comfortable with my tripod (it's still pretty new), so I was feeling nervous. I think I would have done better using my nice flash and hand-holding the camera. Because things were happening so quickly, I ended up just using the built-in flash, and I had to edit several strange-looking shadows out of some of the pictures.

Eventually I moved over to the window so I could use the blue curtain as a backdrop. I think this worked much better than the wall.

Don't Give Up On Me

I wanted to let everyone know that I have been taking pictures, but I haven't had time to edit them and get them posted yet. In fact, I've had two photo sessions since my last post, but I've been working on getting my pictures from China organized and edited before we see family next weekend. So keep checking--there will be some portraits to see soon!

Another Favorite

I forgot to include this picture in my first post from a couple of days ago. Not only do I think it is a good portrait, but it is probably the picture I am the most proud of from my Photo Dilettante project. I took it while visiting Mark's sister in China. I asked these men if I could take their picture (just by pointing to my camera and nodding, since we didn't speak each other's language), and they agreed.

M&M

One challenge in doing portraits is that I not only have to take the time to go out and shoot, but I have to get other people to take time to let me take pictures of them. We've had a lot going on in the last week and I didn't have time to coordinate with anyone, so I just took pictures of us.

These are nice pictures of the two of us, but they aren't anything special, artistically speaking. It was good practice though. Using these pictures I learned how to do some fun stuff in Photoshop Elements. I'm not sure I want to tell you what, though--can you tell what has been manipulated here? I tried to be pretty subtle with the changes, so hopefully they're not obvious.

I took some pictures of myself in front of a beautiful lilac bush, and even got brave enough to ask a nice couple walking by if I could their picture. I promised them I wouldn't show anyone, but I thought they did turn out pretty good. So, Mr. Y., if you happen to be reading this and would like to leave a comment giving your permission, I'd love to post your picture...

For now, though, here's one of me.

Portraits

The month of May will be devoted to portraits. I hope to post at least once a week. Unlike my previous blog, I won't limit the number of photos I can post at a time. I'll just pick out the best ones from each session.



May hasn't officially started, but I figured I'd post some of my favorite portraits from the last year, just to get us in the mood.