We decided to take advantage of some nicer weather and took the boys to the park.  I took several pictures but this one of my littlest swinging was among my favorites.  His brother didn't like swings until he was quite a bit older, but Dekker seems to really enjoy them :)  I converted this to black and white then tried some various tweaks with the shadows, highlights, etc.  I can't remember if the ground was wet or if it's just the way the light is hitting the rocks but in B&W I think the ground almost looks like water behind him. I'm not sure if I like that or if it's too distracting, and I also wish I'd averted the bright sun spot on his head, but oh well.

So I'd had a fun evening watching a movie and playing UNO with a couple of my sisters-in-law, but as Murphy's Law would have it I didn't think to pull my camera out until everything was over and I was about to head to bed! Thankfully the game was still on the table so I took it out and spread the cards a bit for a fast photo. :)

I've been wanting to get a shot of my neighbor's lamp post in the middle of the night while it's snowing for a very long time! The conditions were finally right when I got home the other night so I was out there snapping away at 2 AM. I've always loved that lamppost - it makes me think of Narnia!

I will confess that I go back and forth as to whether I'm satisfied with my final edit of this. I feel like it's missing something or that I forgot to do something... :-/

Cyrus loves, loves, loves to read! He was reading most the way home after I picked him up from school, and Dekker fell asleep in the meantime. ^.^

Note on 02/04/14 - My apologies all - I am VERY behind on my editing and posting! I promise I've not quit the project though! More details later!

So this was another of those days where I picked my son up from school then decided to drive around nearby looking for inspiration.  Boy did I find it!  I realize I already posted a picture of deer, but this time as I drove by I spotted a large herd in a pasture accompanied by four bucks, two of which were locking antlers.  As my luck would have it though, once I drove around and pulled up to where I could swap lenses and get a picture the bucks had moved toward the back of the pasture and over a bit of a hill to where their legs look cropped in my pictures, which really bugs me :-/  They also stopped locking antlers for the most part, though when I looked at my pictures later I was happy to see that I got one, except they are mostly obscured by the hill. I still cropped and posted it as proof though, lol ^.^ 

See! Proof! :) I had to seriously crop this though because they'd moved pretty far back, and I wish their antlers weren't so obscured by the trees. 

A photo of Dekker's hand as he napped in his crib. :)

We were celebrating the birthdays of my niece and my brother when Dekker discovered the balloons!  We had so much fun watching him chase this big yellow one and spend a very long time trying to get a helium balloon down to his level by pulling the attached string.

Later that night I also decided to try another go at shooting the moon.  I took the Sunny 16 Rule advice (and used a little help from Google) to get it properly exposed this time and was thrilled not to have the moon blown out! However, I was disappointed that the surrounding clouds weren't visible in the shot, especially since they really added to the beauty of the scene. It seems if I want the clouds to show up I have to blow out the moon, and if I want good detail on the moon I have to lose the clouds (there weren't a lot of them this time around).  Anyone know how to get both?  Oh it probably goes without saying but I cropped the moon image quite a bit.  By the time I got my settings right it had moved higher in the sky and wasn't quite as big and bold as when it first came over the horizon, and the article I found online said it was better to crop than over zoom for detail. 

I was running short on inspiration so visited my brother and sister-in-law's apartment in our basement for some new material :) I liked the look of this strand of lights against the dark wood bookcase and red wall, though I go back and forth as to whether I'd like it better with the strand being sharper overall. 

I think I need to stop taking so many pictures in one day, it makes it difficult to choose which one(s) to edit and share! I had a picture of my friend's horse wearing a nice black dressage bridal and I really liked the end result... except I chopped off the bottom curve of the reins and it really bugged me! Anyway, while she was riding I went looking for things to take pictures of, and got this glimpse of the trainers' western tack. Then later just before we left I met this chestnut horse that had been turned out in the arena. 

When I picked my son up from school I hadn't taken my photo of the day yet so we decided to drive by the house I grew up in to look for inspiration. It didn't take us long, because on the way we stumbled upon a herd of approximately 20 deer in the trees!  Four of them were even right by the road! My lens makes it look further but the closest deer pictured below may have been 5 to 10 feet away from my car. :)