POTD - Things I Can't Live Without

All winter long, I go through softball withdrawal! DH and I seriously are bored in the winter because we are constantly at the ball field for softball league and tournaments from May-October. Unfortunately I can't play anymore due to injuries but I still love watching DH play. Here's a few I took from his game the other night. I haven't used my 70-300mm since last September. I'm looking forward to practicing with it all summer and get used to the weight again. It's definitely not as sharp as my 85mm but you can't beat the zoom! Some day I'll get the 70-200mm f2.8 VR . . . some day ;) Just trying a little artsy photo here. I'll be looking for more of these type of shots throughout the tournaments. Love how the dust is covering him here.
Oh and did I mention the eye candy at all the games. Makes it a little easier to make the games LOL! Shhh don't tell DH!
Does this look bad? In color his face is slightly out of focus. So I thought I'd try a conversion and see if would help.
Tried another artsy type of shot, well I don't know that it's artsy but anyway. I know other teams will have all their bags hanging all lined up and I'm looking forward to shooting some of those shots.

POTD - Things I Can't Live Without

I can say that this is something I absolutely cannot live without. I have tried to get off the stuff a few times but I can't do it. I love it! I'm hooked now on McDonald's Vanilla iced coffees and I like Dunkin' Donuts iced latte lite's too. Oh and let's not forget at Christmas time I have to go to Starbucks and get the Eggnog lattes! So obviously pictures of coffee are not the most interesting so I decided to try some actions on them below. This is one of my favorite mugs I got it at Starbucks in England. And yes all my coffee mugs are monsterous!

This is obviously like a sketch type action.

This one is called lizard skin but I think it looks like football texture.

POTD - Things I Can't Live Without

I think most can relate. Who can live without a cellphone? Not me, LOL! I can't even remember what it was like without one. I love my pink Razr! It's perfect size. I can slip it in my front pocket when I'm not carrying a purse and I barely know it's there.

POTD - Things I Can't Live Without

This is my car and it is swwweeeet! DD and I do a lot of running with this baby with all the skating lessons and cheerleading practices, not to mention the shopping trips. So right now we can't live without it! Because of all the running around we do and the price of gas, we traded in my SUV for the G6. I love it. It's got all kinds of bells and whistles, more than I even know how to use.

I took these in full sun and it was tough with all the glare, not to mention I was blocked in the driveway and the house is in the background to make it even uglier LOL.

I wish I didn't cut off the bottom of the pontiac symbol and got a little less DOF on this one. It was a little tight even with my 50mm.

POTD

I have run out of pets! So I'm posting a bunch of prom photos I did. I really struggled with these, it rained on and off and it was pretty dark out because of it. I also had to deal with the paparazzi that my girlfriend brought with her. It was tough, because everyone was trying to get shots of them too. I did a wedding for my girlfriend and my rule was I will take the shot first so I want everyone looking at me, then I'll get out of the way and everyone else can get the shot. I should have applied the same rule here!

I have little PS skills so I rely heavily on actions. I'm looking for any cc you can give me on color, comp, etc. Hoping someone has a calibrated monitor. I know these are heavily saturated. Although now that they are loaded on the web (which I did use my web loading action) they look even worse! So give it to me, let me know what you like, if anything, don't like, too saturated? Whatever you can - I want to learn and if I don't get honest cc I'm not going to improve.

Does this one look green?

I have quite a few of these at different angles. But with it being dark and under the tree made it worse the color seems really off.This one totally spaced out now that it's on here. On my computer it's one of my favorites, I did use a saturation action on it.

A few more of my favorites (I like details). Do you like the color or the bw w/vignette? Do you like the angle of the third one better?

More paparazzi going on here. I didn't get one photo under this tree where they were both looking at me, but there were so many people at the school trying to get photos under the trees we didn't have a lot of time.

POTD - Pets

I know some weren't posting pet photos because their pets have passed, but I'm going to post about my pet anyway, a tribute to my dog, Jessie, of 12 years. She developed bone cancer on her shoulder blade and within 2 weeks it grew to the size of a football. As much as I loved her, there was no way I was going to let her suffer. The vet said I could bring her home and when she got really bad I could bring her back. He explained to me how painful this was for her and I was not going to be selfish with my decision. I chose to let her go. It was so heartbreaking!

She was an awesome dog, once my DD got old enough, I would let her take Jessie for walks. Looked pretty funny and got a lot of second looks, a little girl (6 at the time) walking a 100 pound Rottweiller. I worked with her for months when I first got her and she was so well trained that I didn't give it a second thought letting DD walk her on the leash by herself.

It's been almost 9 months without her and I still get upset just thinking about her. DD has been asking for another dog and at first I was like no way am I ever going through that again. But now that time has passed I am finding myself longing for another dog. I hesitate because I don't think I'll ever get another dog as great as her and do I really have the time to spend with another puppy to train it? So I'm still on the fence about getting another dog, but if I do here are the choices: for a small dog - French Bulldog, Mini-Schnauzer, Boston Terrier and for a larger dog: German Short-Haired Pointer, Weimariner or another Rott. I'm definitely more of a large dog type but DD wants a little dog we can take everywhere with us and stays in the house.

I'm sure you'll all recognize this photo because it's in my siggy. I didn't get to scan the ones of DD and her so I only have this one. I took this the day before I took her to the vet.

POTD - Pets & I"VE BEEN TAGGED!

