Week Ten, Black and White

I just love Black and White photos, they have that timeless feel to them. And I was blessed with the perfect opportunity when Riley curled up and went to sleep in one of our new dining chairs in the perfect bit of light. I just love this shot!

And then I had to try out a splash photo, hubby kindly helped with this by dropping coins into a glass of milk that was on a mirror with a bit of black card behind to reflect black in the mirror.

Week Three - Childhood Memories

This weeks 52 Week Photo Challenge subject was Childhood Memories. It's funny the little things we keep as objects from our childhood and the memories we keep and those traditions of childhood that we pass on to our own kids.

Last year I did the 365 Project, for those that don't know this is where you take a photo a day for a whole year. It might not sound that hard but boy it is, it's challenging, very very very challengin and some days when you are rushed off your feet it's hard to find that time to get that shot and it's so easy to just think; "No more, I give up!". But I didn't, I perserveered and I completed it. And I'm proud. Very proud.

It's been nicknamed The Year I drove The Family Mad, but I hope (and I sort of know) that in a way it's looked upon with a smile and with fondness and I know already that Callum loves the memories of it all, heck he even told me this morning how he missed the project. At the end of the Project I made a little video up of all the shots I got of the boys throughout the year. One day I will get round to getting it put on disc and printing up the photos for them and I hope in years to come they will look at it as childhood memories. Anyway enough about that, that was last year and this is this year and a new project and new photos and new memories!!!

I had (and hopefully will be able to get the photos) so many ideas of what to photograph. I won't mention them at the moment with the hope I'll be able to update this with them in and what they mean to me.

I do however have this shot:

It's of my youngest son, Riley, and his greatest love... CARS!!!! What is it with boys and cars? I bet every grown man can still remember and has plenty of stories to tell about when they were younger and their favourite toy car or train or aeroplane. And I'm sure my boys will be the same. Callum can still remember the day we brought down his big bucket of cars and tipped them out and sorted them into colours and counted them.

What 326 cars look like

He still asks if we can do it again and we have done so but with a two year old now here it isn't so easy. But Callum still talks fondly of that day. And I'm sure there will be a day when I'll do the same thing with Riley, heck as I'm typing this I'm playing cars and aeroplanes with him.

As mentioned I do have other ideas for photos and I'll see if I can get around to taking them but with this week being busy with the last week of school and more important this weekend being Callum's Birthday I've had a lot going on.

Another Childhood Memory... Action Figures!

Week Two - Animals - Dash Dog

Pets have always featued in my life, from the old family cat Worms, to Milligan the Red Setter dog I remember us having when I was a kid and who was forever escaping out of the back garden and heading over to the fields over the road from my parents, to my very own first dog Whiskey. It is the same for my hubby too. So when we lived in our  old flat it seemed very strange not having any animals. Enter Merlin. Actually it's probably best not to mention Merlin. That cat was completely insane and grown men were petrified of him. Sadly a month before my eldest son Callum was born we had to have Merlin put to sleep, he went feral on us and the vet when hubby and I and this huge bump turned up to have him look at Merlin said he couldn't let me go home with him as he wouldn't like to think what the cat would do to a newborn baby. So at only five years old we had to have Merlin put to sleep, not an easy thing to do anytime but even harder when pregnant and for all those years that little animal had been your own sort of little baby.

It was hard after Merlin to think of getting any more pets and we were sworn off cats. And then we had Callum and our life was taken over by our handsome and full of energy little boy. Eventually Callum wanted a pet and he asked for a pet fish. That was the first of many fish but Spider-fish lasted a good length of time for a goldfish. After a while we added to Spiderfish and got two more, these were called Toot and Beep and I have to say I have very very fond memories of those two, I never knew goldfish could have so much personality but those two certainly did. And they lasted us for many years and even moved home with us.

Then in 2008 my parents came home from Ireland with a birthday present for me... and I also learnt a good lesson, never jokingly tell my Mum to bring me a puppy home for my birthday... BECAUSE SHE DID!!!!

Dash Dog

So we had this adorable little puppy and even though shocked and totally not prepared for him we fell in love. It was great too for Callum to have a puppy, I think every little boy needs a best friend Dog. I won't lie and say they are the best of friends, Callum and Dash have a Love Hate relationship but they have had some great memories. And that little puppy has grown up with the same speed (and size!) that Callum has.

