My New Passion…Photography

I’ve always been a closet photographer. I love taking pictures and I have placed all of my photos, hundreds and hundreds of them in big scrapbooks. I did this for years. Some of the pictures were good, but most were not, and I put them ALL in the the scrapbook because I felt badly about throwing anything out. I would have five or six shots of the same thing and all would go in the books.

I am the webmaster at this site, www.chesapeakechurch.org. There are many talented people on my team who keep it updated and current. Since I stumbled on this job, I decided I need to learn a thing or two about photography.

I started fooling around with Photoshop, not having a clue mind you, about how to use it. I was able to eventually figure out how to crop a picture, Yeah Baby! Then I bought a book on digital photography by the incredibly talented Scott Kelby, the guru of all things photographic. I read it cover to cover.

One of the talented guys on the my web team sent me to thepioneerwoman.com. I started visiting the site and began to voraciously read the posts on photography. Her photos are incredibly inspiring.

Then…last month, my life changed forever – again.

My fly-boy husband bought me a Nikon D40 for my birthday. The camera became the object of my obsession and Photoshop is the tool with which to express it. Mind you, I’ve never taken a photography class, never taken a Photoshop class, and basically don’t know what I’m doing. It’s not stopping me from sharing what I see with the world.

The caterpillar story as seen through the lens of the object of my obsession.

My daughter saving the caterpillar.

We saved it from getting run over in the driveway so it can become…

this.

My daughter took this picture, she loves the camera too.

The top photo is the straight out of camera shot (SOOC). I ran The Pioneer Woman’s Photoshop action “boost” twice. Then I ran the define and sharpen action and the difference is incredible, and beautiful.

I will forever Photoshop.