Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Passion Directed

So, you all know that we are busy and loving it. Fall is my absolute favorite time of year to be outside enjoying the weather and scenery (ooohhh...and the pumpkin spice lattes that have returned to Starbucks...OMG!). That is exactly what we have been doing all over the greater Philadelphia area. Unfortunately, being busy leaves little time for other things, but "other things" are still important to me. Not to me as a mommy, so much...but to me as ME.

This blog is one of those "other things" that I have always enjoyed. I don't write or keep it up for anyone in particular. I actually don't care if anyone reads it. I don't write well all of the time. I don't even have good content a lot of the time. Sometimes there hasn't even been content at all. But, It is just one of those things that I have always used as my own outlet...my own little happy place or dumping ground (whatever the mood dictates). No chance of me giving it up any time soon.

The blog has been lagging a bit because of our general lack of time spent at home, but also because I have picked up another "me thing". A happy-happy-I-love-it-so-much-and-can't-wait-to-do-more-of-it-sort-of- thing. For a few years I have talked about purchasing photo-editing software so that I could play around with my pictures. Not that I don't take good pictures, but because I wanted to make my good pictures great, or fun, or crazy, or amazing. I kept putting it off because...oh, I don't know. I just did. And, after my husband bought me my MacBook Pro I didn't think I needed anything else. Macs are amazing in their own right, and iPhoto does a bang up job with minor enhancements. After spending some serious bonding time with iPhoto, though...I was still wanting more.

So, I just recently purchased Adobe Photoshop Elements 9...and a real paper made hand-held manual to go along with it. The majority of my "free time / me time" in the past couple of weeks (outside of showering and doing chores) has been spent getting to know my new complicated yet beautiful friend. I am so nowhere near being "good" at utilizing the software to its fullest potential yet, but I am soooo having fun. I love being in complete control of my pictures...of every single layer that existed or didn't...of every color that may or may not be realistic...of every grain and spec. It is a way for me to capture moments with Finnley, the dog, my family, nature...anything...in the exact way that I envision them at their best in my head. The end result is worth the struggle taken to get to it, and in time hopefully it won't anymore be so much a struggle. Overall, I am in love, and I believe this to be an affair that will be very long-lived.

Below you will find some of my earliest ventures into the art of photo-editing....enjoy! But, if you don't enjoy them...please keep it to yourself. My parade is not open for rain.