THE TRAVELING GARDNERS

For the past year our camera lens on our Nikon SLR has been broken. We have been using Dan's deployment camera that was dropped out of a helicopter and survived. But the photos have been getting fuzzier. And the little camera finally froze up. This tiny town that we currently live in, does not have a camera repair shop. The closest one is and hour and a half away. So Dan's Dad was nice enough to offer to drop the camera off for us. Unfortunately, the repair would cost more than a new camera lens. So we had planned to get a new one for Christmas. But sneaky sneaky Dan surprised me the night of our anniversary. He secretly bought a beautiful new lens. We are now going picture crazy again! There is NO comparison to the pictures that our SLR takes versus the broken mini digital! Ben's first day of pre school - picture taken with broken mini digital. Ben's first soccer game - picture taken with SLR new lens. These are special memories that I never want to forget. I really lo...

I LOVE photography. I love taking pictures. I love to edit them. Print them out on our printer with photo paper. And then display the favorites in our home. My step dad made me a wooden shadow box for my Christmas present a few years back. He gave it to me to use for my leis since I had preserved most of them from Hawaii. My Mom gave me some fabric with a Hawaiian pattern. I am going to use the fabric as a background in the frame. Then put the picture at the top. (I blurred out the background in black and white. And tried to bring out the bold color of the leis.) The leis will hang around and in front of the picture. I can't wait to show you the final product! In this picture I tried to accentuate my prego tummy. And also give the waves some definition. In this wedding picture of Dan and I, I made the temple the focal point. This type of photo editing is called a black and white focal point. I also softened the sides of the picture. I love the end result so much, that I printed i...