It’s not terribly exciting, I know.  It’s all I can find this morning.  I promise to put some thought into it for the coming weeks project though.

Sorry to those who will see this as a repeat.  I thought and thought and this was the best representation of childhood that I came up with this week.

Yesterday was my first day playing in Wordless Wednesday.  The beauty of that was I got to find some fun bloggers and hopefully some fun bloggers found me.  The BEST thing though was that I found Ryan’s blog.  He is a freelance photographer in Grand Rapids, Michigan and as I looked at his blog, I saw he participates in something called "Photo Hunters".  Sounds interesting, right?  So, I asked him about it and he generously referred me to the photo hunter site where I can find the list of weekly themes.  Why am I so excited about this?  Because it gives me an excuse to ponder an assignment each week and attempt to view the assignment from new and different creative angles.  That can only help me grow as a photographer, right?  How many pictures can you see of my children before you get bored?  I know they are beautiful and all that, but still… unless you know them and love them…  it’s gonna get old.  I’m totally psyched!  If you are interested in increasing your skill as a photographer, I recommend joining us!  It’s a great way to learn to "see" creatively.

So, here we go.  My first attempt at Photo Hunters.  This week’s theme is "Rare".  Hmmm… what’s rare in my house?  Peace, Quiet, Romance, Relaxation.  That’s what this picture represents to me.

So, for those who are trying to learn along with me… (are there any of you out there?) I took the original picture

I cropped it, blurred it (for a little more romantic feel) and I brightened it a bit.  I set my camera up on a tripod and took about 45 pictures.  I varied the shutter speed and the ISO on all of them.  The one I ended up liking the best was this one where the shutter speed was set at 30 seconds and the ISO was set at 200.  It was a fun little experiment – and the bonus was that afterward, Dear Husband and I *had* to drink the wine and sit in the bubble bath.  One more tip…  my tripod is a piece of junk so I was having some issues with camera shake in the beginning.  So, I ended up putting the timer function on so that I pressed the shutter and then let the camera do the work without any camera shake affecting my shot.  (I know more experienced photographers already know that… but it took me about 5 frames to remember it!)  Anyone out there want to take pity on me and donate a working tripod to my cause?  Yeah, I didn’t think so.  Oh, well.  Worth a try!