Hello, dears!
I haven’t posted pet photography in a while, have I? I decided to remedy that today since you guys seem to quite enjoy pet posts – as do I. 😉 I recently took several pictures of Eeyore, my sister’s pet donkey, as well as some cute pictures of our yellow lab and some… interesting photos of one of our bunnies, hee hee. Enjoy the fuzziness!
Hello, dears!
I trust you guys will like the post for today because it involves MUCH CUTENESS. And fluff. And… puppies!
My cousins and sister and I recently went to a place called “Puppy City,” which houses a bunch of adorable puppies that you can hold and pet and take pictures of. You can buy them too, of course, but they’re, like, thousands of dollars. O.o So we left them there, although it was hard. XD
Anyway, are you ready for cuteness overload? You’ll probably REALLY want a puppy after this, so please be warned and proceed with proper caution. *nods gravely*
Heh heh. Aren’t my puns great? *Sigh* Yes, I know they’re awful. ANYWAY, I’m super excited to show you guys these fall pictures! I’ve been saving them up for a while now and I finally get to post them. 🙂
First I want to show you our beautiful ombre maple tree. 😀 Well actually the leaves are all fallen from it now, but this is how it used to look. Isn’t it lovely?
One of the other maples beside our lane was absolutely gorgeous this year! Especially with the sun shining through the leaves… ah, it was beautiful.
I LOVE these pumpkin pictures! 😀
And back to the tree again. This bokeh… OH MY GOODNESS! ♥
I really like the composition of the next one. (Wow, I’m doing a lot of portrait, vertical photos aren’t I? Here’s a question: Should I make them smaller so you can see them without scrolling, or do you like them full size as they are?)
Leaves can make even dusty black trucks pretty. 🙂
I promise I didn’t put the leaf there. Isn’t the position so neat and funny?
And of course we musn’t forget the classic holding-a-leaf-up picture, am I right?
Ooh, and then I got several adorable pictures of Maggie looking all dejected. 😛
HA HA Maggie looks like she’s havng an intent conversation with a leaf or something and the leaf just said something shocking. XD What would you caption this photo? (No winners this time – just for fun. 😉 )
Here’s a fun fall photography prompt: try to find fall leaves in a half-rainbow, from red to green. Arrange them in an ombre pattern and snap away! 🙂 I had a lot of fun with this, but it also took FOREVER to collect the leaves.
Huh, what do you know. I’m wearing the same skirt as in this post. (I promise I don’t wear it every Sunday. XD )
I rather like this edit.
And lastly, just a few edited photos. I spent SUCH a long time trying to capture a leaf falling. XD
And we end with a photo featuring a picturesque (?) four-wheeler? Okay…
P. S. GUYS. I JUST REALIZED SOMETHING ELSE. If you type this: :{), it looks like an emoji with a mustache. WHY IS THAT NOT A THING? Oh, right. Probably because it’s completely useless. True. BUT STILL. Okay, I’m actually done now.
EXTREME CUTENESS ALERT: If you are not able to cope with impossibly adorable animals, perhaps you should skip this post.
Okay, everyone’s still here. Good. BECAUSE THEY ARE TOO CUTE TO MISS, EEP! This is definitely my favorite bunny photoshoot I’ve ever done and it turned out gorgeous, if I do say so myself! 😀 Special thanks to my sister Megan who posed and calmed the bunnies throughout this traumatizing time of sitting on white foamboard and being bombarded by flowers and shot by cameras.
And now let’s just get to the pictures. I CAN’T WAIT ANY LONGER. (Actually I can wait long enough to give you a warning that there will probably be a lot of caps in this post. Obviously.)
Let’s start with the one and only Olaf. Olaf’s prop was a rosebud from our bush, and it was perfect! Also sorry for all the weird different shades of white in the backgrounds. The original pictures were rather bluish and they were hard to adjust properly since Olaf’s a different color of white. 
Anyway, just ignore that part and hopefully enjoy them anyway.
Wait. That… wasn’t a rabbit. Oh well.
I dub thee, Princess Olaf. (Yes, Olaf is a girl. We thought she was a boy and had already named her by the time we figured out that the seller had given us the wrong one. XD)
BWAHAHAHA isn’t this picture hilarious? Olaf kept winking for some reason.
