A recent trip to Colorado left me longing to leave my hometown and move west.  It had breathtaking views every time you turned around.  Being up in the mountains took us away from everyday chores, list of things we "had" to do, the hum drum repetition of "stay at home!  Covid will get you!  Ahhhhh!" We still followed the Covid guidelines, but we were able to take in some beautiful scenery and enjoy the outdoors. 

We saw this stream alongside the road we were driving on.  It was such a deep color of yellow.  It looked beautiful contrasted against the green growing next to it.  I'm on a hunt to find out why the color was yellow.  What a beautiful wonder of nature!

We stayed with some friends for a few days in a cute little town.  It had plenty of rocks to climb and water to play in.

We hiked to some hot springs.  It was a beautiful spot to sit and relax.

 

Moments That Matter Most

These are new pictures I took of my little one.  I love them, because they are so him.  When I start taking pictures, he's all smiles and then he's soon over it and looks off into space. 

I made a duplicate layer and changed the normal to hard light.  I usually use soft light, but the hard light made his hair really pop.  I then used the smart photo fix to lighten it a bit and add a little more color.



I love this picture even though it didn't come out totally clear.  I think this is how he feels every time I get the camera out. I changed the picture to black and white negative and then used the smart photo fix to sharpen it.  So cute.



I wanted to lighten up this picture I had taken a little while back.  Now that I look at it, it might a little to light.  But it looks much better than the beginning one, down below.  I lightened up his eyes as well.  He looks pretty relaxed, eh?



Re-edit

After talking to a friend of mine I decided to go back and do some more editing to this little picture.  I opened back up my editing program and removed the crumbs, re-cropped it, and I took out a outlet on the wall behind him. I like this edit much better  :0)

This is a page of my first attempts at some techniques I've always wanted to know how to use on my pictures.  Wahooo for You Tube.  Thanks to a friend of mine, I found great tutorials on how to use my editing program.  I've still got a long ways to go, but here is what I've learned so far.  

This is the picture before editing.  So cute.



This is the picture after I edited it.  I added some lightness to the back and retouched a few things.  I used a retouch tutorial on you tube.  I love it afterwards.  So bright and cheery!




This one, I just played with brightening up the picture again adn lightening up the eyes a little bit.  They were dark to begin with, so I didn't mess with them to much.  I need to find a better picture to play with the color of the eyes.  That's one thing I'm really interested in is how to make the eyes really sparkle.

I've always wanted to know how to cut out a picture from one place and put it on another picture.  Now I know!  Thanks to You Tube again!!  This isn't a perfect placement of the picture I cut out, but hey, I got it on there :0)  I can't wait to play around with it some more.   

I've seen pictures like the one I did above and thought they looked SO cool.  I found another tutorial on line on how to keep parts of the picture black and white and parts of it in color.  I found that zooming in close while outlining the picture I wanted to keep in color helped tremendously.  Pretty darn neat.  Now off to the drawing board again.

Photo Session Take One

This photo session was with a really good friend of mine and her children.  The pictures are mostly of her because it was a girl's day after all.  I had so much fun taking the pictures.  She has a bubbly and fun personality as do her children.  I can't wait to take some more of their family!