Saturday, September 24, 2011

Fall...

Fall is my favorite time of year. I dread going into fall because that means my summer is over and I know the cold and snow are just waiting at my door. But...once the beautiful smells and visions of Autumn arrive I can't help but feel so happy and blessed. Each day feels like a gift and a renewed passion for life.
How can it not feel that way? Everything is in full harvest, the weather is perfect and 
my favorite shows are finally back on TV! 
Life is good. So, so good! 
I spent yesterday reaping the benefits of a beautiful skill my Nana taught me. Canning peaches and making peach jam. I am not really a domestic one...but this is a yearly tradition I just love. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing beautiful canned peaches sitting on my counter. 
(photo taken by my husband who also helped me for the first time!)

There is also nothing more beautiful than passing along this skill to my daughter.
She is finally old enough to help me out and she was so amazing.
We put on our aprons (makes us feel more official that way) and got to work.
She stayed and helped me the entire time. She was committed to the end.
Oh the joy...Seeing her tiny little hands peeling the peaches so 
delicately and measuring each cup of sugar to perfection.
Here is to many, many more years of this tradition with my favorite little side kick.

Now for some photo tips....
When taking pictures indoors...I often find it is so hard to get the colors to look right. You have a mix of ambient light, natural light and who knows what else. A lot of times they look very yellow and dark.
(Since it is hard to get good exposure indoors without a flash.)
It is important to fix your white balance to get correct color...but sometimes the photos you want to get don't allow you the time to set a custom white balance and spend a lot of time figuring out the best color options.
My solution?? Turn those pictures to black and white. Black and white images are timeless and, in my opinion, tell a beautiful story. I always mess with my black and white photos to get good contrast. I do this by going into levels in photoshop (control L) and changing the different output levels. This is how you brighten your mid-tones and darken your blacks. I also sharpen my black and white images more than I usually do on color images. I think it just adds beautiful texture and more contrast.

Happy Fall!!!! 

2 comments:

jenn said...

These picture brought a little tear to my eye! What a wonderful gift Nana gave you that you are now giving sweet Haleigh. And pictures to capture the moment? Priceless.

And, if you aren't domestic with the ability to bottle peaches, than I'm not sure what is!

Unknown said...

My hobby was canning I canned everything. I had a room stacked full of jars of everything you could think of.

I had a farm with 3 barns also one of my barns had nothing but canned food.

Thanks for sharing I really enjoyed your blog. I subscribed!