celticsong22's photostream  

This shot was taken right after I cut my hair and started to go blonde. I was a redhead for a short time. A lot of people have suggested I go red since it fits my personality, which is anything but sweet and gentle! (Sorry to say....) I've done red before, though, and the only reason I end up either going blonde or back to dark brown is because my favorite colors go better with them! So, after this I was blonde for about 3 1/2 years and loved it. It became too expensive and too much of a pain to keep up myself, so I'm back to brown. I guess I'm lucky that I can get away with most any color I please. I haven't tried blue or pink, like the young kids do, but if I were in my 20's, I probably would love it!

Well, the Rolex 24 hour race is on, and I'm listening to the very loud drone of race cars a couple of blocks away! 2 1/2 more hours and I can go home, where the noise isn't so bad! Wish I could at least watch! anybody a NASCAR fan out there?

Michelle is the quiet one in my family. Still water runs deep with this one. When I met Michelle, she was 2 years old, and was the cutest little thing you ever saw! She was always shy, but not timid, if that makes any sense. Mostly, she just seemed to prefer to absorb what was going on around her, and seemed content to keep her thoughts to herself most of the time. She has a definite serenity about her that is magnetic!

Michelle is my niece by marriage, and now that her mother and my brother are divorced, we don't see much of each other. Divorce strains more than just the relationships in the immediate family; it breaks apart many bonds. It's a sad thing.

Michelle is also a gifted photographer, having been taught by her father, who is one of Daytona's top bridal photographers. Rather than studying photography, though, she made a wise choice to pursue a nursing career. Actually, with her smarts, Michelle could easily become a doctor! (Don't know if that mind of hers is going there, but I wouldn't be surprised!) Whatever she chooses to do, I'm sure she'll do well. I'm very proud of her.

I love this shot of my niece and nephew! This captures Drake's raucous and joyful personality, and Jessica's love of her baby brother!

Drake is now taller than Jess, which (sorry Jess :-) ) isn't very hard to do, since she's really tiny, but he's spurting up so fast that he'll be grown before we know it!

Drake is the one who loves doing crazy stuff like getting a mohawk every year, and blowing up musical, dancing turkeys! He's such a great kid...outrageous, but caring, and though he's not fawning, he's always quick to notice things other kids miss.

Jessica is my niece by marriage, but I love her no less. Now an old, married lady, Jessica and her hubby live in Tennessee. She'd like to get all her siblings up there, too, but then they'd miss things like the Rolex 24 race here in Daytona, which is starting now! I'm just a few blocks away in the Daytona store I work in, and the airshow has just begun. No customers for me today, but how cool is it to be so close to where something so exciting is happening? Sheesh! Those planes are noisy! They usually start the races with military aircraft shows, and sometimes a parachute exhibition. I'm hearing gunshots, too, and not sure what that's all about, but just goes to show, you don't have to live in Tennessee to blow things up, lol!

Now that my middle nephew, Alaric, is man-sized with a deep voice, it's hard to believe that he could change from a little boy to almost a grown up in what seems like a blink of an eye!

Alaric was the most beautiful baby I'd ever seen, and he's still as handsome as ever! We did a photo shoot a couple of years back in St. Augustine, when he started picking up the photo bug, and now he's studying photography in school. I'm really looking forward to seeing what he will be able to do with a camera. I've promised him my first Fuji, which was a great camera, but has a blown out sensor and a cracked view finder, but he's confident that he can get it going. I know he'll be able to turn out some great shots if he can.

As for post processing, he's probably being taught that it's cheating, (grrrrrrrrrrr!) but hopefully he'll see it as an extension of his craft, as I do. Either way, I'm sure he'll do terrific!

My niece, Jessica, and middle nephew, Alaric, clown around back in 2008. This is classic behavior for these two!

Alaric, who dislikes having his photo taken, didn't want to pose for me, but Jess with her quick thinking and comic sense, knew just how to relax him for a couple of pics! This was my favorite of the day!

I tried some new stuff on this one. Although I've been using a lot of Picnik's features, I had yet to try some of the portrait filters. I found them to be wonderful! combined with things like Orton-like, and HDR-like, the results are pretty powerful! Since Alaric, like me, is self conscious about his weight, I tried the thinning tool, which instantly knocks off some pounds! I was impressed that it did so without distortion. The airbrush tool for use on the skin, gave much better results than the Doodle airbrush, which still works well at taking out discolorations such as those on teeth, left by HDR, which can exaggerate blues, or create some spots where the shine is. I found you can even put highlights in hair, and the mascara tool brings out details in the brows and hair, as well as lashes, that are removed by Orton. While HDR creates strong, interesting effects, Orton only blurs them, but leaves exaggerated flaws like blemishes and moles. Not noticed as much in person, or in the original pic, skin flaws become a problem with HDR, and tools like the blemish remover and airbrush really take care of it, without looking like a mask.

Sheesh, Flickr, I sure hope you will be offering these same features in the new editing software in April, or I will probably go elsewhere! Moving several thousand pics won't be fun, but I LOVE these tools, and it really is upsetting that they'll be gone in a couple of months!

I have many more edits to do, my friends, so I will be mostly off for comments until I get them done. As you can see, I want to get the family stuff done, but also the sellable things like water lilies and lighthouses, which I upload to Imagekind, or Fine Art America. If these tools aren't offered after April, I'll be unable to create a lot of this without buying a program like Photoshop, which is out of the question for now. So, after I made enough of a dent, I will be back commenting, trying to catch up a little, but you know how that goes! Takes forever. I'll do my best.

I'd recommend trying some of the Picnik features yourself while you have the chance. It's only going to be around till April 19, and it's a whole lot of fun!