Day 48 - 365 Fishing

Day 48 - 365 Fishing
Originally uploaded by scrapgeek/NKMphotos

Still stuck at at home with a cold, going through the house looking for stuff to take pictures of. Here is my little trio of 'fishing buddies' sitting on a bench on my shelf. :D

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Day 47 - 365 Trivet

Day 47 - 365 Trivet
Originally uploaded by scrapgeek/NKMphotos

I've had a cold for several days now, and I'm really having to push myself to take my daily picture. So, here goes: tadaa--a trivet. OK, I admit, it's not that great, but this is all I could come up with.

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Day 45 - 365 Scribbles

Day 45 - 365 Scribbles
Originally uploaded by scrapgeek/NKMphotos

Too much work, not enough time for pictures :P And, once again, it's almost midnight--I need some time off!

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Day 39 - Peas in a Pod

Day 39 - Peas in a Pod
Originally uploaded by scrapgeek/NKMphotos

Ok, I'm slowly catching up with posting the pictures I took over the last week. I would get a lot more done, if that silly distractor, aka work, didn't constantly rear its ugly head!
Ah, but then I would be able to (occasionally) buy camera-goodies. :D

So, the actual picture was cute and as is, but I thought the pod and the background, well everything, was just a bit too colorful. Other than adding my logo and, of course, the hidden day-number, I only used the Branding Iron action from MCP's Finish It set. To get the lovely tone, I tried the (free--whoohoo) Pretty Presets Brown LightRoom Preset. I'm definitely going to have to buy some of them.

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Great Picture, but--ewww!?

I'm finally getting around to processing some of my first pictures taken with the new Extension Tubes I got for my Anniversary. I took my camera out on one of my daily walks around the building after lunch using my Tamron 70-300 Zoom Macro lens (love that one).  Ok, this is not really that unusual, since I always take my camera, because the two times I didn't, I missed out on some great shots.
Now, there isn't that much to see along the walkway if you do it every day, except for the occasional squirrel and bird, which I've captured pretty well I think.
So, I was trying to find something really small to try it out and the only thing I could find was this spider! Ok, fine, not the cutest subject around, but it'll have to do--I had get back to work, you know?
I was amazed at how close I got without getting too close--does that make sense? Of course it does :D
Anyway, here is one of the shots that I think came out amazing, except for the up-close creepiness.

If you zoom in, you can see three sets of eyes; if you can get past the fuzzy legs up close :)

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Seattle Butterfly House

Yesterday was a full day for Family Activities. First stop was the Harry Potter Exhibit. Nick really enjoyed that--Katie--not so much--too scary I think. Then, we went to the Butterfly House and I think I managed to get a few good shots despite the inconsiderate masses who didn't seem to care when people wanted to take pictures (don't get me started). Anyway, this little guy really liked my husband's cap, cause he decided to stay for what seemed like a long time :D.

I just did some cleanup in Camera RAW and used these actions: Boost (from PWAction Set 1--my fave!), and the Crackle and Bring out the Eyes actions from MCP's Quickie set.
The last stop was the BSG Exhibit at EMP. I got a few shots, but not too great; they had a no flash rule plus the lighting was really dark. I'll post more pictures as I clean them up.

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The local Wildlife

Lately, I started taking my camera on my walk around the office building after lunch, mainly to get more familiar with the new camera and the new lens, a Tamron AF 70-300 Macro Zoom (sweet). So, every day I try to look for something new and interesting to shoot. Yesterday, as soon as I stepped outside, I heard birds chirping nearby and started to look around. Sure enough, one bird (don't ask what kind because I have no idea, decided to take a break right in front of us. I think he (she?) was talking to another bird and didn't want to chirp and fly :)

I really like this lens. It does a fantastic job of capturing the subject and the resulting DOF and bokeh are great! I used to have to do some creative adjusting in Photoshop to get the DOF even close to what I'm getting now, which saves me a ton of post-processing time. That, combined with some really cool (and extremely useful) actions I got from the Pioneer Woman and CoffeeShop sites, gives me more time to work on the fun stuff, like adding textures.

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