Taking advantage of the long weekend before school started, we went camping at our favorite spot. It doesn’t feel like camping without a camp fire and, of course, I can’t enjoy a camp fire without my camera! These were a few of my favorites.

“Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow. It’s what sunflowers do.” -Helen Keller

…and send it soaring!

On Sunday we had strong winds so we decided to make a spur of the moment run to the toy store to buy two of their best kites. Sometimes a little spontaneity makes for the best memories… and photos.

Parked outside Grandma’s old house is this nostalgic camper with a 1964 Michigan license plate. I can’t help but wonder about it’s glory days. I’m sure, long ago, a young couple must have owned it and traveled across the “Great Lake State” making many memories.

Five years after the original AE-1 was introduced, Canon brought out an excellent upgraded version in 1981, known as the AE-1 Program or AE-1P in short. The major difference was the addition of the Program AE mode which sets both the shutter speed and aperture automatically.

I came into possession of this camera several years ago and thoughtlessly set it aside. Now it’s time to dust it off and see what this old SLR classic can do.

With it is a FD 35-105mm f3.5 zoom lens. This should get me started. Now I plan to look over the manual for the camera and buy a roll of film.

I have to admit… I’m just a little bit giddy. This should be fun.

Out on a hot summer drive, thankful that our car has an air conditioner.

This year we had the best seats ever to watch the fireworks. Happy 4th of July!

My pictures didn’t turn out quite as good as I had hoped but that’s what happens when you neglect to bring a tripod.

One of my top most favorite flowers since high school has been daisies. They grow wild all over the place but their simplicity and bright yellow centers make me smile.

I like the translucency of the petals in this picture.

While traveling through Ontario I stopped to snap a few pictures. I was surprised, and yet pleased to notice that I hadn’t taken very many but that they turned out just as I had hoped. I guess it’s a sign that I’m getting better with the camera. Yeah!

This prayer card was tricky with multiple components. I was given the photo of the couple  (on the left) as well as a family photo (on the right). The difficulty came with family photo not already including everyone. I was given an additional lower quality photo and asked to incorporate them. This took a lot of tweaking with the color balance, contrast, scaling, etc. I would have liked to have taken the photo myself, making the lighting similar but this was not possible. Can you see the two in the center/back and how the light hits them a little differently than the others? In the end I think it turned out pretty well. I then added additional text and grahical elements.