{Friday Photo Bliss} : Photography Experiments, Swings, Soap, and Naughty Dog

On Fridays I like to post snapshots I took during the week that make me happy.

I am lately obsessed with the photographer Keith Carter. He lives in Beaumont, TX and shoots medium-format and B&W. Much of his work was done locally in Texas, but he also travels around the world. Nice gig if you can get it!

I am also obsessed with medium-format, but there is no way I have the money or time to get into it. I used to do some darkroom work, but that was back before kids. However, I did some research and it is possible to get a medium-format inspired effect using photomerge in Photoshop. Sure, it isn't the real thing, but it looks cool!

I used this technique on this image of Imp. I shot ten photos of him using my Canon Rebel and nifty-50 and put it all together with photomerge. I LOVE this effect! This was just my first try, when I have a little free time I am going to shoot more of them and put together a tutorial. This is one technique that would be difficult to create with a camera phone, you need to have a camera where you can control the focus, aperture, and white balance.

Now is the time to make fall-inspired soaps! This one is my own recipe and is called "Frosted Carrot Cake". It has carrot puree and pumpkin pie spices. It darkened up once I cut it, but it smells amazing. All natural and ready to hand out to friends and family early October.

I love our house. It is a tall and skinny cedar-siding Victorian (shotgun style) and built in 1983 using plans from the early 1900's. So no large closets. ;-) My favorite thing about living here is all of the trees surrounding our house. This was the view from our curtained-covered window during school one morning this week. I love shadows. And I also love watching the birds and squirrels at our squirrel feeders in our front yard.

I see fall but I don't feel it. It is still getting up in the late 90's during the day.  

Duke is interested in photography so I gave him a lesson in Rim Light yesterday at the neighborhood park. Imp was happy to assist on the swings.

You can't be a photographer and not love light. These type of images give me all of the happy feels.

On a more somber note, my youngest son (Piper the dog), did a very naughty thing. He has always been a pretty good kid, very eager to please. He never chewed up anything major (other than the outside porch columns and a bit of our cedar siding) and has had only two accidents in the house.  But a few days ago I came downstairs and found that he had snacked on the bottom of the staircase!

I can't really blame him, I was cleaning up the other day and put all his toys away and now I can't find them!

If Piper was human I would have chewed him out. Hee hee, that is funny, right? But he is just a dog doing dog things. So what is this mom to do but get him some new chew toys!

Yes, my dog chewed up our stairway and was punished by getting three new toys. My husband was puzzled by my parenting skills.

His new toys have been scattered all over the house, but I noticed that every evening he puts them all in a pile in the den. I guess he wants to keep them safely nearby. After all, all of his other toys were stolen by a bad lady.

Dogs are cute. Thank goodness, because they are also a pain in the rear. I guess I could say the same thing about my older kids Duke and Imp... ;-)

Have a great weekend!

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