Hawaii Trip - April, 2009

This trip to Hawaii was a gift from my mother-in-law in her last wishes before she passed away June 25, 2007. I, my husband, brother-in-law, his wife, my sister-in-law and her friend all went on a 9 day trip to Hawaii. My husband and I were also celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary while in Hawaii.
We visited the islands of Oahu, Hawaii and Kauai. As you will see from the pictures we were able to see many different sites while in Hawaii. My favorite was Pearl Harbor. This is a memorial to those who fought for our country and you feel very proud to be an American while visiting Pearl Harbor.
The Volcanoes National Park was also very special as you are actively walking, hiking and standing on top of an active volcano while visiting.
The Waimea Canyon is known as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific and the beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I could have stayed there for days hiking and taking in the beauty of the canyons.
The hike up Diamond Head Summit was a steep and windy 1.4 mile round trip up from the bottom of a 761 ft. crater with 99 stairs near the top that went straight up to the top. At the top of the summit you look down over Waikiki Beach. This was an accomplishment for me that I am very proud of.
The luau at Paradise Cove which included a lot of great food from the Islands as well as a magnificent luau performance was a spectacular event.
I must say that spending this time with my husband and in-laws was a memory I will never forget.
At the bottom of the list are the plane rides (8) in all. Will do things a little different next trip.
In closing I would like to recommend Hawaii to all of you that have always wanted to go. I will be returning again one day, maybe when I finish my degree and can go to HAWAII and CELEBRATE!!!
Hope you enjoyed our trip to Hawaii!
Holly :)

Final Project Storybook

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Portrait Photography

Couldn't pass this one up. As you can see Madison does NOT like looking like a reindeer. She makes a prettier dog anyway. Samantha she doesn't want anything on her head AT ALL. You know cats they are just fussy. Had a little trouble getting them to stay still but otherwise no problem. I just go down to their level. Great fun!

portrait photos

I had fun experimenting with the animals as they don't complain about having their picture taken. I have decided to take a picture of the Madison and Sammy sleeping on the couch next to each other and I was leaning down to their eye level. No problem they said as they went to sleep while I just snapped away. I enjoyed the tutorials about portrait photography, can't wait to experiment with real people.

text

This is a photo of our doggy and as you can see I have inserted her name Madison in the bottom photo. Isn't she so cute!!!

TEXT

This is a collage I made of the Bennington Moose Fest. Take note to the text added in the center. What fun and so easy to customize your work.

CLONE TOOL

I took a photo of one of my favorite treats and cloned it. I used the clone tool in Photoshop and added a layer. What fun this tool is to play with.

Filters

This was a moose photo that was very bright and full of lots of colors and life. I actually played around a bit and ended up with this really cool looking photo. First I went in and used the blur filter over the moose, then the liquify. Finally I applied the glowing edges. If you click on the top photo you will see how cool it looks up close. Wow - what fun!

Dodge and burn

First I cropped the photo down to include just the main people in the photo. Then I used both the dodge and burn tools on this photo. I mostly used the burn tool to darken the bottom of the bridge and the metal fence as well. I also darkened the trees and shrubs as this seemed to enhance the colors. I did darken the figures as well again this seemed to enhance the colors and bring more attention to the people not the bridge.

Color/Lighting Picture 2

This is a picture looking out over Bennington that I took during Columbus Weekend. The colors were not very bright so I darkened up the greens and reds and changed the hue/saturation a bit. I like the darker picture better on the bottom.

Lighting/Color Adjustments

This is a picture of a wall in a church in Hawaii that was the most fascinating place I have ever visited. Every square inch of the walls and ceilings were hand painted and these pictures do not do it justice. Because the original was built in the 1800's the colors are very faded. Although the colors have been touched up over the years, you can see by the original photo that it needs more color. I have gone in and adjusted the colors as well as the brightness and sharpness. I do think that the color does look good but the sharpness still needs some fine tuning. What fun and exciting to see the colors come to life!

Mosaic

This is a mosaic of the 33 different moose I took pictures of in Bennington during our recent Moose Fest and put them into one of my favorite moose pictures. Let's see if anyone can pick out what my favorite moose is doing in this picture? Good Luck!!!
Thanks to AndreaMosaic for the great program.

Crop/Select/Move

This was a fun project as I took two different pictures and cropped and moved my body onto the ocean view and used the eraser tool to end up with just the silouette of my head and upper body.

LANDSCAPE

I have picked to different types of landscape pictures. The photo of the ocean is taken at Waimea Canyon in Hawaii. I picked this picture because of its natural beauty with the ocean, the canyon and the sky untouched by man. The Bennington Monument is the highlight of my second picture as it points into sky so tall and strong. I enjoy this picture with the beauty of the tree lines and the beauty of the distant mountains and sky.

Rule of Thirds

This is the Bennington Monument taken on this cloudy, beautiful fall day. I do like the top photo as my eyes are focused on many different items in the picture, i.e. the monument, clouds, beauty of the colorful trees. The bottom picture my eyes focused immediately on the monument and the colorful trees in front of. This was a very cool assignment.

Composition

I was so intrigued with the framing technique. I just can't wait to try this out. The pictures online gave me so many cool ideas. I really learned a lot while reading about composition. I am looking at pictures in a whole different way now, almost like a story and what is behind the picture and what is it saying! Can't wait to learn and try more. What fun this class is!

THREE DIFFERENT LIGHTING

These are three different pictures I took of a birch tree in my backyard along with the changing colorful leaves all around. Bottom was taken early am on this cloudy and rainy day. The middle photo was taken yesterday early afternoon on a brite, brisk fall day. The top photo was taken last evening before it got dark. The middle picture is the most clear, colorful picture. This task can present a challenge as this time of year we can never predict the weather outside and also the sun goes down so early now - boo hoo!

COMPLEMENTARY

I thought this was cool looking and fit the opposite hues with orange and green. Fall is definitely here.

ANALOGOUS

This is a view of the ocean taken at Wyama Canyon in Hawaii. Couldn't resist with the green, torquois and blue. A breathtaking view in person!

This is a beautiful plant I took in my neighbors yard today while walking the dog. It is shades of red that the picture doesn't due justice.

Holly's Macro Collage

This is a different view of Madison looking out the window. This view is not as captivating to me, although I can see the seriousness in her stare. Also you can see how precise she has her paws crossed. The lighting is a bit different from this angle as you can see her reflection in the window. The first photo would be my overall favorite.

This is our dog Madison. She sits in the front window to keep watch on what is going on outside and who is coming and going. She very often looks like a statue. This picture was taken with a flash and has quite a bit of natural light from outside.