Grandparents Visit

    That was fun! I can't believe this week went so fast! Our Grandparents from out of town are already gone. It seems like they just got here. The first day, we went to a mall, where my Mom and Grandma, went shopping for clothes. 

    Grandpa and I walked around the entire mall, both levels while they shopped. We saw some pretty cool stores in there. We saw this new car called the "Tesla" car, which runs off a Tesla coil. It is one of the safest cars on the market, because it has no engine, so there is more crumple space. 

At the restaurant, our waitress was from Ukraine. It was different to hear a foreign accent, but at the same time, kind of cool.

When we were going home from Lake George, we saw a bald eagle, thanks to our sister in law's sharp eyes! While we were up at the cabin, we watched a movie called "It Happened One Night" with Clark Gable, and Claudette Cobert. It was really good, for a movie made in the 30's

Just outside of Woodland Park, I saw the side of Pikes Peak, and had to take a picture, luckily, we were at a stop light, so holding my camera, with a telephoto was much easier.

The sunset near Elizabeth, was amazing! This picture doesn't do it justice. It looked like flames earlier, and then started to fade to this.

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Leaves, Raspberries, and Moss Covered Rocks

Some of these are from Lake George and some are from Rainbow Falls. I hope you enjoy!

The morning I snapped this, I was freezing cold. It was the only leaf around that had fallen on the ground. I really liked how the frost rimmed the leaf.

Later during that hike, I found this spot where the birds seemed to all hang out. I sat there for quite some time, just enjoying the birds singing. Of course, they never came close enough to where I could get and extreme close up.

This was wild raspberry bush nestled in some logs. They are everywhere on the side of the mountain. One bush actually had some fruit on it, but they were much to small to pick.

This was taken in Rainbow Falls. I thought it was interesting, that the plants were growing out of the moss, right on top of the rock. 

 A friend of mine from Texas, was walking with me and pointed out that rock that had the water cascading over it, looked like the bow of a ship. You can't see the general shape very well in this picture, but directly from the side, it looked much like the bow of a ship.

I don't know if it's just me, but, I love rocks with moss on them. I think there is something really cool about them. I had been there before, but I had never really appreciated the way they look, and all the photographic possibilities.

There were rose bushes everywhere around the rocks. Some were above my head, by at least three feet or more. Although, walking past them, and through them, was not very pleasant. I found a lot of stickers stuck in my pants at the end of the hike.

 I am always amazed at how trees can grow straight out of rock! Every time I see them, I think to myself "How can something so easy to break and cut, grow out of solid rock" It is truly amazing!

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Dodge or Burn?

So, in what instances do you use dodge or burn? This week, I think I have used it more than I normally do, due to the fact, that I am just realizing how much you can do with it.

In the photo just below, the steers face was almost unseeable. The moment I took this photo, I hadn't thought about the exposure difference. Sometimes, I don't exactly see things the way the camera does. When I opened it up in Photoshop Elements Camera Raw, I was disappointed to find out that you couldn't see the steer at all. after I had edited the photo to my liking, I opened it in the main editing window and brought up the dodge brush and went over the same spot twice, at 100%   

In the same instance here, because the sun was right in front of the camera, a lot of the picture had lost the vibrance and clarity. When I opened it up in Adobe Camera Raw, I pulled some of the blacks in, to give it a bit clarity. After I had recovered most of the photo, the building was unfortunately a bit dark. I opened it in the main editing window and brought the dodge brush up again and lightened up the building.

 In this photo you see here, I had shaded the lens with my hat, acting like a lens hood. So   I didn't have to recover anything except for some highlights down in the lower third of the frame in the foreground. This is when the burn tool comes in handy. A lot of people I have sat there and edited with asked me why I didn't just pull in the highlights in with the recovery mode in Camera Raw? The reason I don't do this is because the recovery mode effects the whole frame, as to apposed to the burn tool, where I can apply it where I want and how much I want.  

Here, I used the burn brush. The gloss on the guitar had reflected a bit, so I used the burn tool to bring it back to the right contrast between colors.

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Out of Town Grandparents, Out of Town Friends, and More Snow

   We have a seventy percent chance of snow this afternoon. I hope it turns out to be a fair lot of snow, maybe six inches...maybe ;) I sincerely hope so!
    Our Grandparents from California are to arrive here Tuesday, and stay till next Wednesday! I can't wait to see them! It should be a blast! I don't know what we plan on doing with them, but, we will find that out when they get here. My guess would be that we are going to visit my brother and his family, and possibly go antiquing, since they love doing that immensely. We got a visit the other day from some friends of ours from Arizona. We had a nice visit, it has been a while since we have seen them.

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Snow and Waiters.

   We got snow last night. Around an inch, give or take. 

Yesterday, our Grandparents took us out to dinner, and while we were there, we had got on the subject of welding, and our waiter asks us "What kind of welder do you have?" The question completely took me off guard. It was a slow night, and we were the only people there, so we talked a while about welding, and agriculture, and cattle. We talked for a good half hour. It was a lot of fun!  

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Summer

     The winter month seem to be closing in very fast. I'm not sure I'm ready for them yet, or the cold north winds. The other day, I was outside, and this really cold wind came up, and I realized just how much I don't want summer to end.

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Lake George

Here are the promised pictures...finally. The morning I hiked up the hill in the back, was cold, and wet. I had to keep cleaning the end of my lens, because the mist was getting all over it. 

When I got down to the river, on the other side of the hill, I spent a good, 30 minutes there. Just as I was stepping back on to the bank, my foot slipped, and I completely submerged my foot. Walking back to the cabin, my foot was sloshing around in water. :P

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Pictures

     We have snow!! This morning I woke up to a small, but very wet dusting of snow. The night before, it was all foggy, and any lights that were on, looked like they were shooting up into the sky. It was so cool! 

      I have all the Lake George picture post processed, so I should be posting those soon! Here are a bunch of old photo's I had piling up. 

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