I'm running out of pets. . .but this is Kaiser he was our pet for 2 months while DSD found an apartment she could have him at. He is such a good dog (of course I'm pretty partial to Rott's believe it or not they are very trainable and loveable). He's only 8 months old but weighs about 75 lbs. , so I'm sure he'll get bigger. I had trained him that whenever I say he's being a good boy he checks my right hand for a treat. So of course the whole time I'm taking his photos he's getting anxious, because I haven't given him his treat! Now he's losing interest because I haven't given him his treat and he's not doing this for nothing!

Here he's looking at DD like do you have it?Ok, it's going to be a while I'd better sit down for a minute. . . which leads to my "tag" photo. I'm hoping you all see the humor in the shot after this one. Without knowing the story, you'd definitely have a whole different thought process. Everytime I see that picture though I crack right up. LOL

Here it is! He could not wait any longer and as soon as I crouched down to him (to take another shot) he jumped right at me! I hit the button and jumped out of the way so he didn't knock me over. I don't know if he was excited because I got on his level, he does have a bad habit of jumping on you when he's excited. OR if he was just like lady will you PLEASE give me my darn treat! Unfortuantely my focus fell on his legs because I jerked when I saw him jump at me LOL!

Now I'm going to tag Julie (~JustJulie~), seeing she came up with this fun game! I guess I'll change it too - show us a then and now photo. A photo when you first started shooting and one now with all your hard work and practice!

POTD - Pets

Ok, remember DD's beta fish that I posted yesterday? The only pet I would let her have. Well I lied . . . I totally forgot about her 3 dogs! How could I forget?! Here they are: Sparky the Dalmation; Buck the Boxer and Jake the Yorkie. Aren't they cute! When I looked down after she had set the DS down all the puppies were right at the window barking. So I went to take the picture and they took off. DD said, "oh I can get them back". She tapped on the screen and called them and they came running back to the window!? Virtual reality isn't it grand! Isn't the hat she bought for her Yorkie adorable?

POTD - Pets

This is Pepper, my DD's beta fish. We thought he looked like a long red pepper. DD is 8 and really wanted a pet of her own. She went on for a good month: Can I have a dog? No I'm not ready for another dog just yet. Can I have a chicken, what? No, you definitely are not getting a chicken LOL!; Can I have a hamster? No, I'm not taking care of a "mouse". "Mom, it's a hamster and it would be my pet, my responsibility". I said, yah, I know how that works out in the long run, mom's stuck taking care of it. Well can I have a turtle? Uh no. How about a bunny? Nope. Would a fish be ok? Yes, you could get a fish. YEAH!! I figured a fish isn't too much work and she definitely would not be able to take it out of the tank and maul it to death either. So after about 20 minutes trying to decide which beta she wanted she finally chose this one.

First off I apologize for how bad these photos are. My DD's room is really dark later in the afternoon so I couldn't get enough light. I tried the flash for the first time since I got my camera (almost a year ago) but it washed the color out, so I deleted those. I have much better photos on my other blog when we first got him (he was a lot more active too).

I've been tagged by Bobbijo_g, here goes:

1. To keep me practicing & taking photos everyday!

2. Making new friends all over the country and in some cases around the world!

3. Gives me a reason to hog the computer from DH LOL!

4. POTD bloggers are GREAT inspiration!

5. Excellent way to get some cc on photos!

I think it's safe to say that everyone's been tagged haven't they? If not I totally apologize!

POTD - Pets

This is the cat my DH brought with him when we got together. Her name is Trixie. I wasn't exactly thrilled with having a cat because I don't especially care for them. My girlfriends still can't believe of all people I have 2 cats living in my house. I say it's true love -- making sacrifices LOL! This cat is very voicetrous (sp?). She yells when you walk by her, she yells when you touch her, she yells when she wants you to pet her, she yells when she needs water, she yells when her box is too dirty. She's so predictable too. If you get up, she's in your spot; if you get a blanket and get on the couch, she's on top of you; if you have ice cream she props herself right next to you and begs. She loves licking lollipops too. Bit of a sweet tooth. We pick on her all the time too because she has a tiny head and a tiny tail but her body is really big and round LOL! Poor Trixie. . .it's all out of love.

This was a hard one in the window, still practicing that backlighting thing. DD just bought her this grass and she loves chewing on it. Both cats are inside cats so they don't get the luxury of being outside.

POTD - Pets

This is Fuzz a/k/a Fuzzwinkle, Fuzzy, Fraidy Cat (she runs if you run around the house or rustle bags) and the Cat Burglar (she steals Schyler hair ties, baby doll clothes, socks and jewelry every chance she gets)! She is the baby of the family and she is my DH pride and joy! Me. . .I'm not a cat lover at all but I guess she's alright. Everytime you open the cupboard door she runs and jumps on the chair to see if you are getting her a can of food. She's a lover in the morning and at bedtime but she does not want to be held at all before or after either of those times.

POTD - Emotional Attachment

He's another one of my emotional attachments! We met at a local fundraiser. I wasn't ready for a relationship. He said he'd change my mind. I said he won't! He said, I will. I said, cocky. He said, no confident. LOL! Well. . .he did. Two years later we headed to Vegas with family in tow and got married. We've done so much together in such a short period of time. I'm a scrapbooker and I have a list of 100 Things To Do in a Lifetime and I've accomplished a lot of them with Mike. Traveled to Arizona and rode a hot air balloon; went to London and saw Big Ben; Paris and saw the Eiffel Tower. Deep sea fishing in New Hampshire. I've always wanted to see the Monster Mile at Dover (nascar race) -did it. Well, I guess you get the idea. This man showed me it's ok to love again.
I know this top photo isn't the best but I like the look on his face -- mental note USE YOUR REFLECTOR!!!! LOL!