AGAIN WITH THE WINK.
Ugh the white is so off on this one but I love it otherwise! Isn’t it so pretty?
And now for my dear fluffy Willow. She actually had recently gotten a trim when I took these pictures so she’s not as fluffy as normal. Also Willow gets more pictures because I didn’t need to edit them as much, heh heh. AND BECAUSE SHE’S FLUFFY.
Here we have a behind-the-scenes picture. My little sister Carmen also wanted to help (but just briefly), and poor Willow was a bit befuddled with all the chaos, I think. We chose marigolds because they’re pretty, but I think they may actually be poisonous to rabbits? I’m not sure. Anyway, we made sure she didn’t so much as nibble one, and she’s still alive to tell the story.
I’m pretty sure that’s an orange teardrop of stress on her cheek.
Good JOB, Willow! You stayed!
HA HA. I don’t even know what her expression is but it’s funny.
THIS. IS. HILARIOUS. It looks like she’s directing a plane coming in for landing or helping someone try to parallel park. “Okay a little to the right. Nope, your other right. There, you got it. Keep on a-coming, beep, beep, beep.”
We actually did get some good photos in the midst of all the funny ones, though! While it may look like she sat there innocently staring at me, she did not. She took every chance to meander away from where she was supposed to be in hopes of greener grass. (But this grass is pretty green, so…)
Ha ha, she looks like a scared little fluffy pancake. But a cute one. ♥
Aww, so sweet! That’s it, your getting the hang of it now, Willow!
Mmpf, maybe not. SOOOORRY.
Aww I love this one! Isn’t it so beautiful and adorable? You are a lovely Queen of Summer, Willow.
Next we have Diamond. I think she’s very noble-looking and handsomely beautiful, don’t you? I love the colors in these pictures!
Whoops, I think I over-edited this one…
Next we went to the soybean field, which is mostly featured in these pictures as a yellow glow.
I LOVE this one!
Ha ha, her dewlap. XD (A dewlap is the big floppy thingy around their neck that some adult female rabbits have. It’s normal, don’t worry. 😉 )
Now for Snickers. GUYS, HIS CHUBBY CHEEKS HELP ME. Is he not the cutest?
AHHH THIS PICTURE THOUGH.
I LOVE HIS SQUISHY FACE.
And lastly but not leastly, a picture of the three compadres, Diamond, Olaf, and Lily. They are similar breeds (Diamond’s a Silver Fox and the other two are New Zealands), but they’re different colors, which makes for a lovely group shot. (And again I have kind of a weird white balance thing going on. Sorry ’bout that!)
Lily: Let me just move up a little bit so you can see me better. Is this a good angle?
Olaf: Mmph. You’re squishing me.
In which three frightened rabbits cower under the… oh, it’s just a camera.
HA HA WHAT IS UP WITH THE WINKING AGAIN, OLAF?! XD It cracks me up.
And that’s about it! I took tons more photos than that but those were the best. What did you think, guys? Guys? Oh dear, perhaps that was a little too much cuteness for one post…
If anyone survived, which bunny’s shoot was your favorite?
Thanks so much for reading, my dears, and have a wonderful day!
***Allison***
P. S. OOPS. Nearly forgot about the Caption It contest! Here’s the photo:
And my favorite caption was by Zielle.
Maggie: Wait, wait, I think I got it! I can wink!
Allison: That’s blinking, Maggie.
HA HA IT’S PERFECT! Thanks, Zielle, and everyone else who participated! I loved reading your captions.
Get ready for some furry cuteness, my friends! Today I have some pictures of our yellow Lab, Maggie, along with a Caption It, and lots of pictures of KITTENS! 🙂
Ready?
Set?
Go.
Let’s start with Maggie. She looks so sweet and calm in this picture! Do you see the heart she makes with her paws? ♥ SO CUTE.
I was taking pictures for my sister Megan‘s photo contest, BIBPC, and got one with Maggie in the background. 🙂
HA HA! Maggie makes odd faces sometimes. XD I think she was licking her lips or something, but she looks like she’s in mid-snarl.
