Camp-Out Part 1, Knee & Orphan Auction Updates

First of all I want to update you all on our fundraising for the Reece's Rainbow Orphans - Alexandra, Kimberly and Gemma (see the side bars).  We started an auction about 2 weeks ago, and most of the auctions have completed.  If all winning bids are paid at winning value, we raised over $375 - but many of those paying have already given above and beyond what they bid!  Praise the Lord!  Once all the payments have been processed, I'll post updates on their adoption funds!

Update on my knee - I'm off crutches!  I experimented with going around without my crutches starting with just not using them at night and increasing more everyday and over the course of a week I was able to go an entire day without them!  Without pain!  I even made it through an entire week of camping/walking on uneven ground without them!  You have no idea how happy this makes me!  I still have to work to get stronger, but camping/walking/biking sure helped a lot!  No surgery for this momma!!!

Last week was our annual church camp-out.  We are one of the zealots that go up early - this year we went up on the Sunday, the camp-out officially started on Friday.  We had family time until others started arriving Tuesday.   More people than ever came up early, so by Thursday night the campground was nearly full already!
I'll let the photos tell the story, at least for the most part (they are not in order, as I just don't feel like working that hard tonight):

Carese loved camping, even when we
had to put socks on her hands to keep them from getting cold!

She loved having the girls try their hand at portraits!

Experimenting with objects close in focus....

A whole new way to have tummy time - she loved it!

More experimenting - the rose was made by Jessica out of playdough!

I love the sweet, loving expression on Jonathan's face....

But this one was better of Carese

My attempt at a portrait

The resident camp bandit - who needs racoons?

camp bandit assistant

Our camp charts - animal to represent each child
charts for camp clean up/cooking as well as Esther patrole
and on the right is the menu for the week

More close up focus experimentation - Dayton made a cool robot face in playdough!

Home sweet home for 7 days!
We ended up with 6 tents total by the end of the week!

Our sweet little camper!

A little help?

morning routines at camp

more focus practice

taking the girls for a ride

everybody gets into the riding thing!

That's all for tonight - I'll try to get to the rest of the photos tomorrow!

A Day at the Lake

A week and a half ago I got to spend the afternoon at a friend's house which just happens to have a beach at the end of their back yard.  We had a great time in spite of a cloudy day that even rained quite a bit.  I even had the privilege of  using our host's telephoto lens on my camera!

For those of my readers following my photo learning journey, these were all shot with the Manual setting and in RAW, and edited with Photoshop CS3 - no special effects, but learned a lot with every photo about lighting, focus, shutter speed, "noise" and more.  I love shooting in RAW - now it seems easier than it should be!  I've also learned to delete bad photos (RAW images are huge), save the original image in RAW for good images, save a large version of the image and one that is sized for the blog (800 pixels wide).

Here are some of the highlights of the day:

This was in quite low light, but with PS I was able to brighten it up.

All I can say is "WOW" - a great portrait of my serious man.
See how the background is all out of focus?
This was a very low aperture (4) and a very awesome lens!

He was about 30 feet off the shore.  Does this kids ever smile?
Yes he does - he was beaming from ear to ear after going tubing!

Esther hamming it up at the alfresco dinner.

Our host taking his cat out for a leisurely row...
never seen that before but it was great!

A sweet portrait of Rachel soothing Carese.

Jonathan and Rachel canoeing - about 150 feet from shore.

This is Rachel, sitting in the canoe about 60 feet from shore
I sure hope I can get a lens like this one someday!

Rebekah keeping Esther warm and happy!

Heading out for tubing...all the kids had a great time,
 but they were too far away for any good  photos.

Jonathan helping Dayton learn to paddle 

and finally Bocce Ball to finish off the evening.

Photography Leaning Take 2

This photo was experimenting with aperture once again, but I almost got it perfect.
The only adjustment to this photo was a slight increase in the brightness
I got the aperture right, as you can see from the very unfocused background!

This one only needed a slight crop as there was a corner of a blanket that got in the photo

This photo was taken by our living room window on a cloudy day
The light could have been better, but the photo turned out great,
only problem was she has all those mosquito bites! So....

With Photoshop I was able to easily fix those flaws
and you can't even tell that I fixed anything!

  

This was my attempt at motion blur in low lighting...cool effect, it looks like butterfly wings!

  

Each of these next three photos were taken with the exact same light, 

but I made different adjustments to the RAW image in Photoshop to correct the problems.

Poor lighting/cheap lens makes for needing lots of adjustments
But I shot in RAW for the first time so I was able to!

The graininess of this is due to my stock lens and low light.

This was also low light, so I had to mess with the colors as it was very yellow

I wasn't happy with the final coloring, so I really like this one in black and white!

When Carese first opens her eyes, she always has a big, sleepy grin...
today I captured it on film!

Below are photos taken by my sweet friend, Renee.

She started her own home business, Little Earthling Photography,

 of birth and newborn photography a few years back.

She has helped me with learning the ropes.
She also has a wonderful blog about her family, A Baker's Dozen and Apollo XIV

Here are the photos she took when Carese was about 2 weeks old.

Carese was not being cooperative, but in spite of that,

Renee managed to get some incredibly beautiful photos:

After what was to be the first part of the photo session,
Carese puked all over Renee
(Renee said she's had worse, but Carese got her pretty doused!)

 and would not stop crying,

 so the photo session was over just after it began.