My girls & I went for a little walk around the neighborhood to see what flowers we could spy.  They really wanted a photo of this tree because it makes “pink snow” – you know, all the little pink petals that fall, and I’m sure have some of you sneezing a LOT these days.  They thought it was so pretty.  Then we talked about if we were a bird, which branch would we want to live on.  It was fun!  I’ll be putting some more springtime shots on my Facebook fan page – with NO LOGO – so you can grab them if you like.  Remember, those are low-res, so if you want high-res ones, just shoot me an e-mail.  I’m happy to share!

When I took our puppy, Ruby, out this morning to potty, I saw that this snow wasn’t going to last long.  It was so soft & fluffy, and stuck beautifully to the trees around our house.  I went back inside & snapped the photo above of a little tree.  There wasn’t anything spectacular about it.  I think shooting in snow is a little difficult.  It’s hard to make white things stand out when there’s nothing but white behind them.  So, I opened this photo in Lightroom & decided to try some of the free presets I downloaded on it.  This preset is called “Cold Desire.”

And that brings me to the Photos I’ve been looking at:  Presets Heaven.  Pierre created the site Presets Heaven and it holds nothing but FREE presets for Adobe Lightroom.  They are awesome!  There are soooooooo many to choose from.  I loved how this one made my one little snow covered tree stand out from everything else behind it.  What a huge difference!  Here’s how the photo looked SOOC (straight out of the camera):

Now I realize I just blogged earlier about NOT fixing things in Photoshop, and I don’t feel this photo needed any “fixing.”  I just wanted to play around with it & see what I could transform it in to.  I had fun!

Happy snow day….again!

It’s typically a habit of mine not to fall prey to advertising & succumb to the NEED to have some particular thing.  However, when the Dyson came out, & when I had a puppy & a newborn, I NEEDED to have one.  I HAD to have one.  I’d DIE without one!  And, as ever, my loving husband Josh gave in to my whining & pleading & manipulation techniques for why it’d be so great to keep the floors clean for the baby.  We got a Dyson (paid cash like smart people) & I have loved it ever since!  My “baby” is now almost 5 & my Dyson is still running strong.  We are on child #2 & puppy #2 and that vacuum cleaner is still one of my BFFs.  I mean look at the thing…it’s so sleek, so clean, so simple – and the guy who makes them has a cool accent!  Who wouldn’t want one?  Really though, I can attest to it’s ease of use.  I’ve taken the thing apart, cleaned it, put it back together, & it still works.  And I’ve sucked up some pretty brutal stuff too!  Just go get one, because I said so!

This image is me vacuuming up the pine needles that our dying Christmas tree left behind.  We got our tree again this year at our neighbor Jack’s nursery – Bay Ridge Nursery.  We like doing business with local people if we can, because Josh & I are local businesses.  So this tree looked big outside at Jack’s shop, but in our house, I swear it doubled in size & girth!  And then going out the door just an hour ago, it doubled again!  It was a great tree, & I’ll miss its scent.  But I will not miss its needles.  Which, by the way, probably dropped sooner than they would have if our dog Ruby hadn’t kept drinking the water from the tree stand.  Farewell dear tree!  And good riddance stinkin’ needles!

Images I’m looking at:  La Brisa Photography in Brooklyn, New York.  Chris is someone I randomly started following on Twitter & enjoy looking at the stuff he’s working on besides just work.  He recently had a post about a photographer meet up where they met & shot at night!  And I was like, “Whoa…how’d you shoot at night?”  He told me he’s in to pushing his camera ISO  to its limits to see what it can do.  That is totally profound & totally simple all at the same time.  Why am I then afraid to push my ISO above 400?   So, I tried that.  With my image today I was reluctant to use a flash (and hold my Dyson at the same time), so I bumped up my ISO to 2500 & I think it looks pretty decent.  Thanks, Chris, for the challenge!