Just a few from our recent Beach trip

This was definately a trip for the kids. I left the SLR at the house so not to get it all sandy and gunky. I have a few decent shots from around the pool at Mom's house. More of the trip and from our new Point-n-Shoot are on the family Blog.

Water and Cameras Do Mix

Whoever said to keep your equipment away from water never knew the fun of an underwater case for your digital camera. Yeah, big deal the case cost about as much as the camera, it's still fun. This is one of our point-and-shoot canons and not the SLR. But for the size and money, it takes some nice shots.

She wanted to show me how much fun Elmo was having in the pool

TJ wasn't having as much fun today, but he loves playing in the waterfall.

My little mermaid went from not liking to go under, to not liking to stay on top of the water in 2 days flat.

Another fun day..another exhausted daddy...

A little manipulation goes a long way

You hear some people criticize those that use programs to manipulate photos. They're considered "Fake" or " Un-Pure" if you dodge a little here or despeckle a little there. They look towards inspiration like Ansel Adams to show that untouched photos are the only way to go.

What some people don't know is that not only was Ansel an absolutely phenominal photographer, he was an outstanding developer as well. Many of his "Pure" works of art came from hours, days or even months of exposing, reexposing, over-exposing, etc of different elements of his images until he acheived exactly what he was looking for. He was just so good at knowing what he wanted the light to do, that he was able to change the exposure of a tree or a waterfall in his photolab. He was basically Photochopping before the program was even thought about. So to all you PhotoChoppers out there, hats off and keep up the great work!

Here's a few I did some quick PS work with. I hope you enjoy.

Had to Start Somewhere

I love taking photos. Always have and always will. We've always had the little point-and-shoot type cameras, and they were a lot of fun. Jen saw how much I loved taking photos of the kids and the outdoors, so she came up with the idea of us getting a nice digital SLR for Christmas. I know it was more for me, but I let her play with it now and then.

The first time the new camera came out, I only took about 500 shots that day. Man I love digital. You just start shooting, save what you like, the rest..DELETE. Here are a few shots from the first few days with the XTi that came out pretty good:

These were all in our front yard when I obviously needed to be raking...





These are a few other random ones as well...



The kids have started running or hiding when they see me head for the camera bag. I hope you enjoy these and I have more to come when I have time...