Fascinating belly-button, originally uploaded by polarcubby.
July 9, 2009
The day was Thursday. I went to Kitchener to visit my family, Oksana and the kids. There was an additional bonus – Oksana’s mom is here. So we got to talk a bit and catch up. I heard a lot of stuff about the family, saw quite a few photos. It was a nice visit. The kids behaved well and even stayed home for most of the day. I got to take a few photos. They did not want to pose at first but then somehow got into it. As a result I have a couple of really good pics.
This one is probably my favourite. It was not a deliberate shot. Adam was sitting on the deck and I just took a photo without even looking through the viewfinder. I liked the way he was sitting and just took a snapshot. The colours were lovely and very similar in tone but in the end they were distracting. I had trouble getting a good white balance on this particular batch so after fixing up the shot in ACR I decided to try Creamy Chocolate B&W action. And it worked! I did not expect to have such a beautiful result! I like everything about. The light is very soft (I guess that’s part of the “creamy” layer), the contrast is good but not overdone, the sharpness makes Adam stand out from the backgrounds, the skin tone is bright but not washed out. It’s not perfect, technically speaking, but I’m proud of it. It is a kind of photo that I would want to take every time I visit the kids.
I also had a few decent shots of Daniel. There was one in particular that I’m very happy with. This one:
In full colour it was lovely and bright. But when I used it for one of the lessons in my online Photography class, I made it vintage and instantly fell in love with the new look. The subtlety of the colours is so appealing! I love bright and saturated photos but this one has such unusual appeal that I had to try the same effect on other pictures. None worked out as well as this one but a few looked really good! I can see now how mediocre photos can be made into something very interesting!
Note:
I heard a number of times stories about my parents’ wedding. Oksana and her Mom both say that they remember the wedding very well. My Mom’s dress was apparently very beautiful; it came from Canada. And my Mom and Dad apparently danced beautifully and a lot. Oksana and other kids slept in the attic on straw and tried to peek at the celebrations.Oksana remembers the wedding very vividly, especially the way they danced. I don’t remember that since I wasn’t born but I also don’t remember! I mean I’ve never really heard stories about it except from Oksana and her Mom. I wonder why? My Grandma used to tell me a lot of family stories when I was little but I don’t recall hearing of this one. Actually, now that I’m older I wish to know more stories, more family history, all those things I did not care about when I was a kid. Unfortunately, my one Grandma and Grandpa are dead and the other two are very far away. Long distance calls are not a way to hear such tales. They have to be told like the one about my parent’s wedding: sitting on the deck on the lazy sunny afternoon after a tasty meal.
