Treating Myself!!

Today, because I was driving by, and because it was the anniversary of the day of my birth, I stopped by a wonderful bakery called Daddy Cakes.  I bought a few cupcakes (they were nearly out!) to bring home to my family and to treat myself!

YUMMMMM!!!!



I had the strawberry shortcake.  It was delicious and OH SO RICH!!!  I think I went into a sugar coma for about 3 hours after I ate it!  Can you say "real buttercream icing!"????  *faint*

I bought the Cookies and Cream variety for my older children.  (a second strawberry was required for the younger one.)  They said the icing tasted like ice cream.  I don't doubt it!  Of course, I didn't get a taste of those... No worries!  I don't think I could have handled the sugar overload!

My husband loves banana and they only had one left.  I didn't even get a chance to take its picture before he had dug in.  (it had banana pudding in the middle!!  Yummy!)



If you are ever near the Topeka area and in need of some desserts, stop by Daddy Cakes!  Wonderful gourmet cupcakes and a great atmosphere!



I still have one left that I will take to school for lunch tomorrow.  I also have a meeting there tomorrow night......





 Oh ya!


Diet???  Who needs to diet?!  We don't need no stinkin' diets!!!!

Chairs! (??)

Today's theme for the Friday Shoot-Out is "chairs".

I SO wish I had time to go to a furniture store and take some shots of chairs I want to buy!!!   Alas, I do not have the time.

So....

Here are some chairs I have shots of:

From the production "Arsenic and Old Lace" - gives it that old Victorian home look.

This is my classroom at school.  1, 2, ready, SING!

Bench overlooking the lake.

Swing at the ballpark.

The pup at the Bark Park decided the bench was HIS!

The throne at Ken's house.  :)

(I used a couple "vintage" actions on the last photo.)

Yep - there are some chairs - or seats ......

Check out all the great Friday Shoot Outs on these other blogs!!

Much Love to ya!

Tiffany

Old Glory!

While waiting for the parade last Saturday, I found myself standing next to a flag that was rippling in the wind.  How perfect! 

I just found a good vantage point that didn't have distractions and put the sun where I wanted it.  I then set my camera to take continuous shots as the wind moved the flag around.

Here are the results.
















All photos are SOOC.

I think the first is probably my favorite because the sun is just over the edge of the flag, but half of the flag is not crisply focused.   I also like the third and forth shots.  :)

Have a great evening!  Friday shoot out tomorrow! 

Much Love,

Tiffany

Middle Child and a Merry-Go-Round

As promised yesterday, here are the merry-go-round photos of the other daughter.  They aren't as good.  She was a little closer to me and I never completely got focused on her.  :/

BUT - I promised to share them, so here they are!
























-----------------------------------------

Pioneer Woman is doing something interesting in her photography section today.  She gave us a hi-res photo that she took and asked everyone to Photoshop it, then load it back to Flicker and share it with everyone.  I'm QUITE interested to see what kind of results happen.  This is a very cool idea!!!

Much Love,

Tiffany

At the Park

A fun day last Saturday.  The son's band performed in a parade just a block from the house.  I'll post pictures about that soon.

As we were waiting on the parade, the girls and I played on the merry-go-round.  I decided to climb up there with them and try to take pictures WHILE they were spinning. 

It was:

* FUN!

* a little scary

* made me very DIZZY!!

* created some interesting pictures!

I learned:

* HANG ON!  TIGHTLY!!  I wrapped my leg around one of the bars and sat on the beam.

* Set the shutter on continuous fire.  There WILL be some "bad" shots among the good ones.

* I hadn't thought about it, but it makes sense.... Because we are going around in circles, the light will be changing in each shot.

*  It's hard to focus on something when I'm moving!!!



Here is my favorite from the morning.



This second one is probably better technically, but her smile was starting to fade and is looking a little more forced.  The first smile was better.  :)



Now that I take a closer look, it's not that bad... I like them both!  I'm not really sure which is better.

Now for the not so great ones - all the way to the down-right failures!



My orange shirt is reflecting in her glasses.



Blurry....



Not too bad, but there's a dappled shadow across her face from the trees.



Too much shadow.


Then I tried some landscapes, but the smile was definitely fading.



Shadowed and glasses reflection



Blurry and glasses reflection....



And..... blurry.

So - there are the tries for this kiddo on the merry-go-round.  I'll show you the other daughter tomorrow.


It is such a busy week this week.  (I seem to say that a lot, but it's TRUE!)  I had a performance as a member of an adult choir last night, and I have a performance as the director of a high school choir tomorrow night.  Tonight, the kids are at band practice and they have a concert tomorrow as well!  Thus is the life of performers in October, December, and again in the spring!  We'll make it through as we always do!  :)




Have a great week!

