while the kids were selling lemonade in July

I took these...

coat rack sandy hook, nj
saturday march 6, 2010

Scott and I leave this Wednesday morning for New Orleans, where we will go with some of the students from the school where Scott works to rebuild houses. It's a University-run alternative Spring Break trip and we will be working with and staying at a local Presbyterian church in NOLA.

I am SO looking forward to this trip. Scott's main job while there is to take pictures and write a story to be submitted to a local paper. I'm going along for the ride. This takes away some of the sting I felt over the England workshops being cancelled.

The kids are staying with Scott's parents for the 4 days we'll be gone and they are really looking forward to that. I can't wait to show you guys some of the photos we take.

So, please pray for all of us who are going that we have a safe trip and please pray for those who live there. May we do good work next week.

The name on the mailbox read "Griswold..."

photo of a house in the next town by Scott Giglio


Well, no, not really. but it should have. Oy vey! I don't want their electric bill in January! They had crazy stuff like a Santa rocket ship, Santa train, even a booty-shaking Santa. No. you read that right. His booty moved side to side. It was sort of disturbing.

Even sort of funnier was that we first saw this house on Friday night when we all piled into the car to drive around and look at lights. When we went back tonight with the camera, they had actually ADDED lights!!!

In other news, we got our Christmas tree today. We get ours fresh cut at the tree farm in Long Valley, NJ. No, we don't cut it ourselves. A nice college boy does. On the way home, after much travelling about the land of Scott's youth, we stopped in Bedminster for a coffee. Here's photo I took of the sunset:



As I got out of the van to take the picture, Primo asked me why I always take so many pictures of the sky. I don't know. Here is Primo with Curly Sue in the evening light:


And here is Bub, avoiding the camera:

Poor kid's in the way back, no light on him, and then he told me to stop taking his picture. This is the only one I got. Plus I had to crop good ol' Primo out 'cause he's a camera hog.

Fun times! What did you do this weekend?

Look what I did!

I was reading one of Donna Boucher's guest posts on Pioneer Woman Photography one day and Miz Boo was talking about how in Photoshop you can take your photo and make it look like a painting. Well, we got Photoshop the other day and, well, see for yourself:

Here is my photo of the Empire State building at sunset:


(First, let me just say that prior to Sept. 11, 2001, all you would have seen from here is the twin towers. The ESB would have been hidden. )

I don't like this photo for a few reasons, one of which is that it is too blurry. That will teach me not to bring a tripod. But, if I turn it into an oil painting, it doesn't need to be tack sharp, does it?



You can tell the difference a little more if you click on it. Here comes a better example.

My photo of a lifeguard chair at sunset:



Same day, same blur. No tripod. I tried the oil painting effect on this one and I didn't like it so much. Scott suggested trying it as a watercolor and after some fiddling, I came up with this:



You sort of lose the sunset feel a bit, but I really like this one.

So, thanks Miz Boo, for teaching me something new and thanks to PW for her blog and having you guest post! Now I am off to use more time I don't have to spare to play with Pictures. Like owning Lightroom wasn't bad enough!

More from the shore

I know you've been waiting to see more of my pictures from Fort Hancock at Sandy Hook. Thanks for being so patient.

I wonder if they're still together.
You know, if anyone was going to make it, it'd be Nancy and Bryan.

I like rusty old things.

This is looking down a tunnel inside one of the mortars at Fort Hancock on Sandy Hook. This one's better bigger. Probably should have cropped it. Go ahead and click on it.