March 2016 | Debra Engelken

Visiting Phoenix

Hi, I had the time of my life while visiting family in Arizona. This trip was much needed. My Auntie P invited me to come stay with her. She asked me how long I wanted to stay. Hmm…..I was thinking, how long could I stay before my welcome wore out?! 🙂 Hesitantly I requested three full days. My Aunt said okay and the trip was a total of 5 days- day 1 travel, three days in AZ and the fifth day travel home. Her home is best described as a resort- no kidding!

This is the beautiful room where I spent four nights resting peacefully!

And the pool/hot tub was gorgeous.

Phyllis and Jeff kept me busy the whole time. Several times they asked what I wanted to do or see. Just being there, away from my everyday normal life was entertaining. The main souvenir I wanted from this adventure was a sweatshirt and a silver ring. Of course all the many images I took would be a treasure as well.

When I think of this trip, I will remember the quality time I shared with my Aunt Phyllis and Jeff in Phoenix and all the cactus. So many everywhere. I had no idea. I truly had the time of my life- thank you Aunt P!

Many more images here.

Best Wishes,

Hi, have you ever wondered why the pictures you take are not as vivid or bright as other photographer’s images? Simple basic edits can make a tremendous difference.

Typical Basic Edits

Many people when starting photography get very lost when it comes to editing. When looking at a picture you just took on a nice camera, it’s really easy to look at it and think “wow, that looks great! what is there to fix?” Or maybe “I’ve got a nice camera that I figured out how to use, but I can NOT get my pictures to look like everybody else’s!” Well don’t stress it, because we’ve got some good ways to help you get started with some basic edits.

The 2 main things that photographers look at with each image is the tone and the exposure. Many cameras shoot pictures where the skin tone ends up looking too orange, too red or even too blue. Fixing the image so that the skin tones look natural and like the color of the actual skin can make a dramatic difference. The other major fix is the exposure. Is the picture too light? Is the picture too dark? Even with professional cameras, pictures can come out with the exposure off. The best way to judge if the exposure is correct is to look at the skin again. It’s very important to adjust the image until the exposure is correct. Even if it means making the sky extra bright, it’s more important to have the skin be the correct amount of exposure over everything else in the image.

The two software programs I use to make these basic edits is Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop. If you have used other programs to make such adjustments, please share in the comments section below.

For more information about image editing click here.

Best Wishes,