Much Love,

Tiffany

FMTSO - Reflective or Shiny!

It's FRIDAY!!!!

Today's theme for Friday My Town Shoot Out is Reflective or Shiny....  I think I have some of those!  :)

First is this wonderful fountain at the Rose Garden:

One of my all-time favorite reflections from the Tulip Festival last spring.

Another favorite from this past summer.... I love how the setting sun gave the marina a golden hue!

How about this funny reflection?????

Pretty geeky, eh?


Here's one of my favorites that has light glinting off the water.  :)

Be sure to check out everyone else's Shiny-ness!

Have a great Weekend everyone!  The band is marching at a parade tomorrow morning and the hubby and I are off to "Rocky Horror Picture Show" at the theatre tonight!  Going to be tons of fun!!!

Love ya!

Tiffany

Beautiful Barn!

What a busy week it is!  Homecoming is this week at the high school where I teach.  My show choir sang at the Homecoming assembly this morning.  I think it went well!  There was a carnival this evening and there will be a parade, the game and the dance tomorrow!  Wow!  I will then have 2 seperate choir concerts next week - one I'm conducting and one in which I'm singing.  :)

I think I'm meeting myself coming and going!

During these times of the year, the rural setting calms my mind and spirit.  Here's a shot from the same farm where I took the chickens photos.



Here's wishing you much relaxation during the weeks to come!!

Tiffany

Blog Award

Being such a small and new blog with few followers, I was very surprised to see the comment on yesterday's post!!

Thank you so much Marie Elizabeth from The Places I go... for the Blog Award!

Marie Elizabeth, Thank you so much!  I was so surprised!!

It is nice to know that the random things I say and do are occasionally appreciated by others.


Here is a shot from a couple of years ago on Thanksgiving.  My daughters were swinging together on the tire swing at my parents'.  I think it is one of my all-time favorites even though I really didn't understand how to use my camera at the time!

Much Love!

Tiffany

Kitten!!!

This cute kitty likes to hang around our house.  She belongs to one of our neighbors and had kittens a couple of months ago.  As she has been trying to ween her kits, she's been spending more and more time at our house!



We give her milk once in a while.  We kinda spoil her like that.

As she's been around more and more, she isn't scared of my camera anymore.  Now I get blurry pictures because she keeps coming up to inspect the camera.  :)

Isn't she just the sweetest?!?!!???

Say it with me:  Awwwwwww!!!!!

I hope I can get some less blurry pictures soon.  :)

Have a great day!

Tiffany

Preparing for Print

This photo is becoming one of my favorites. 



I took it on the morning of the 9/11 dedication by the Boy Scouts on the grounds of the Capital Building.

---------------------------------------------

As I am preparing to submit my photos for the magazine article I shot, I am running into a snag!  (Oh NO!)

The editor asked that I submit photos that are 300dpi and in a CMYK format.  Luckily, after all that studying I did last summer, I knew exactly what those things meant, but I wasn't exactly certain how to make it happen.... Time for more research!!

For those who don't know, "dpi" is short for "dots per inch" and referrs to the resolution of your photo.  While my photos automatically save at 72dpi in Photoshop Elements, I did find that I can "resize" the photos and change them to whatever dpi I want.  In fact, while most were at 72 dpi, a couple were already saved at more than 400!  In order to follow directions, and since this is my first time to submit photos to an editor, I changed them all to 300dpi and saved them in a seperate folder in order to preserve the originals.  (I didn't have to shoot in RAW in order to do this.  JPG was fine!)

The problem I'm running into is that Photoshop Elements will not convert photos to CMYK.  Photoshop will (you know, the $700 package), but not Elements.  I have read that GIMP allows for the conversion, and that it is a free download, so I am considering it.  We'll have to see.

Again, for those who are newbies and didn't spend their summers in the library :)  CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK.  When we view photos on the computer screen, or see photos that are made up of light, the RGB format is used (Red, Green, Blue).  From those three basic colors, you can make litterally THOUSANDS of colors.  However, in the world of ink printing (as in magazines, newspapers, photo prints, etc.) CMYK inks are used.

So there are a couple of things I learned about through this voyage.  I also learned about a program called "dropbox", which is an online backup/file-sharing program.  This is where I will submit my photos.  I don't even have to travel anywhere or mail anything!  Welcome to the digital age!!!

Have a great Monday everyone! 

Tiffany

Photo Shoot

I had the opportunity to do my first photoshoot this week!  How fun!  I was asked to take photos to accompany an article for a local magazine.  Here are a few of the shots I took. 

I am learning a LOT about the process of preparing photos for print.  I’ll write more about that this coming week.

Hope you are all having a great weekend!

Tiffany