Antique Church with a Hint of Sun flare

I took this photo the same day as I took the photo of our county courthouse (two posts below); December 9th. It was also taken out of the car window, but this time we were headed home from my husband getting his hair cut.

The sky is blown, which is a no-no... but I actually really like it! I think it helps the sun flare stand out that's going across the left side of the church beside the windows and the sign. Also, I like the itty bitty round ones on the door and just above. And the small clouds that are just barely peeking out of the brightness makes me smile. I love photos of churches :)

From SOOC to Fully Edited

I'm really embarrassed to show this photo SOOC!! They're usually not this blah and ugly. I snapped it out the car window today (well, technically yesterday... I just havent been to bed and it's a new day) as we were driving by, and didnt have the time to adjust the settings in manual mode. Had I tried, I would have missed the opportunity to even get the photo at all. So, ya take what you can get.... riiiiiight?!!

I did not like this photo at all when I uploaded them onto my computer tonight. It just looked so... well, like I said before, blah and ugly! I could have scrapped the photo and not thought twice about it. But, I didnt! I thought it had some potential --just needed a little lovin' to make it look alright!


^Here is the SOOC;
only resized to 600px on the long side to share here.



^Here it is having only been edited in ACR;
& resized to 600px on the long side to share on here.



^Here is the photo with my normal editing done to it.
Some of the steps:
•Cropped;
resized to 600px on the long side.
•Cloned out the house with the red roof.
•Original layer duplicated;
soft light on top layer,
lower opacity,
merge.
•Sponged the whole photo on saturate to bring out the colors.
•Messed with the hue/sat to pop the colors a little bit more.
•Sky was too light for my liking, so I burned it.
•Used the sponge/burn/dodge tools throughout photo;
helped to add extra highlights and shadows where I wanted.
•Defogged and sharpened the image.



^Here is the final editing I did to the image.
Sometimes, I like to do extra editing on images to just spruce them up a bit more. This was one of those photos that I thought would benefit from doing so.
Some of my steps (using the last image):
•I blurred the sky to give it a more soft appearance.
•I duplicated the image twice;
high pass sharpen, set to overlay, lowered opacity,
duplicated, set to linear light, lowered opacity,
merged.
•Duplicated layer;
added gaussian blur,
set to overlay,
duplicated layer,
set to soft light,
lowered opacity,
merged.
•Sharpened.

Finally... Fall Colors!

A few from today; shot out the window of the car with my new Sigma 28-70mm f/2.8-4 lens :-)


















^my back yard

Visited the Louisville Zoo

On Saturday (the 23rd), I went to the Louisville Zoo (here in Kentucky) with my husband, our son and my parents. It was the first time my husband or son either one had ever been to a zoo, so I was really excited to see how they reacted to everything. They looooved it! My husband liked the penguins best of all and our son loved the monkeys (he calls them 'ooh-ahhs' b/c that's the sound they make; cute, huh?!!!).

So, just wanted to share one image I took while there. Played around in PS with it and here's the result (I gave my other camera to my hubby to get some photos and he took waaaay more than me; he says he hates it, but I caught him enjoying it ~woohoo, I converted him!):

Caterpillar {loader}

Can you believe that my Dad wrecked this the other day? Well, he did! He got my husband to drive in front of him in his pickup truck to be the flagsman because the loader doesnt have any brakes & they were going to be going down a really small, hilly road.

So my husband gets to the bottom of the hill and turns the truck off and gets out to listen for oncoming vehicles. He said he heard this really weird noise and then seen my Dad coming down the road... the bucket down on the blacktop trying to stop him, but to no avail. So he turned towards the trees and smacked into them because it was the only way he could stop.

It scared my husband so he hurried up to my Dad. It crushed part of the cab in right at the steering wheel & they said if he'd been holding onto it, then his fingers would've been chopped off! But, thank God he was holding onto the little knob thingy on the steering wheel instead! His knuckles were busted up and his arm was cut and bleeding a little bit, but no major injuries. He's on blood thinners for his heart where he's had heart caths and stuff... so we're really thankful he wasnt hurt!

I told them both that they cant play together anymore b/c the other day my hubby went riding bikes with his friend and tried to point and show him that there were some gravels in the road... and he wrecked. Cut his knee up pretty bag and his foot (the end of his toe = NASTY!). So since they always get hurt, they're grounded!

Oldies, but goodies (I hope *lol*)!!

Here are a few before/after images that I worked on today. They're not really all that old; maybe two to three months. Somewhere around that range. Just wanted to play with some landscape*ish photos and so I pulled these from my portable hd.

Another painting!

A shot I took of my oldest nephew on August 9th :-)



















~Again.... comments always appreciated *hint, hint*~

Yesterday's Sunset.

Beautiful ending to a beautiful day (my Dad's birthday, so a fun time with all my family)!

From Graceland, to You! {& more}

Went on vacation with my parents and two year old son July 14th-17th while my husband was in Ohio attending apprenticeship school for work. On the 16th, we were in Memphis and toured Elvis' home. Graceland was really beautiful and I enjoyed it thoroughly! While walking to the Presleys' grave sites, I got a shot of this statue. Or, would it be called a monument? Either way, it was stunning and I wanted to share :-)







& then here are a few more shots I just wanted to share in this post.

Saturday, my husband finally got to race his laydown for the first time this season. Between work, school & weddings... he's missed pretty much the whole race season.


Before:




After a color boost:




After making it vintage:




*SIDE NOTE* Oh, and our two year old wrecked his little 50 four wheeler there! Pushed the throttle and got away from me (cant really run being 27 weeks pregnant, but I tried really hard - running behind him and screaming the whole way!). He drove smack dab into the fence, flew over the handle bars, smacked head first into the fence and then crumpled to the ground beside the four wheeler. I have never been so scared in my entire life! He cried, but wasnt seriously hurt - just mostly scared of what happened. He got a little boo boo on his hip and ankle, a tiny scratch on his forehead and then a big bruise showed up on his arm a few days later. He could have been seriously injured, but God was watching over him and kept him protected from anything worse.

Ok, back to the photos. Sorry! Gotta share my Mommy experiences sometimes; good or bad!

Did you know that we have a goat? Yup, her name is Nosy... VERY fitting!




& finally, two purple flowers:

Summer Fun & Flowers

*You can tell my husband is a workin' man {lots of outside-around.the.house-work that day} ;-)




&





*See what my focus was? ANTS INSIDE! *lol*

Gone Fishin'

I went fishing with my husband and son yesterday at the lake.
I have twenty images to share; so it might take a minute to load them all. Please comment if you like any :-)


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