i heart faces

I ♥ Heart Faces is a fun blog that has a weekly photo contest. This week the contest is Sports in Action. Here's one of the boy from this past week's baseball tournament. Look at that determination! If you want the details, leave a comment and let me know.

fantastic giveaway!

So, you've heard my blog before about Catching Fireflies. When we lived in Royal Oak I would visit the Berkley store and after we moved to Lake Orion I would hit the Rochester store. Now that I'm in New York, I have to visit the blog and site but, I still get my Catching Fireflies fix and am hoping to make a stop on my trip to MI this summer.

But Catching Fireflies is seriously a great gift store. I can always find just the right thing when I head on over there. Right now April is offering a fabulous giveaway.



Now that summer is in full swing, we've got some great ways to stay refreshed on steamy evenings... 500 smoothies & juices recipe book, funny cocktail napkins, an amusing gurgle pot and ice kabobs ($70.35 value!) Head on over to the blog for all the details and good luck!

just one shot

Sometimes, all you need is one shot. We took a day trip into Philly and as we were walking into Betsy Ross's home, my son pointed out, "That's a big tree." As I was walking, I looked up, snapped the picture and walked in the house.



Fuji FinePix F50fd
Shutter Speed: 1/90 s
Exposure Program: Normal Program
F-Stop: f 2.8
ISO: 200
Focal Length: 8.0 mm (35 mm)
Flash: Fired

Looking back over the photos from the trip, I enjoyed this one. I thought the angle of shooting up into the tree made it look large and looming. I also incorporated the rule of thirds in this image. With the rule of thirds, you imagine dividing the horizontal and vertical into thirds and placing a point of interest at one of the intersections. In this case, the trunk of the branch runs along a vertical third and then the branches run along a horizontal third.



Since I was happy with this straight out of camera crop, I wondered which I would prefer ... color or black and white. For the color, I played with the curves and for the black and white, I added a bit of a vignette. So, which do you prefer?