I want to see green.

I needed to get out of the house and get some fresh air, to get my mind off of all of the things I was sitting and worrying about.  So I went for a little drive and wound up at Capilano and Gold Bar parks.  It was really really windy, but I didn't mind for the most part, I wore a warm coat and liked feeling my hair whipping around my head.

The skies were nice and blue, dotted with big fluffy clouds that the sun would hide behind every few minutes.  I decided to try doing some HDR pictures, although I knew I had 2 things against me: 1. no tripod, and 2. too windy.  I tried it anyway, bracing my camera on a corner of a bridge handrail, but the wind was what made it impossible.  For an HDR to work well it helps if there is no motion in your pictures!  This is what I got...you can tell that wind had the clouds moving pretty quickly.

That led me to try and "fake" some HDRs when I got home later and was picking out which ones I wanted to edit.  (By "fake", I mean that I am making exposure adjustments during editing, rather than while I'm taking the pictures.)  Here is one of the pictures used to compose the shot above, unedited...

And here is a "fake" HDR, made by adjusting the exposure settings of another similar shot in Lightroom and combining 3 of those adjusted pictures...

I think it's a pretty reasonable facsimile! It still pulled out the colors, highlights and shadows, and looks pretty decent compared to original I tried.  I did a handful more of these and am going to post them over in my photo section, along with the other pictures I took.  I did see some trees that were starting to bud, and some pussywillows, but I want to see more green, I am ready for spring.

Just a few pics...

Aha! I rounded up some pictures.  Here are a few from last weekend, when we decided to brave the cold weather and the mall!  Just a little drift outside the front door...

I had to take a picture of this classic wagon...talk about a boat!! I think you could fit my entire neighborhood in this car.

And just a shot in the mall...this was on a quiet end of the mall, it was a lot busier elsewhere.

As for the rest of the pictures...head for the photo album!

I wanted to do more, but it was freaking cold! -20 celcius plus windchill making it more like -32...the camera did well but my fingers were freezing!  The weather is supposed to be warming up next weekend...perhaps Jared and I will need to go on a photographizing drive!

Saturday afternoon

Given the lovely weather we had today, Jared and I decided to go for a walk in the Mill Creek Ravine.  Here he is giving me the 'photographizing eye'.

I don't remember which one of us came up with the term photographizing, but we use it so often that I have to make a conscious effort not to say it when I'm speaking with people who aren't in on it!

In any event, check out the results of our photographizing over in my photo section :)

Happy birthday to my hubby!

Today was my hubby's birthday.  Yay!  He spent the afternoon doing some wedding photography, then came home and opened some of his presents.  His main present wont be here til Monday, but he already knows what it is...

It's a Spyder Cube, a calibration tool for his photography.  I ended up telling him about it because I wanted to know if it was something he would use or if I should put the money to use elsewhere.

After he opened his other presents, we went out for a bite to eat, and came home to his birthday cake...a raspberry Jello cheesecake that I decorated with some South Park characters I got at Toy-a-Day. 

Happy Birthday Jared!! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Update on Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at 5:42PM by Charlotte

Check out my hubby's review of his new cube, and see a before and after shot! It's here at Radarland!

Wanna see some cool pictures?

Check out my hubby's overview of HDR photography and his latest batch of HDR photos at his website, Radarland!