Point and Shoot

This is the first post in a long time that isn't going to be about cooking or crafting. I had a little fun over the weekend pretending to be a professional photographer when a friend wanted a few shots of her family for Christmas gifts. Jerusalem Mill village, just across the Baltimore County line in Harford County, was the setting. And I guess I knew I was on the right track, when I showed up at about 10am last Saturday on a perfectly partially sunny day to find four other actual professional photographers shooting all over the place.

I wish I had more time to work on my photography skills, and maybe get back to shooting fully manually all the time, but lack of brain power (full time job, toddler, crafting and cooking, etc) sometimes leads to shooting with those little camera presets. I also want to do a better job of photos for tutorials and other projects I post on the blog. Lighting is always an issue, since it's usually 10pm when I'm doing these things. I'm going to work on improving those in the future.  I find lots of inspiration online from other non-professional photographers who enjoy playing around with their cameras as I do, as well as from others who are professional and who are amazing.

So here are my shots....

And then after I got seriously carried away in Photoshop...

I think they (the "before" shots) turned out pretty well! And I can see how easy it could be to use Photoshop for evil instead of good. In my defense, I never get to do anything fun in Photoshop at work and I rarely have the time to go nuts with my own photos.

BUT before you leave, be sure to check out a fun new blog by one of my favorite 6 year olds. It promises to be VERY entertaining.....

I am six years old. I have a blog. Check out my saw.

...maybe even a little scary. I'm pretty sure that you'll learn something.

Over the Weekend

We went down to the Hampton Roads area over the weekend, visiting friends and family. Here are some of the photos. I guess I'm going to attempt to manage a Flikr album now!

A Day of Play

On Saturday, Kirk had to attend to a work-related project so we visited a wetland in Delaware that he designed and was constructed in the last year. I did tromp through the grass with my flip-flops on (hello? we were going to the beach later) and managed to have my Starbucks in hand for a photo. Needless to say, I leave all this biology stuff to Kirk. I'm more of a bricks and pavement kind of girl.

I did finally make it to Rehobeth Beach in Delaware and had a mighty fine time. The weather was quite nice, not too hot. And it was breezy, but that was okay. The water is still too cold for my southern self.

New York City

After Cambridge, I had a "lay-over" in New York City. I always try to work those in when I can! Below are some of the various photos I took during my adventures in the city. They're part of an on-going collection of what my husband refers to as: "Amy's Collection of Photographs of all the Building Facades in Manhattan". I would like to note that not ALL of these photos are of buildings, thank you very much.

Cambridge

I was recently in Cambridge (end of July) for a work-related course (Charrette Planning, National Charrette Institute). It was hosted by the Graduate School of Design at Harvard. Here are some of the photos I took when I had a few spare moments away from class. Cambridge was quite a lovely little college town. The weather was very pleasant while I was there (especially given that it was July). I had lots of fun!

Very first post

So, I'm taking a stab at creating a blog. It's something I've been wanting to do for awhile now but haven't had the chance to start. I like that my shoes match my blog (see heading photo)! I'm not sure what all I'm going to be posting but I'm pretty sure it's going to involve adventures in photography, travel, Roan, random craft experiments, a little baking here and there, and my Sadie Priss jewelry designs. Obviously, I'm doing this entirely to entertain MYSELF. :)