I love all the beautiful bokeh in these next pictures. ♥
And we shall end Maggie’s pictures with my favorite – probably my favorite I’ve ever taken of her. IS THIS NOT HILARIOUS?! AND ADORABLE?! Tell me what you think I should caption it in the comments, and I’ll announce the winner in another post. 😀
Now for the cats. (Just so you know, I did edit many of these a bit.) This is Whopper. 😛
I love cats’ eyes! They’re so pretty and round.
Speaking of pretty eyes, take a look at Violet’s eyes! ♥
Okay, now for the wittle kittens. 😀 I believe this is Bubbles (my little sister named him XD), but I’m not certain.
We named this little guy Fuzzer Jr., after a cat that looked just like him that my grandmother used to have.
AWW! I love this picture!
IS THIS NOT THE CUTEST?!
And then we have Tiny Tina…
And here’s one of little Louis. I think there’s another one or two kittens, but apparently I didn’t get very good pictures of them.
And last but not least, a couple of pictures of this sweet but startled-looking kitty that showed up at our house. I’m not sure where he’s from. Oh, and Carmen named him Thomas, Tom for short. 😉
Such stunning eyes! Rather shocked-looking, but pretty. 😛
And there’s your dose of cuteness for the day! Which picture was your favorite? Do you like cats or dogs better, and why? I like cats better because they’re more soft and clean and you can hold them, but I like the pictures of Maggie better in this post.
***Allison***
P. S. Are you guys ready for another art post, or should I do the second vacation post first?
Okay, maybe I can finally get on top of my extra photos here! I decided to be brave and just heap them all into one post. XD
Fishing
The kids love going fishing at our uncle’s pond where I got some rather funny pictures. XD
HA HA!
This rather formidable looking fish is a bass I caught. 🙂
This dog always follows us around, trying to catch our hooks and stuff. But he is rather cute in pictures, wouldn’t you say?
Dandelions
I know, even more dandelions. XD But I found out that they actually look really pretty in a bouquet if you pick the nicest, roundest ones. See?
Whipped Cream Fight
We had a whipped cream fight with our friends, but I mostly stayed back and took pictures because it looked really sticky. Heh heh. Shaving cream fights are SUPER fun, but the whipped cream fights… not quite as much.
Birthday Cake
My mom always makes birthday cakes for the kids, customized to their request. I had sort of an art themed party so I wanted an art themed cake. We looked up some things on Pinterest and found an idea for a watercolor cake! It’s actually pretty simple: just dab some blobs of different colored icing on the side and smear them together. (Of course, it’s a bit more complicated than that in practice, but you know… 😛 ) I helped finish it off with the pearls. Isn’t it GORGEOUS! This is probably my favorite of all the cakes I’ve had!
Bunnies
Hee hee, we like to take our bunnies out and play with them outside sometimes. That night we all got in a circle and let some of the bunnies hop around. So much fun!
Oh, and I have some very sad news. Clementine, that little brown bunny down there, is gone. Somehow Maggie, our dog, got her and killed her. NOOOOOO! *SNIFF* Rest in peace, little Clemmie. ♥
Flowers
I do the decorations for our church’s tables, and I thought these bouquets turned out really pretty. 🙂
I especially love these floating peonies! Sooo pretty and fluffy!
Little Felted Rabbit
I recently just discovered needle felting. I think it’s really neat, but I haven’t made much yet besides this tiny bunny. 🙂
Baby Killdeer
They hatched! Aww, look at the fluffy things!
We also found another nest. (The mother laid more eggs after this.)
Farm Photography
I saved the best for last. 🙂 I just LOVE these pictures!
This is kind of an abstract (a.k.a blurry) photo, but the BOKEH. The sun was shining off the windows of a little church on the hill and it looked really neat!
AHH I LOVE THIS ONE!!
Aww, Maggie.
HA HA HA! How’s that for a title, hmm? Oh dear, it makes me smile. XD
Anyway, as you can tell, I’m going to post some animal pictures today. I shall start with the happy pup, namely our lab, Maggie. 🙂 She’s always so happy and energetic – and cute!
