This week Cari’s photography challenge for Theme Thursday is green. I am glad because it’s been such a busy week, not to mention all the excitement with our new Holy Father! At least I didn’t have to search far for green.
Freshly mowed greens at the Pebble Beach Golf Course.
Green trees at sunset in my in-laws back yard.
The green plants are getting a burst of Lenten color.
Thanks to Cari for hosting!
Cari’s photography challenge Theme Thursday is all about piles this week. Wow, if that word does not describe my house, I don’t know what does. Piles of laundry. Piles of mail. Piles of dirty dishes. Piles of messy toys, the bane of my existence. However, Theme Thursday is supposed to be fun and those photos would be a little depressing to photograph without a cool “after” photo to go with it. Instead, I looked for piles of things in each room that weren’t necessarily messy. (I also tried to add red to most of them.) Here’s what I found.
In the Kitchen
I had fresh baked cookies so I piled them up with a cup of coffee.
( Disclaimer: Some cookies may or may not have been consumed during this photo shoot. ;-))
(UPDATE: Please see the P.S. photo below for clarification about the neat house I keep.)
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In the Family Room
A pile of books on the bookcase.
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In the Boys’ Room
John-Paul was ecstatic to make me a pile of Star Wars Angry Birds .
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In Bella’s Room
A pile of video games on Bella’s dresser.
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In the Master Bedroom
On the dresser is a pile of my Lenten aids.
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In the Bathroom
On the bathroom counter is a pile of my paper bead bracelets from Uganda.
(I think this was my favorite shot. I love the colors. :-))
A big thanks to Cari for hosting another fun theme!
UPDATE: PS – I had to laugh when I read the comment from Christie @ Everything to Someone. She said, ” Your piles are so straight and pretty, and I don’t detect any clutter in the peripherals! I am duly impressed (I can’t say the same for myself!)” Well, it’s all how you position the camera…not to mention using your arm or your foot to make a clean sweep on the junk before you take the photo. Need proof? Here is the same counter from the first photo with the cookies. If I moved the camera over a little you would have seen all this too!
So there you go. The unairbrushed version. 😉
Today I am linking up with Cari for Theme Thursday: Architecture. Cari was talking about different online editing tool and she recommended PicMonkey. I tried it out and loved it a lot more than the other online editor I was using. I used PicMonkey for all the photos below.
I chose the Carmel Mission for my subject since I love the old missions and this one is near and dear to my heart. (This is where Brian and I were married and where our children were baptized.) It was a gloomy day and there was construction going on as they rebuild the roof and make everything earthquake safe. I also didn’t have time to go on the grounds so I just snapped a few photos of the basilica through the gate and around the chapel.
Looking in from the gate.
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Using the first photo, I cropped it and used the Cinerama filter.
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Using the first photo, I cropped it and used the Urbane filter.
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From the first photo, window detail.
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On the wall near the chapel.
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The patio in front of the chapel.
Above the chapel door. Daguerreotype filter.
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The water font in the chapel. Burst filter.
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The patio of the rectory. I don’t usually like foo-foo frames but this was pretty.
I hope you enjoyed it!
Today I am linking up with Cari for Theme Thursday. I was happy that the subject was trees since yesterday I started walking again and took my favorite trail.
Although Cari and many of the other bloggers linking up actually know something about photography and are quite talented, they have kindly allowed us wanna-be’s to participate. I admit that I love photography and I’ve always had an interest in it but I’ve never gotten beyond a point and shoot camera. I’ve wanted to buy a big girl camera but always hesitate because I seriously know nothing about apertures and ISO’s and UFO’s and macro something or other. I’m lost.
However, Cari lit a fire under my butt and I dug out my old Canon Power Shot SD4000 and was determined to switch out of auto and fiddle a little with manual mode. Don’t judge. Baby steps, people.
Okay, the first three shots were taken with my iphone. These are the actual photos. No filters used.
Now this is the part when I was trying to find the macro setting on the camera, which was a comedy act in itself. I finally found the little tulip icon and tried to get a couple of shots of the branches.
If you look closely, you can see spider web strands to the right.
The branch is not centered on this one but I liked the contrast of the large blurred tree in the back.
I must admit that playing around with the camera was fun and it made me want to go find those tutorials Cari mentioned so I could learn some of the basic terminology. Who knew that raw had nothing to do with red meat? 😉
Thanks again to Cari for hosting. I can’t wait to see everyone’s take on the theme!
Hosted by Like Mother, Like Daughter
Today’s {p, h, f, r} will be joined with Dwija’s fun 2012 in 12 Photos. Enjoy!
{pretty, happy, funny, & real}
2012 was the year of embracing being a mom and homemaker. I worked on organizing my cluttered house and started the year clearing off Mama’s corner.
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In February we had a stay-cation and visited Pebble Beach.
The view from our deck in March. You’ll often find the fog rolling in from the ocean until it completely covers the hills behind us.
In April our little Matthew (aka Matty) celebrated his 1st birthday. 🙂
In May I started walking more and found the beach to be one of my favorite spots.
In June we went to Point Lobos for Andrew’s birthday. I held back a tear as three of the kids walked hand in hand.
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We love our family walks. This little path in the woods makes one think they’ll come across a hobbit or an elf.
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In August my sisters visited us and we had a fun day at the beach with the kids.
In September the three eldest went back to school. This “mama” rose and “baby” rose reminded me of Matthew and I spending our last year ( or two) at home alone before he’s off to school too.
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In October we were visited by three awesome munchkin superheroes – Spidey, Captain America and Thor.
In November we visited my family in So Cal and made our annual Disneyland trip.
On December 8, Feast of the Immaculate Conception, I launched the new Revolution of Blog site. 🙂
That was fun! Next week for Making It Count Tuesday I’ll write about how I used my 2012 {p, h, f, r} photos to make a Shutterfly photo book. Come back and check it out. 🙂