{p,h,f,r} Good Photos From the Week…or not

I don’t know what it was, but I was whipping my camera out and taking snapshots all week. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when my camera battery died suddenly at the beach yesterday. (Sorry Edie, no pictures of you.) It had me wishing for my old manual SLR that metered and took pictures sans battery or advanced settings. It was my first real camera, purchased at an estate sale, and it helped put me on the path to a lifelong love of photography.

It took a long time for me to accept society’s conversion from film to digital photography. I swore I’d be developing Tri-X in my basement darkroom until the apocalypse. I managed to hold out until I had children. Then as I flipped through picture after picture of awkward, blurry or just plain awful child photos that I had paid for, I quickly saw the benefit to digital photography which allowed the banishment of bad photos into oblivion with the tap of a button.

However, being able to erase the bad photos more easily does not necessarily mean I’m left with more good photos.  I suppose in an effort to make the most of what I’m left with, I’m now tweaking my images with photo effects via Google + (which acquired Picnik) or on PicMonkey. (I have yet to get a smart phone and make the leap to Instagram. My husband says we need that money for “necessities” like food and the electric bill. Whatever.) Do the effects make better pictures? Or does a good photo need to be a good photo without special effects?

The perpetually 19-year-old photo student in me says a bad photo can’t be turned into a great photo with special filters, it can only be made less bad. Great photos capture the decisive moment and stand alone.  But I find that my eye gravitates towards photos other people may overlook or dislike so I’m curious to know your thoughts. I’ve heard it said that all these photo sharing / doctoring sites make it easier for everyone to take great pictures. Is that really the case? Or are we being flooded with mediocre images and thus, unable to recognize a truly beautiful image when we see it? And when we do find a captivating image created by the heavy use  of filters or Photoshop, is it inferior to a beautiful image presented without any alteration? Or do we view them both on a level playing field?

So now that I rambled on about photography and put you all to sleep, I present my {p,h,f,r} shots of the week. Some altered, some not, some candid and some posed. Let me know what you think, and then head over to Like Mother, Like Daughter to view the rest of the Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real links.

 

{pretty}

I’m going to make you hate me like my kids hate me for screaming at them several times a week, “Kids! Come look at this sunset! It’s beautiful! Look! LOOK! Someday you might live somewhere where you can’t see sunsets like this!!” I’ll never tire of this view or of slathering images of it all over my blog and Flickr feed.

Beautiful day at Ocean City, New Jersey yesterday.  It is my dream to move there and homeschool on the beach.

{funny} & {happy}

We had a party for Fulton’s fourth birthday on Sunday with my parents and grandmother. I took lots of posed shots, and close-ups of Fulton opening gifts, however these two are my favorites. The first is my husband ripping into the back of the “Frustration Free” packaging one of Fulton’s toys came in. He can fell a tree and tackle Fisher Price. He’s a regular man-beast.

And although Fulton is blurry, you can see him trying to blow out the four candles on the elaborate cake my mom made him. His expression cracks me up. He devoured most of the green car himself.

{real}

Many of the blogs I read post favorite recipes with beautiful food pictures thrown in to make the reader salivate. I thought, hey, I cook a lot I should try my hand at this. And I thought it would be a good excuse to try out my macro lens. I tried a new recipe for tortilla soup and snapped away the whole time, even during dinner much to the confusion of my family. (Until Tony exclaimed, “Is this for the blog? This is for the blog. You know you need my permission before you can put my image on your site.” ) In the end, I was not happy with the soup or many of the pictures except this one. It is the first tomato of the season given to us by a friend.

Lots more good stuff coming up, and thankfully I’ve got a fresh battery at the ready. And if I get around to cooking in this heat, maybe I’ll bust out the macro lens again too.