Wednesday, March 31, 2010

The Life of a Little Boy!

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This little guy was at my house today with his momma and brother during our homeschool coop time. He didn’t give me too much face time, but I was very tickled when I checked out the pictures I did take of him and realized that I had actually just captured the life of a little boy…playing and eating. The simple things in life :)!

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To be fair, I did try getting some pictures of his brother, but with the inside lighting challenges and boyhood movement, I only got one great one of him when I bartered with him to get a few pictures in exchange for some batteries for a flash light we had. Here he is too.

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They are two very beautiful boys and it was fun to get to see them here!

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Caught in the Act

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Here are my attempts at “Caught in the Act” for the Camera Club meeting this month.  I am not so great with the people action,but the water wasn’t too awful.  What do you think?
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Dinner at Mi Famiglia in St. Cloud, MN

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I had a chance to eat at Mi Famiglia in St. Cloud for a meeting. I had the most scrumptious food and loved the ambiance.
I couldn’t help but take a couple of pictures of the bathroom…sorry, but it was so glamorous that it needed documenting :)!
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The main restaurant was just beautiful. It was amazing in such a simplistic way!
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The food was beyond amazing! We shared a salad…
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Some had Creamy Risotto with Scallops…
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Some had a Creamy Garlic Risotto with Chicken…so good!
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For dessert later was this lovely Chocolate number.
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Doesn’t that look amazing inside…it tasted so good with a cup o’ coffee.IMG_3889_filtered
See, I was really there for a meeting, see the folder??? I knew the night was over when the work was done and the dessert was finished :)!
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Monday, March 29, 2010

I Heart Faces – Black and White



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Check out everyone else's.

Signs of Spring

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These photographs were taken at Little Rock Lake over in Rice. It is fun to see the ice melting and giving way to beautiful water!

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Editing JPG’s with my RAW editor

What a wonderful little treat. A while back I remember reading on Pioneer Woman’s site that she gave up RAW because of all the space it was taking up for her. What was a great deciding factor for her was that she could still use the RAW editor on her JPG’s. I couldn’t see how in the world she had done that and assumed that it could only be done if you had the full version of Photoshop…well, that isn’t the case as you know from a previous post I shared the other day.
Anyway, I have been playing with some old JPG’s that I had taken before I transitioned to RAW…including all my pics from Hawaii. Nice to have a new jab at editing them too!
Anyway, here is one of my old favorites that I was able to re-edit in my RAW editor and then run a vivid action on it.
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I am thrilled that I can do this. I won’t give up RAW, but it is nice to have an option for some of my older shots!

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Scenes from Illuminate 2010 (6)

The last bits of scenes from my time there on Friday night…
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Here are a bunch for girls checking in…210 to be exact!IMG_5546
Lots of workers…I didn’t even nearly capture all the volunteers there that night!
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Here is Joy nearing the of the night…I suspect all the helpers were ready for a good sit down after all the work!IMG_6098 copy_filtered
You are all amazing, and that is all I have left to say…Simply Amazing!!!

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Scenes from Illuminate 2010 (5)

The next phase of the girls event started at 8:00 over at the youth building.
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Here they all are…210 girls! Amazing turn out. I heard on Sunday that there were twice as many girls as the previous year! Wonderful!
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They started off with a couple of the HMC' guys doing a cool paint light show.
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Then Amber and Des gave everyone a great big welcome and encouraged everyone to have a great time!
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The lead in to the fashion show…
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Below are just a ton of shots from the fashion show. The lighting was, lets just say, interesting, when it came to photography. I still think I was able to get a few good shots in there in spite of it. It was really quite amazing to see the pictures of the girls before and after!

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In the middle of the show Tim, the camera guy, did his own thing…LOL!
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I loved the couple of HMC kids doing the commentary!! Perfect!
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Don’t they look great?!!
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Since my lighting was bad I snapped a few shots of them after the show…So fun!
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After the fashion show Rachel Sogge gave out the rules for the night and weekend while the band set up.
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…the first prize of the weekend was also drawn for.
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Then it was on to the music part of the evening. IMG_6089_filtered
The band was really quite wonderful.
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Of course, it was about this time that I realized that I was old and the volume was enough to send me home…
Sad I know! I am glad the girls has fun though and that is what matters!!!!
After the band spoke I believe there was a speaker before the girls headed out to the “Lodge” to stay the night before the next days festivities.
It really sounded like a great time was had by all!