Gotta have my sports!

One thing I can't live without is sports! We are a sports family - Becca plays softball, volleyball basketball and cheers, Ryan plays baseball, football, basketball and golf! We are constantly at some field or gym, but we love it! And if we're not watching the kids playing, we're watching on TV. I did these magazine covers for all the girls on Becca's team - just for fun. I know I've got a little bit of a pole coming in on the left side, but I didn't want to crop any more, and I knew that I wouldn't be able to clone it out smoothly. Oh, well, at a youth field, I guess you just have to live with the poles and trashcans and cars in the background! This is the first time I've done something like this and I want to get better at it, so CC away! Thanks for looking!

Roses out my car window

I'm off topic today, but I wanted to share these shots. I took these at the cemetery on Memorial Day, out of my car window. I applied Momstime/Lori's tutorial to the first one, and on the second I used a Gaussian blur around the edge. Settings were Av mode, f/5.6, ss 1/250, 75-300mm lens, RAW, cropped and enhanced in PSE4. CC Please! Thanks!

Memorial Day

Freedom is definitely something I couldn't live without. This is a picture of our War Memorial at the square, every Memorial Day the VFW has a ceremony and puts these flags out at the Memorial and the cemetery. I didn't make it to the ceremony, but I did go pay my respects at the Memorial. Settings for this shot were Av mode, f/4.0, ss 1/2000, ISO 400, 50mm lens, RAW, cropped and defogged in PSE4. HHCC always welcome! Thanks for looking!

JJ

This is JJ the wonderdog, the world's largest chihuahua! He's actually lost a little bit of weight, at one time he weighed 20+ pounds! JJ's had kind of a hard knock life. He doesn't really think he's a chihuahua, he thinks he's a german shepherd, and when he was about a year old, he got out of the yard and jumped on a chow, which chewed him up. Then about a year later, he ate some rancid sausage out of a neighbor's trash, which gave him hives. If we had him out in the yard with us, he would sometimes lose his mind and chase cars like a big dog, with us chasing him, and he was hit by a pickup truck two different times (he just bounced off, though - it never hurt him!), and now he has blown out his ACL because he's such a chubbo, and the vet says that surgery usually doesn't work on small dogs, so all we can do is give him baby aspirin when it bothers him. He's a mess! No wonder he looks like such a little old man at the age of 9! But we love him, and he loves us!

One more from the Conservatory

Here's another shot from the Butterfly Conservatory. I REALLY want a new lens. I used my 75-300mm on all of these so I could get some "bokeh", but they just weren't as sharp as I would have liked. Settings were AV mode, f/5.6, ss 1/800, ISO 400, RAW, cropped and sharpened in PSE 4. I'd love some HHCC! Thanks for looking!

One from the Butterfly Conservatory

I've got to get back in the habit of posting - I've missed it! Here's a photo I took this past weekend at our new Butterfly Conservatory. I thought this little guy was pretty cute!

Settings were AV mode, f/5.6, ss 1/400, ISO 400 75-300 mm lens. CC always welcome! Thanks!

My hubby!

This is Mike, my hubby of nearly 18 years. We were outside watching a storm come in (so I'm sort of on-topic...) and I noticed that he had some great catchlights in his eyes! He's got VERY dark brown eyes, so I was anxious to capture them - catchlights are something I've been trying to work on. He looks a little scruffy, he's regrowing his beard after not having it for over a year, so I'll have to post another picture when it's in full. Anyway, settings were Av mode, f/16, ss 1/60, ISO 400, 28-90 lens. CC always welcome, thanks for looking!

Stormy Skies

I admit it- I'm a weather freak! My dream vacation would be to go tornado chasing! When we have a severe thunderstorm headed our way, my family's in the bathroom with the weather radio, and I'm in the yard watching the clouds roll in! And even though I've lived in Tornado Alley all my life, I've never seen a funnel cloud in real life. I would LOVE to get a picture of one! My husband thinks I'm crazy. These pictures are not technically correct by any means, but I thought they were some cool looking clouds. This is a thunderstorm that came through our area last night. Any other storm lovers out there? Thanks for looking!

OKC Bombing Memorial

Oklahoma City is one of my favorite places for a quick weekend trip - there are so many things to do and lots of interesting things to see! These are a couple of pictures I took this last weekend. If you ever have the opportunity to visit the memorial and museum, you should definitely go. It is so well done, very moving without being maudlin. My first photo is of the Survivor Tree and the Reflecting Pool. The second is of some of the chairs in the Field of Empty Chairs. Each chair represents a life lost in the bombing, with the smaller chairs being for the children that were killed in the daycare. It's a very powerful image to see it in person.

Settings for these were AV mode, f/5.6, ss 1/1000, ISO 400, 18-55 lens. I applied the Orton Technique on both in PSE4. CC always welcome! Thanks for looking!