Now for some fuzzier subjects. Or in Willow’s case FLUFFIER subjects. AHH SHE’S MY FAVORITE FLUFFBALL I JUST WANT TO SQUISH HER! 😀
Okay guys, now this next photo makes me laugh so hard. XD XD XD Is it not HILARIOUS?! She was stretching and yawning (did you know bunnies do that like cats?), and I quick snapped a picture. HA HA HA! She looks like a mixture between ferocious and super happy. XD Which do you think?
Olaf and Diamond are best friends, I think. 🙂
Oh my goodness, Snickers is also SO adorable and photogenic! Don’t you think?
Clemmie, of course, had to run away and hide to make me use flash. 😡 XD Hee hee!
Oh my, this picture of Lily makes her look HUGE! That’s because she is.
And lastly but not leastly, we have a bunch of rather puzzled cows. XD I remembered I hadn’t really taken many pictures of cows even though we live on a dairy farm (but Dad rents the dairy to someone else so we don’t actually have much to do with the cows). So I took some pictures. 😉
The ear tags tell you who the cow’s father and grandfather (or sire and grandsire) was. Sometimes the names are pretty funny! “Twist” isn’t too bad, though. 😉
It’s so funny how they have topknots. XD
The cows are actually pretty shy, but very curious.
“Hey, look at this! There’s a girl human over here with a strange black clicking thing. What do you s’pose it is?”
“I dunno. Give it a sniff test, will you? It could be dangerous.”
“D-dangerous? Weeell, alright. *Sniff, sniff*”
“And?”
“Blech, it smells like human to me. AHH! IT CLICKED AT ME! IT’S GOING TO HURT ME ANY TIME NOW! RUN AWAAAAAYYY!”
*Shuffle, shuffle* *Nudge, nudge* “Hey, is it safe now?”
“I dunno. You go check.”
“No you go!”
“Uh… she looks pretty friendly to me. A few straws short of a haybale, maybe, but pretty friendly. As for that clicking thing, though…”
“What clicking thing? I want to see the clicking thing! MAKE WAY, MAKE WAY.”
“COMING THROUGH.” *Push*
“EXCUSE ME.” *Shove*
“Okay, let me in, guys. I’ll figure out what it is…”
“Hmm. Hmmmmmm. It looks like a… you know, that thing that clicks, it’s called…”
“*Sniff, sniff* AHA! It says NI-KON. What’s a NI-KON? Do you know, girls? AHH IT CLICKED AGAIN!”
“Wait. Wait, look!”
“Guys, she’s holding something. IT’S GREEN! Green is yummy. Mmm, I want some.”
“But what if it’s dangerous? Maybe it clicks too?”
“Well I, for one, am going to try some. You just watch me.”
“OH MY GOODNESS GUYS IT’S DELICIOUS! MORE, MORE! GIRL HUMAN, CAN I PLEASE HAVE SOME MORE?”
“Oh great. I knew it. It probably has some terrible powder in it to make you hungry for more or something. Sheesh. Humans.”
_________________________________________________________
Hee hee! That was a fun post to write. 🙂 I hope it was fun to read too! Did you like the cow story thing? XD Which was your favorite photo from this post?
***Allison***
Hey, guys! 😀
Grace recently wondered if I could do a tutorial on how to edit photos, and I thought that was a great idea! I decided to make this a mini-series, covering basic photo editing, adding effects, touching up photos of people, and maybe a little bit of graphic design and collaging too. I’m really excited!
Anyway, let’s get started. Today I’m going to go over the basic photo editing tools and then show you how to use those tools to fix two common photo problems.
I use PicMonkey for pretty much all of my photo editing, and I highly recommend it! It’s very easy to use, and it’s free – although you can pay to upgrade to Royale and get some extra features. (I have Royale, by the way, and I would definitely recommend it if you edit photos a lot. I’ll talk more about Royale later in the series.) But don’t worry about that for now. All the tools I’m going to go over today are completely free.
So, open PicMonkey, and hover over the bar at the top of the page where it says “Edit.” Open the photo you want to work on. The section of the editor that pops up is called “Basic Edits,” and that’s what we’ll be using today.
