May 1, 2012 Strawberries My son and I went strawberry picking on Sunday. Ended up getting enough for a pie or two, strawberry soup and some smoothies! UPDATE: EDITOR'S PICK, betterphoto.com, May 2012, Catch-All

April 28, 2012 Beans, Beans This is a shot of last week's bean mix before they became ham, bean, rice and spinach soup. Serve with a warm asiago roll and you've got a warm comfort meal. UPDATE: EDITOR'S PICK, betterphoto.com, May 2012, Details & Macro ANOTHER UPDATE: Finalist, then Winner, 2nd Place, betterphoto.com, May 2012, Details & Macro

April 23, 2012 Mayo Lake Boat Dock I am so psyched! Today I was looking through my images to see if I had any more of Mayo Lake for use on our Sappony 5K Trail Run/Walk (see http://www.sapponytrailrun.org/ - it's going to be a great event!). I found this one that I took in November, 2010. The super thing is that I used this image to play with Color Efex Pro 4. Smug put out a link on their blog a short time ago offering 5 free filters to keep and a limited number of days to play with the whole thing. And I love it! I have, use and adore Topaz Adjust (both BW and color). And now after trying out every single filter, sliding the adjustments back and forth ad nauseum, and trying all sorts of experiments, I can officially say I love Color Efex Pro 4 too! If you haven't used the smug link to download your free filters, you should. No, they aren't paying me. ;) On this image, I did a black and white version, and then for the image here, I used their Skylight filter (LOVE that), then layered Indian Summer over it 2 times, then used the Polarize filter. I used Skylight pretty heavily, Indian Summer on a low setting, and then a very, very light Polarize filter. So much fun to play with! Thanks for all your comments on my Spring Tulips, too! UPDATE: EDITOR'S PICK, betterphoto.com, Nature & Landscapes, April 2012