Kindness of My Lord

I have to jump on here quickly to say, that God gave me the sweetest gift today.  This afternoon I met a woman out at the school who shares a love of photography.  She was taking pictures during the event and I asked her on a break what she was shooting with (it looked like a full-frame) and what settings she was using to not have to use flash, etc, etc... We chatted afterward and exchanged contact info.  She seemed very down-to-earth, simple, and balanced with photography pursuit and motherhood.. yet she is down the road several years in experience.  I'm not expecting the stranger-lady to be my best friend :) but for today, it was just what I needed.  I think God gave it to me, that little gift...I had been talking to the Lord recently about wishing I could talk to someone about the photography stuff who seems to really LOVE it with me-- my family members are sweet and supportive but in the end, "oh, cool" is about all they can muster! :) And, I can't blame them! This is my passion and it doesn't stir everyone the way it does me.  Often I am okay with that..but sometimes I wish I could share it with someone who saw it the way I do.  A silly wish, I think-- in the scheme of life on earth vs life in heaven, my purpose, etc-- Nonetheless, I felt the sweet, tender, care of the Lord as He provided this connection today--that He cares, He hears, He sees, and He is near to me.
My cup runneth over.....

Project 52: Week 3: Soothing Repetition

I was really trying hard to capture the steam with a low shutter speed, adjusting ISO to balance the slow speed.. I didn't quite get it, but you can see the white right on the surface if you look hard. 

Here, my watermark is distracting.. but it's not too simple to resize.  I will prob re-post without watermark later.

another one from Shades of Grey

My mom asked me to edit this one and send-- it was her favorite from the Shades of Grey shoot. I still prefer the pipes but figured I might as well post it here.

Weekly challenge possibilities

I am having a harder time with this week's challenge "Soothing Repitition."  I really only have one idea.  There are things that are soothing to me and things that I think fit the category but.. I'm struggling with it.  I have 2 ideas that I will try, I think.. lighting will be the challenge.

On some of the other topics, I am hopeful the 60% chance of rain on Thursday combined with no teaching responsibilities that day will help me out.  I was contemplating a long drive, but I don't think that's going to work out with my time frame, and with the rain.

Miss You Card Order

If it's on sale, I'm going to place this order.  I wasn't sure if I liked it, after all.. but then, I straightened the horizon out and added text and I ended up liking it well enough. But, I don't love it.  I ordered matte paper and just rounded corners, the bottom interior color will show through to the front by the rounded corners-- if that makes sense. ( I color matched from the top of the sky.)  Here's the front, middle, back.

Pipe Dream Addendum

I can't believe I forgot to mention....I had a usual clumsy moment during the Shades of Grey shoot.  I was trying to get that shot of the pipes, actually, and needed a tight angle..before I knew it I was on my knees out in the middle of the construction yard.  My mind was nagging, 'ouch' but I kept on shooting.  Finally, I stood up and looked at my hands and knees that were hurting-GOATHEADS! haha! no wonder it hurt! I had to pull out at least 10 of them!

Miss you card

I've been wanting to make a "Miss You" card-- and thought I had just the picture to do it with from long ago.  I wanted to try it, though, with experimenting with duo-tones or split-toning which is when you assign one color to highlights, and another color to shadows.  I did that on this, an added some other versions with different adjustments.  My least fav is the high contrasty look.  I don't like it for the card I am after, but it kind of reminds me of a book cover. Here's the 3 so far- I would probably add small text in right, lower corner "Miss you.."

My lab is having a huge sale on printed cards right now and that is unusual so I am trying to hurry up and get this done despite it having been on my list for a couple of months now!

actually, seeing this on here..I don't like this version :) I tried to highlight the building doing some technique I was learning but it looks terrible! REALLY messy! I like the moody style but not the sloppy editing.