Parts

A couple of my family's parts that I love...hubby's hands:
and Baxter's nose:
And one more photo of Baxter being Baxter:

Are you ready for some football?

I took my first football photos of the season today. My son's team had their first scrimmage, and they won 13-6! For a varsity team that went 0-9 (and lost by an average score of 48-0), it was huge!!

I'm not done with balloon photos yet

I edited some more balloon festival shots today.

First Day of School/Family

For the first time it took me two days to get my back-to-school photos. DD started Wednesday, and DS didn't have to go until Thursday. I didn't like it--it didn't have the same "excitement" for me.

DD on her way to 7th grade:
DS didn't think things were so exciting at 6:20 this morning either. Sullen teenager much? He's starting his sophomore year.
Doggy porn, anyone? Snapped by DH this morning. It's tough to be you, Baxter.

The mystery revealed

The place with the rainbow banners, shed with a purple door, and metal yard statue in my previous posts is:
a glass-blowing studio in Dresden, ME. We drove by it on our way home from our botanical garden trip a few weeks ago, and I had to stop because I have a thing for glass blowing. I think all your guesses were more interesting, though: a wizard school :-D, a church, a retreat center, etc.

I didn't buy anything, but I liked this stuff in this first photo:


There was a pretty eclectic mix of stuff in different styles. I just googled them, and it's a husband-and-wife team (and her dad is a pro photographer--side note for us shutterbugs).
The things that look like Slinkies? $180. You can buy them on Etsy (TandemGlass.etsy.com)

Although most of the stuff wasn't my style, I thought it was cool and funky. Seriously not a fan of the mushrooms though.

And one of the lovely flowers outside the studio:

The place with the shed with the purple door

Here are a couple more of the place with the shed with the purple door (which you can see on the bottom right of the first photo) and the metal bird sculpture in the field.

This is not my house, although sometimes I wish I was all bohemian and funky and cool and lived in a place like this. Tomorrow I'll reveal what it is. It's not that exciting; I just thought I'd make it a mystery since I've posted photos of it in bits and pieces. Any guesses?

Statue in a field

On the same property as the shed with the purple door:

Corn

It's nice being friends with local farmers. Sometimes they send your kids home with just-picked, sweet, delicious corn--that you don't have to share with your kids because it gets caught in their braces.

Canon 40D with 24-70mm lens at 70mm
ISO400 F5.6 SS1/25
Custom white balance

Shed with a purple door

Canon 40D with 24-70mm lens at 27mm
ISO400 F5.0 SS1/6400
Auto white balance
Screen layer and soft light layer in PSE

Hold that up

I was taking a look through my files to see what photos I still need to edit and realized that I've had a very fun, busy, photo-op filled summer. Here's another one from the balloon festival. It made me think of Atlas:

Baseball storage

I was walking through the garage today, noticed that DH had stored all the baseball/softball stuff in a milk crate, and thought they were in a nice configuration for a photo: A slightly different shot. I love doing my baseball photos with vintage processing. Problem is I never write down my steps before I flatten it, so I never do the same thing twice, and when I like how something turns out, I can't remember how to duplicate it. On this one I ran a chocolate action and then added a couple of textures, one as a soft light layer and one as a multiply layer. I think. I already can't remember and I just did it. Oh well.

Already?

Even though I know we have more nice weather to come and all the beautiful colors of fall to look forward to here in Maine, it makes me sad every year to see the first leaves start to turn so early and realize how incredibly short our summers really are. I took this photo in my yard today, but I've been seeing leaves that have already turned since early last week.

Canon 40D with 24-70mm lens at 40mm

ISO400 F8.0 SS1/100
Auto white balance

And looky, I'm on theme because there are lines in the leaves.

Bursting with balloons

I hope you're not sick of my balloon festival shots yet--because here's a bunch of them.

Pat, you had mentioned that at the festival you went to, the balloons do a 'splashdown' on the water. They try to do that here, too. Here's a couple of shots of some doing that. And check out that bird at the top of this shot.




Same shot as above but I messed with the sky in PS:

Couldn't have asked for a better configuration for the composition of this one:

More balloons

A couple more shots from the balloon festival. Friday night I was right at the launch site and close up, and then on Sunday morning I got up early to go to the 6 a.m. launch and stood on a bridge to watch the balloons go over the river. This shot is basically SOOC, just resized and sharpened for web. The sky was so blue. I love the balloons from this angle, not to mention that it's really cool when they fly right over your head(this was shot at 65mm).

Peekaboo

My son's girlfriend. Love her.

Canon 40D with 100mm macro lens
ISO200 F4.0 SS1/800
Custom white balance

Up up and away

More photos from the balloon festival. These were all taken with my 24-70mm lens. You get to be really close during the launches. So close that when the balloons are blowing up and on the ground, I can't get a whole one into my frame even at the widest angle. So close that when they're blowing them up, you might randomly have part of a balloon bop you on the head. It's awesome.Blowing up:
Almost there:
It's upright:
It's airborne (and the crowd applauds):