Now that you know what everything does, let’s put your tools to use! I’m just going to show you a few examples and walk you through what I did. (Note: the “before” pictures are on the left, and the “after” pictures on the right. Just in case you couldn’t tell. 😉 )
Isn’t it amazing what the Shadows slider can do? That’s seriously all I did. I moved the “Shadows” slider to -44, and that’s it.
This is a more subtle edit, but I think the “after” picture definitely looks more vibrant. The photo on the left is kind of drab and gray, so I upped the saturation a bit and adjusted the exposure. I also straightened the photo so the ocean isn’t tipped to one side like that. (And hmm, I might have lowered the temperature also, but I can’t recall for sure. Oops. XD )
The main difference in this photo is that now you can actually see the cute wittle kitten instead of losing him in the surrounding scenery. I told you cropping was a helpful tool! 😀 I also straightened the photo so the kitten wasn’t falling off the face of the earth, upped the “Sharpness” slider, and adjusted the exposure just a tad.
Wow, so much better! This picture was washed out to begin with, but by lowering the brightness and shadows, and adding a little bit of contrast, it looks bright and beautiful again like it’s supposed to. And speaking of over-exposed photos, we should move on to the fixer upper part of this post. (By the way, I l♥ve the show Fixer Upper! Have you ever watched it? It’s sooo good. Ahem…)
An over-exposed photo is one of my most common problems. But thankfully it’s easy and fun to fix!
This is the photo we’ll start with:
Eh. The content is good, but the lighting is off: it’s too bright and has a sort of bland grayish-white wash over everything. We must rescue this poor photo in distress!
Pretty much everything you need to fix an over-exposed photo is in the Exposure tab, so go ahead and open that up. The two main things to do for an over-exposed picture are to lower the brightness and lower the shadows. Here’s a screenshot of what I did:
You can tell from the sliders that I lowered the brightness and shadows significantly (to -14 and -18 respectively) and added a tiny bit of contrast and highlights. And that’s pretty much it! (Note: I did also use the “Burn” tool to darken a few spots in the photo, but I’ll talk about that more in another post. For now, just concentrate on using the “Exposure” tab.)
Before and after. So much better!
Sometimes photos have a weird yellowish or bluish tint, especially on the light parts of a picture.
Like in this photo:
This really isn’t a bad picture, but you can see a slight orangish tinge over everything, which makes it look dingy rather than fresh and clean. It’s especially important to get good, clean-looking photos of products you sell, and this owl just so happens to be in my Etsy shop. So, let’s clean him up a bit, shall we?
First, open the “Exposure” tab.
The main thing you need to do here is bump up the highlight slider, but I also messed with the brightness and shadows slider a bit too. Here’s a tip: use mostly highlights instead of brightness to brighten up a photo, because too much brightness will make the photo look washed out. “Highlights” brightens just the white parts instead of the whole photo.
Next I opened up the “Colors” tab. Since my picture is too red, I moved the Temperature slider down to -10, which added some blue to even it out.
And here’s the before and after. A subtle difference, but do you see how the one on the right looks cleaner, fresher, and more appealing?
Well, I guess that’s it! I give you a pat on the back and a virtual bag of chocolates if you read that whole thing. O.o XD
Heh heh. I hope that was helpful to you! Feel free to ask me any questions in the comments if you didn’t understand something. 🙂
Have a lovely day, lovely people!
***Allison***
It snowed! I’ve heard that some of you guys got tons of snow, but sadly we didn’t get very much – only an inch or two. 😦 Never fear, though, I managed to get several snowy pictures for you guys. 😀
Maggie found a fallen branch that was apparently quite delicious, because she proceeded to devour it… well, chew on it, anyway. XD
Strangely, that felt like a short post… I guess my normal posts are fairly long or something. Remember back in the days when I would post one picture and say like, two words about it? Heh heh. I’m glad I “outgrew” that. XD
Ahem, as I was SAYING. Um… what was I saying? Hmm.
Well then. Have a lovely day, dear readers! ♥
OH WAIT. The questions. Which picture was your favorite? How much snow did you get (if any)?
Okay, I’m really leaving now. Farewell!
***Allison***
Allison Marie 