Play Day

Today we got out of the house, and had a play day for the kids, and for mommy. We got our new camera in the mail on Monday, and I've been so busy this week I haven't touched it once since I ripped it out of the box. And it was making me a leeeeeeeettle crazy. So, we headed down to Walla Walla Park to eat lunch, play on the playground, feed the ducks, and let me FINALLY play with our new toy. I've never claimed photography as a hobby for a few different reasons. I do really enjoy it and admire it, but I feel like everyone I've ever spoken to claims that photography is their hobby. So, while I know it does take skill to be a good photographer--I'm not minimizing that AT ALL, and I would like to be skillful at it, I've never gone nuts over it. While the knee-jerk obsession with not being like everyone else plays in there, realistically the main reasons why I haven't pursued it overly much is because I'm also pathetically bad at remembering numbers... so aperture, lens sizes, exposure times, all that stuff goes flying out my head the minute before it even gets in, and also I've never been able to afford all the pieces that are required for using a camera, so that's been a bit of an obstacle. When we started talking about getting a new camera, Frank (who tends toward being a most excellent photographer) wanted a DSLR, so now I believe I'll be learning all these things, and hopefully get better at it. I also set my one goal for this year to learn Photoshop--If I've got it, I really oughta use it, so hopefully between these two things, I can learn something new this year, and keep the old noodle sharpish.

So, anyway, now that I've got that all straight, here goes my pics for the day... some auto focus, some manual, and some just playing with all the awesome settings on this camera and finding my way through the menus--it's got HDR, and I am SO excited about this!! I love HDR photography. (I didn't use it today because I would have had to set up the tripod, and it was REALLY windy.) So anyway, beyond the excellent reviews it got, we also loved the fact that it had that feature. It's the Pentax k-x by the way. :-)

The bridge...

The next two are the same shots of the bridge with the random cross process filter feature. I am so excited about this feature, as I dearly love random, and this gives me a gambling fix without spending any money, haha! Since you don't know what filter the camera will use until after the picture is taken, it makes for some really fun photography.

Back to normal.

It's got a kid setting that was really cool, I was impressed at how good the kid pics were AFTER I found that feature.

Sweet baby hands... :-)

These two are probably my favorite from the whole day.

After the park we took the dog over to the field for a run. These pics show perfectly why I love springtime in Wenatchee... the green and blue are so intense. These photos have not been edited for color.

And now, cue Chariots of Fire or some such song... Ok, got that running through your head?! Good. Following is the pictoral story of my dog chasing a tumbleweed, and returning brokenhearted.

Thank you, and good night.