Shoot & Edit: Up

Hey there.....remember me? lol

Things have been nutty in my neck of the woods. I've been shooting/editing like CRAZY.....I started this fitness routine that has me walking every, single day for miles.....and.....AND.....

I got a puppy :)


Meet Ruhe! (Ruhe is german for Serenity)

He's a Rotty-Lab mix with the sweetest personality you could ever ask for.

Besides that, we're had tornados where I live lately. Now, one of the reasons I live where I live and put up with our crazy long winters, is because we DON'T get tornados here. Or Hurricanes. Or Earthquakes. We have Blizzards. I'm cool with Blizzards. It's my natural disaster of choice. We buy some extra food, bunker down, wait for it to pass, and then dig out. Some branches are probably down afterwards, we may lose power for a few hours.....but usually there's no widespread destruction, no rebuilding, no death count. So, needless to say, this whole "tornados in my town" thing is REALLY unnerving to me....

Back to the matter at hand....



This week's theme is "up"
I took this at a wedding I shot recently. I'd never shot a dove release before....it was very cool!


So anyway, I hope you all have an amazing Memorial Day, and hopefully I can be a little more active on my blog!

Edit: Growth

Last night was hard. Last night, I had to TOTALLY get out of my comfort zone. I can't remember the last time I spent so much of a 24 hour period praying for God's guidance on an issue. I tend to be non-combative. I don't like conflict....I like uniting people, not ruffling feathers.

Last night though, I had to stand up and make my voice heard. Because sometimes, it's hard to do what you know in your heart is the right thing to do. Sometimes, you have to ruffle a few feathers, but if you're speaking the truth, being kind & compassionate, and being deliberate in your words, then it's ok. It's ok for me to be that person today. I can stand up for what I believe in, when God presses it upon my heart to do so. Even if it means I lose a friend in the process.

This is major growth for a self-proclaimed wall flower like yours truly.

Onward to photography....

SOOC


When I first got a camera last year, some of the first photos I took were of my son playing teeball. When I look at those photos I took last year, I'm really amazed at the growth I've had in my photography. I've owned a camera for almost exactly 1 year now, and a DSLR for nearly 9 months. I honestly can't remember what it felt like to not have a camera in my hands, it so naturally became such a HUGE part of me.

Clean Edit


Here's my clean edit, done in Lightroom 3. I tend to use Lightroom 3 instead of ACR for my initial edits.

Full Edit


Sometimes, less is more. :) Here's my full edit. Just some little tweaks. No flashy photoshop tricks. No crazy creative edits.

Today, I think I'm just gonna reflect on all the growth I've had in the past year. Thank you, God, for everything.....

Shoot & Edit: Growth

Thanks for the patience, you guys. Sometimes being Mommy to a little one with special needs means everything else in life takes a back seat, including blogging! Thanks for sticking with me!

What a fitting topic for where I am in my life right now......I feel as if I'm in the middle of a period of enormous growth. I don't just mean in my photography....spiritually, emotionally, all of it. Hard to explain it all, but I know God's not done with me yet!

As for my photo, I'm picking one that I took at my little guy's teeball game this past Saturday. It amazes me to see how far my photos have come from last year, at this time. This was not taken with my big camera, but with my Panasonic Lumix FZ35. It's been almost exactly one year since I got my FZ35....the first real camera I'd owned since I was a kid. I didn't get my DSLR until this past September!

SOOC





I am amazingly honored to have been chosen as a top 3 SOOC shot for the month of April by Jill at Jill Samter Photography It means so much to me! Please, if you can, hop over to her website and vote for "Looking for Strawberries" Here's the shot she picked..