The Dash Dog loves to stand/sit on anything and everything. Sometimes though he isn't so good at working out how to get down. lol 

Just like both my boys, Dash Dog also loves toy cars although he find them more tasty than playful. 

Then when it looked like we were settling into the life of two adults, one child, one dog along came our Little Smiley Riley, my youngest son.

"Great! What is this?!?!"

 Now Riley and Dash have a completely different relationship to Callum and Dash Dog. Dash has always seen Callum as competition, the one to try and beat to go up the ladder of important people in the house (yes he is a very silly dog!). But with Riley he doesn't seem to have that, it probably helps that as soon as he could move and do so Riley has always been happy to share everything with Dash Dog. My FIL who does dog training said from the beginning how different the relationships would be and I never doubted him but it's been amazing to see.  I think if anything the Boy and Best Friend role will be between Riley and Dash and I fully expect that in years to come it'll be Riley (because even though he is adorably cute and gorgeous he is a Lil Devil) that will be letting Dash Dog upstairs to sleep in his bedroom with him. I can imagine that the two of them will have many many adventures and I hope too that Callum will be involved. 

But I think that first Callum will need to learn not to decorate Dash Dog.......

Dash Dog as The Joker

Oh and I did take another photo for the 52 Week Photo Challenge but thought it more fitting to do this week about Dash Dog, we do have another pet, our cat Rorschach aka Rory but I am sure over the next year I will get to talk aob

Rory Cat

Dead Bug I found.

Click

Sometimes I edit a photo and the next day I forgot what exactly I did editing wise. In most cases I do keep the PSD file as well as a jpeg but this is fast filling up my external harddrive. So I'm going to try and make a note of what editing I did as a reference and so I don't always have to keep the PSD file as well as the original RAW file and the JPEG. So to start off here are some photos I took yesterday of my youngest son Riley out in the garden enjoying the much needed sunshine. Riley has lately become a little attached to my little point and shoot Nikon camera and yesterday while out in the garden he wanted to take a few shots, so it was only natural that I take some of him taking shots of what he wanted. 

Here are the photos unedited:

Nothing (imo) much wrong with the photos I just wanted a little touch up though.


Here is the first one edited:

And here is what I did, the layers run from bottom to top like this:

• Background (no editing done on this layer)

• Ctrl J to duplicate background (you don't have to do this but I like a back up duplicate incase little fingers decide to go editing without me knowing, when you have finished and are happy you are more than welcome to delete this layer or just keep it in)

• Photo Filter (Warming Filter 81) 50% Density, preserve luminosity, 75% opacity

• Colour Fill - colour blue (1a2274), Exclusion blending mode, Opacity to taste but in this case I used 75%

• Ctrl J on original background layer and move to top, 33% but this is down to taste and then you can use this layer for any dodging, burning, sponge to taste.

• Levels Adjustment Layer From right to left 23 - 1.14 - 229 and for  Output 19-255

• I then saved the PSE 10 document and online opened up the JPEG version in the website picmonkey where I used the Burst (vibrant) icon on 14% to add just a little vibrancy to the shot. Then saved at the largest size I could.

 And here is the second photo edited:

It is edited identically to the first apart from the Colour Fill layer where it is 52% opacity.

And that is it, nothing major but to me makes the photos more to my liking.

Sunglasses Smiles

The other week while out shopping I picked up this fab pair of sunglasses (at a bargain price of £1). Not long after coming home I found my youngest son Riley sitting on a chair in our dining room watching his tv shows wearing them happy as larry. Luckily the camera was in the same room and I managed to snap off a couple shots of him in them. I just love the absolutely cheeky cuteness of him here. Also I bought myself a hat which he then saw and pointed to and said photo, who can resist a request like that:

A Sprinkling of Sunshine

As already mentioned in a previous post (http://snwhitephotography.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/lashings-of-lashes.html) I am taking part in an online photoraphy course. For Module 2 we were set the task to take a Head and Shoulders Portrait photo with the suggestion of it being outside and in the shade. Here is my entry. I need to give a big thumbs up to my eldest son Callum who even though we were having a heatwave braved the very cold water of the hose for this shot. More photos can be viewed here.