I Heart Faces / Pet Week

It's all about the furbabies in this weeks challenge over at I Heart Faces. This is an old picture I took of my cousin and her furbaby Alaska. I love this picture! This Siberian Husky is her heart and soul and I think it really shows in this photo!

Because this was taken with an old point and shoot, I did try and clean it up a bit in LightRoom. I thought the effects really worked here to sharpen it up a bit! There are lots of great entries this week so far, so click the link and check them all out!!

I Heart Faces / Beautiful Eyes

The challenge this week over at I Heart Faces is beautiful eyes. I tried and tried so hard to get a nice picture of my blue eyed baby for this challenge, since we all have brown eyes in this family and yet his are sparkling blue! But he's one and well he doesn't exactly cooperate or sit still or keep his eyes open when he grins his toothy grin. The eyes become slits and while the face is adorable, it doesn't exactly show off those baby blues! So with my friends permission I am submitting this picture of her daughter I took at my sons birthday party!

I had rented the Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens to practice with and see if it would be something I would want to purchase in the future. Having never used a fixed lens before (I have the kit lens and a standard zoom lens), there was definitely a learning curve. But this one really stood out and her blue eyes really sparkled. I was feeling discouraged with the lens until I did some reading and continued to practice. I wasn't really loving the pictures I was getting and was ready to write this one off. This picture is the picture that changed my opinions of the lens, and I think with some more practice and more time I'll be able to get some more stunning portraits just like this one!

I just love how her eyes sparkled in this image!

Please stop over and check out all the other gorgeous eyes at I Heart Faces!

Sunflowers

On Friday I took the kids to Colby Farms in Newbury, MA with my friend and her two girls! I was very excited for this practice photo shoot! The lighting was awful (sun right in our faces, beating down on us) but it was still a fun day and I got some very cool shots. Next year we'll have to make it a point to go later in the afternoon when the sun is on the other side of the field and not in our faces! Lesson learned! If nothing else, it was a gorgeous day spent with our friends!

Playing around with photoshop - my attempt to make it look like a painting

The kids being great sports and setting up the one shot I was hoping to get from this day! Cheesy? You bet! But you have to admit that it's cute and I don't know how many years before it will no longer be "cool"! Ha!

The Sunflower field was gorgeous! We have already decided to make this an annual thing!

I Heart Faces / Friendships

This week over at I Heart Faces, the theme is Friendship! This is my son Shaun and his future wife. Anyone who knows these two will tell you that they are going to be married someday. These two crazy kids have been together since they were teeny tiny's (he was a month old and she was 5 months old - they are 3 now) and I have never seen two kids so drawn to each other than these two!




With the theme in mind I was trying to get a super best friends picture that included the big siblings as well, since they are all great friends, but this is one of those "in the moment" shots that I love so much. Is it weird that I have already planned their wedding in my head! It's not too early to book the hall, right?!

Head over to I Heart Faces and check out some other great

friendships! It's very much a heartwarming theme this week!

I Heart Faces / Water

This weeks challenge is over at I Heart Faces is Water. This one was easy as it's been so hot and we've been taking the kids swimming a lot! As I was sorting all the pictures I took from our last trip to the pool I decided to enter this one of David. He was having fun with the water fountain in the kiddie pool at my parents camp. This kid LOVES the water and it totally shows on his face!!





For more water fun check out all the other amazing entries over at I Heart Faces!

I Heart Faces / Props

This weeks I Heart Faces challenge is Props. I took this picture of the boys with their friends at Popham Beach State Park in Maine. The waves were wicked that day and kids had a blast jumping them and trying to catch the water with their buckets to fill up the big hole they dug. Pails make great props for summertime photos!





As always; there are so many great photographs over at I Heart Faces so don't forget to click on the link and check them all out!

I Heart Faces / Red, White & Blue

This week over at I Heart Faces, they are celebrating Red, White and Blue! I am excited to show off my action picture of my oldest son jumping in the bounce house at a 4th of July celebration in our old city. I have been practicing taking action shots in manual and have had the hardest time with the images coming out blurry. I would become discouraged and either accept that there were fuzzy spots or "cheat" and switch to the action setting on my camera.


In any case; I am starting to get the hang of it and understand how it works. Practice makes perfect. And because this is a "non competition" week; I also wanted to show off my first firework shot. I still had some issues trying to figure out how to capture these but by the end of the night I was able to get some really cool shots and of course, there is nothing like a little help from Lightroom to get rid of all the noise!



Hope everyone had as great of a 4th of July as I did with my friends and family! I end this post with a picture of my boys sporting their classic Old Navy Flag Tee's in Red, White and Blue! Don't forget to stop over at I Heart Faces to check out the other amazing entries!