We took our summer vacation this year in sunny Seattle with Grandma and Grandpa Mandel.
The weather was glorious throughout the entire trip so Emma and Henry had a great time in Grandpa's huge backyard.
They spent the week doing the kinds of things you imagine kids outside during summer ought to do: roll in the grass, run, scream, "Oooh!" and "Ahhh!" at the banana slugs, gather pine cones and the like.
We went to Kirkland for the 4th of July, first playing at the lake (getting thoroughly wet in the process) and later watching the parade. The parade was a first for Emma and Henry and both really got a kick out of it. They loved waving at everyone as they passed by.
@ 2:39 PM by TNorthcutt | Comments (5)
Comments
On September 4, 2006 7:28 PM Jamie said:
Great shots. You gotta almost be caught up at this rate!
One thing I've noticed about a lot of your shots is that the colors come out really nice, all rich and warm. Do you do anything in particular to get that?
On September 4, 2006 7:58 PM Jody said:
Looks like a fun trip and a great fourth of July. I especially like the pic of Marla at the airport(?).
On September 5, 2006 9:22 PM Todd said:
I wish I was all caught up! I posted these exactly two months late... the only "saving" grace is that I didn't take many pictures in August!
Anyway...
I think the two things I'm very picky about are 1) black levels and 2) white balance.
I adjust the black level on almost every picture I "develop" for print/website to make sure that the blacks in the picture are really black and not just dark gray. I think it makes the colors stand out a good bit more. You run the risk of losing a lot of detail in the shadows, though, so you have to balance it out.
The other is white balance. I like my pictures a little warmer than the auto white balance makes them so I've got the color temp adjusted in Capture One to something I like. (I shoot everything in RAW and use C1 to "develop.")
Cheating? Maybe... but it's not too different from pro photographers using Velvia slide film because of the highly saturated colors and high contrast it produces. (When I shot film I'd always buy Kodak Portra in bulk to get similar results on print film vs. slide film. )
Hope that helps!
On September 6, 2006 10:23 PM Marla said:
Thanks, Jody! I was very happy. I was going home, Emma and Henry were playing wonderfully, and my husband was finally home after a long business trip!
On September 8, 2006 10:13 AM Jamie said:
I know what you mean about white balance. In the last week or so I decided to start manually setting the white balance on my camera now that I'm more comfortable with manually futzing with aperature and shutter speed on the fly. It makes a big difference, as I found auto WB tends to give colder color temperatures. I'll try paying more attention to black levels. You adjust those just in the Levels dialog with the eyedropper tool?
Shooting in raw and manually adjusting is my next developmental goal. It just seems like such a huge technological speedbump, not to mention all the storage space it eats up at 8 megs a picture!
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