HamGlam

I was feeling a little homesick the other day








. . . and then I ran across this blog.
It's a bit sleepy right now, but it made me laugh all the same.

Here are 5 more street style blogs that you might enjoy:
The Sartorialist - [usually] New York edition
The Locals - Copenhagen edition
Facehunter - [mostly] London edition
Urban Weeds - Portland edition
SFS - San Francisco edition

Aaahhhh Bellingham, I miss you!
-m.

Headlines from the Camping Trip

Early this spring, a couple of friends organized a camping trip. I was more than happy to join along. And since I only made it out around the campfire and under the stars once this year, I thought I'd try to sensationalize things a bit.

Location, Location, Location!
A friend of a friend recommended trying out Dhabbiya, a place near enough to Abu Dhabi. It had 2 great features: a dried up salt flat and mangroves. Both were good for exploring.



photos by Sarah & Molly


The sunset wasn't too shabby, either.

Girls Stabs Big Toe With Stick

Yeah, within 5 minutes of getting out of the car. I'm good at stuff like that.

Champion Kite Tourney!

photos by Hannah & Sarah
I loved getting to fly the kite in such a wide open space without having to worry about power lines, cars, or if the kite was going to accidentally dive-bomb someone on the beach. It was also pretty fun teaching folks how to fly a stunt kite. There were some real naturals!!

Men Rescue Dying Turtle!!


This poor turtle was in sorry shape. It looked like he'd been trying VERY unsuccessfully (and for quite some time) to reach the water. Mike and Allen decided to give him a lift and help him on his way. When his flippers touched the sea he didn't really seem to have much energy and barely managed to swim out to deeper water. I really hope he made it. Say strong little guy!

Fire Ring Explodes on Innocent Bystanders

photo by Sarah
Remember all of those big cracks in the sand flat? Turns out that they make some mighty fine bricks when you pull them up from the ground. We thought we'd found the perfect solution to keep the wind from blowing our campfire out. Really--we just found some natural explosives. Good thing no one was hurt.

Midnight Attack: Men Push Tents Around

photo by Sarah
Okay, okay--not really--it was just Mike's dream. Although we had fun flying the kite in the afternoon, the wind grew considerably stronger that night. Sleeping (even with earplugs) was a bit of a challenge. At some point, Jill's boyfriend had a bad dream about angry men coming and harassing the tents. Easy to see why--the wind was powerful enough to basically fold our tent in half. Who knew tents could bend like that? Seriously.
Although this picture doesn't show the windstorm/sandstorm, it does show that everyone was up with the sun, ready to break down camp. If I remember correctly, the idea of going home to nap in a real bed in a quiet apartment was pretty motivating.


Not Enough Time Outdoors--A National Crisis

photo by Sarah
And a personal crisis, too. It felt so nice to be outside, to play in the water, to sit around the campfire, to watch the clouds and the moon.

Just what I needed.
-m.

P.S. You can read Sarah's posts about the weekend over here!

Happy May Day!

Wishing I could leave one of these on your doorstep!
xo
-m.

P.S. I'm having a horrible time sourcing this photo. I don't remember where I found it. Sorry!!! :-(

♥Charlie's Birthday♥

Guess who's turning 21?!
Charlie! ♥

2009 was a pretty rough year for him, poor guy.
2010 on the other hand--umm--definitely the high life. 'Retirement' has been good: big green pastures, a warm stall, his own little herd of friends, the best of care, and months to recover and get strong. It's such a blessing to know that he is in good hands--the Millers are the most wonderful 'birthday' present I could ever hope to give him. Favorite horse treats, lip-twitching belly rubs, and long rides will have to wait until I get home.

This past summer, my step-mom was kind enough to take a few photos for us. She was able to capture an ordinary summer night at the barn through some extraordinarily special photos. (Thank you!) Here are a few of my favorites:








Click here to see the full photo shoot.


Looking forward to many wonderful years ahead!

♥Happy Birthday, Charlie!♥
-m.

Silliness Vid

Thought it might be kind of nice to end the week on such an absolutely silly note. [Pun intended.]


He he!
-m.

Following Jesus

{6.2011}

Not the quickest read, but really really good stuff.
(Just in case you're considering picking it up, don't let the small size deceive you. It's loaded; took me a good 7 months to read all of its 114 pages.)

-m.

Photo Club Assignment #16: Editing

The next assignment was to learn a new editing method and apply it to a photograph.

When you're armed with iPhoto, your magic wand only knows so many tricks. The Aperature and Photoshop lovers in the group did some pretty amazing things. Me--I was just excited to learn what a histogram was and to fiddle around with it a bit.

This is the original photo:


I took it on our dhow cruise in Oman. As you can see, the aperture was much too high (low f-stop) for the sunny conditions. I set out with the goal of editing to simply salvage the picture.

After a couple of minutes, my tweaking here and saturating there resulted in this:

The hand is still too bright, but overall the image looks so much better. I have to say I really like the way the anemone turned out--the colors are just so pretty.

Our next assignment, #17, is on HDR. I was in China for the 'workshop' meeting, so will have some catching up to do before our 'show & tell' meeting in May. Will keep you updated!
-m.

To see more before/after images + some techniques on how to edit, head here.