Photo Restoration

I’ve had an old photo of my mom and her siblings for awhile now.  I finally feel confident in my editing abilities to attempt to restore it.  I think it turned out great!  My mom, aunts and uncles will love it.  My mom is the young girl in the bottom row, she was around age 4.  I’m amazed at how much Charlotte looks like her!  (Charlotte’s birth mother is my sister.)

Basically I used a lot of the ‘fix-it’ tools in Photoshop.  Spot healing, patch tool, clone tool, dodge, burn, blur.  I also used a minimum filter and then a maximum filter to get rid of the white speckles.  I upped the blacks slightly and added some contrast with a curves layer.  I also straightened the photo, which cropped it a little.

Before:

After:

Day 45: Pretend Road Trip

We went to another new park today in the harbor.  It has a a play area and then a little beach on the harbor.  We all went as a family as a little Valentine’s Day outing.  Although I chose this specific park to take my husband with, because there’s no way I can handle two children near water by myself.  I am so, so glad I did.

We had a bit of a mishap.  Cooper decided he didn’t want to hold hands anymore and pulled away from me.  He took two steps away from me in the water and down he went.  While holding my camera high above my head, I dove in to my waist and fished him out.  My heart has never beat so fast!  My husband was right there and almost took 2 steps in to get both of us but realized he had to keep Charlotte safe as well.

Cooper was a-okay, but decided he was done with the park.  Instead we took a pretend road trip.  Who knew the car was so interesting?  We didn’t really need to leave the house for them to enjoy the car.  We probably won’t go back to that park for awhile.

I like this one because it looks like they are teaming up to take a road trip.  She locks the doors, he checks the music, and they’re off!  I love that he’s the one driving, you know because he’s the one that can obviously reach the peddles.

I love Cooper’s stance in this one and Charlotte’s face is too adorable as she realizes she can see the sky through the sunroof.  (Notice my white balance all over the place.  I was changing it while taking pictures and can’t get them all post processed right.)

 

I took this one because it kind of captures the attitude where we live.  There’s also a dog that skateboards! (I wish I had a longer focal length lens and that I had been able to blur some of the background.  There’s so much going on it’s hard to make the dog the focus point, which was my intention.)

Day 44: Dress-up at the Butterfly Park

Another new park today.  It’s out of season to see the butterflies, but the mural and park are beautiful nonetheless.  Neither Cooper or Charlotte have any sense of ownership at the park.  If they see a toy, they assume it’s part of the park and fair game.

Day 43: In the woods

We went to central park today.  I had never been to this particular part of central park and this was the first time the kids had been there as well.  I love central park because part of it is near the library, part of it is near the equestrian center, there are a lot of playgrounds, it has a dog park, a duck pond, and a frisbee golf course.  I feel like I discover something new every time I go there.

The only problem I have exploring new parks my lack of comfort in the new setting.  The kids want to run and explore, the dog goes crazy sniffing everything and I’m constantly trying to decide which child to go after and how to get the dog secured.  Add on top of this that I find it particularly challenging to take photos outside with the changing light, and I’m often disappointed with the number of pictures that are blurry or have distracting backgrounds.  I’ve also realized that I need a bigger camera bag so that I can carry both my prime and my zoom lens, since I would like to have my 50mm with me, but the zoom works better when I’m also trying to let the kids explore.

 

When we first arrived, Cooper went for the sand.  Notice his missing shoes already.

Charlotte went for the slides (and then the swings, but I quit taking pictures on the swings because of motion blur and we have a zillion pictures of her in the swings because it’s her favorite activity at the park.)

While Charlotte played on the playground, Cooper wandered off into the wooded area.

He desperately wants to be able to climb trees.  If it’s the right tree sometimes he can manage it. 

I like this picture because I was finally able to coax Charlotte over and it almost shows what I was dealing with for a good part of the afternoon.  One of them running one way and the other getting further and further away (usually Cooper). 

This photo reminds me of what I was seeing while they ran through the trees…they would sometimes disappear and then reappear as they ran between the trees.  This was as close as I came to capturing in a photo.

Then they found some bark and were completely fascinated with it.  I really love the texture in this photo, even though it’s a bit blurry.

Then Charlotte found a leaf…

And walked the leaf to…

The BBQ pit to cook it, I guess.