Christmas Roundup

Hi Friends! We trust you all enjoyed the holidays and are perhaps enjoying some time off or at least a quiet week at work. The Chadwick-Pulaski (ie, Chadski) holidays were busy, busy, busy as always but wonderful and full of family time. We spent Christmas Eve at the Pulaski's and Christmas day at the Chadwick Lake House (with the Pulaski's too). The festivities included eating, ice skating, eating, presents, eating, board games, eating, movies and well, more eating. Doesn't get much better than that.

Santa spoiled us this year. James got some new tools that will come in handy for house work and I got an amazing camera. I have been eying photography as a new hobby for awhile (not that I need any more hobbies!) but digital SLRs are pretty expensive so until now it's just been one of those, "someday I would like to" day dreams. I love taking photos, but lately the quality of them has been lacking because I've been relying on my iPhone to do the work. Convenient, but the results certainly leave something to be desired.

iPhone pic, can you tell?

So, my right index finger has been busy this week. The last time I took a photography class was back in high school so I needed a refresher on terminology, functions and techniques. Figuring out how the camera works and how it's changed in the past 10 years has been so fun! I even managed to learn how to do a few tweaks and tune ups in Photoshop, a program I've always had, but barely use because it easily overwhelms and intimidates. Now I have real motivation to learn it and a reason to practice, practice, practice. Thanks to the presence of lots of photography related websites and blogs on the internet including one of my favorite reads, The Pioneer Woman, I have been able to figure a few things out and produce some decent images. Still, I barely know what I'm doing at this point, I can't wait to learn more and continue to share my new art with you all! Here are a few shots from the past few days, some are just straight out of the camera, others have been edited in Photoshop.

Good thing I have Summit, James would never put up with this.

You may have noticed there's a new widget on the left that links to a Flickr profile. I'll be adding more pics to the Flickr site as often as possible...I suppose they all can't fit on the blog. Be sure to check it out and if any of you have any advice for a novice photographer, pass it this way!