Apple Picking 6 Weeks Late

How do I even start this? I should normally make a comment about how long it’s been, right? But that’s not me. This blog. The pictures on Mondays. That was the one thing I wanted to keep going no matter what. Somehow though, last Spring, I just couldn’t anymore. No energy whatsoever for anything. I adore my family but having them with me 24/7 just completely depleted me.

I was hoping to get it back when we traveled to Puerto Rico at the beginning of Summer. And I sort of did. We stayed in old San Juan for a few days and it’s just so beautiful. But my camera died. I thought it would wake up again like it did after our trip to Montauk but it didn’t. It took me a long time to buy another one. We did look into having the old one fixed but that model isn’t supported anymore. Kinda sucks because it still works great if you can get it to turn on…

So yay! New camera. A full frame! I started taking pictures again but then, I realized I needed to get new drivers for the camera. And the computer was kind of on its last legs. It’s a bit slow and is old enough that it can’t be updated to the newest OS X. It turns out we’re not meant to keep a computer for 10 years or something. So I got a new computer. Laptop this time because our office space has no windows so being stuck there on a beautiful day sucks.

I got everything together and uploaded my pictures. I was just going to use the Canon photo editing software because it’s always worked fine for what I need to do and I had my workflow figured out. Except I forgot to set the camera to RAW and only had JPEG files. I hate editing those. So I got Lightroom and it took me a while to get to editing anything. But I did get to it with pictures I took when we went apple picking in September.

I basically just used the regular functions to adjust white balance, saturation, contrast, exposure… I’m not quite ready for more yet. But I did try two of the automated masks. The subject mask and the sky mask. They work so well!

The mask picked V out perfectly! So I was able to adjust her color without messing with the background. She needed lots of warming up because she was in the shade but I didn’t want to mess with the greens…

These last two got the sky mask. Again, the sky was picked out perfectly. This is going to be great for those situations where the sky gets blown out. Those times where a graduated neutral density filter would have been useful if I had one…

I’m excited to learn more about Lightroom but I’m going to take my time with it. With the kids in school full time, I’m hopeful I’ll get back most of energy and post more frequently.

PS: School has been great for both girls. V is much more cooperative at home now that she’s back in class. She’s in 5th grade and has a planner (they do that to help prepare them for middle school). She seems to thrive on that extra bit of responsibility and control. E complains about school as always but she’s actually happy there. She already has a few new friends and goes to the bookstore with them after school sometimes.