Winter Wonderland!

A beautiful winter snow coating, a bright morning and a little touch-up in Lightroom and you get some pretty striking images.  I am normally not a big advocate of extreme color changes to pictures, but I really like how these pictures turned out.  Let me know what you think about them.

This is the original:

And this is after processing:

Countryside Christmas!

I took a few pictures at the grand opening of Countryside Christmas, a great Christmas experience that was created by good friends of mine NW of Chicago.  

Check out their website if you are in the area, it makes for a great family activity!

The Belgian horses are not only very beautiful animals, they also are extremely strong!

"O, what fun it is to ride in a two-horse open sleigh, Hey!"

I was glad when I saw that they had piping hot cappuccino for sale in the treat shop. It hits the spot on a cold winter day!

Kaity and Emmy, warming up in the treat shop next to a crackling fire.

Even the snowmen are happy to serve up holiday goodies there! :o)

Josh does a great job taking care of the horses.

These "gingerbread boys" that the girls were making are really tasty once they finish baking and decorating them with all sorts of colorful frosting!

A few family pictures

This evening I brought a backdrop and a couple of lights home so that we could shoot a few family pictures for my sister and her family.  For being a quick thrown together shoot in our living room, I was pretty pleased with the way the pictures turned out.

I love my adorable niece!

It was also this little guy's birthday tonight, so we got a shot of him for the family blog.

We have a WINNER!

We have an official winner of the SLR lens coffee mug!

I pondered about how to fairly and randomly pick one person out of the many who entered, and I came across this website while searching for a good way to do that.  I entered everyone's names (my followers twice) and the name that was selected by the computer was....drum roll please!

Anna Flora!

So congratulations, and please email me at: jack.a.mcd@gmail.com in order to choose your mug and give me your mailing address.

Thank you all for your participation and great thoughts on what there is to love about photography!

Only 3 days left!

The first giveaway prize came in the mail this week and let me assure you that it is really awesome! 

Leave a comment at this post to enter! 

Feel free to leave a comment even if you are not a photographer...this would make a great Christmas gift for one of your photographer friends!

Only three days left before the winner is chosen! 

Watch the blog this Friday for the announcement.

New Photographer!

AJ came along to help me with some work today, and afterwards, we had some fun, shooting pictures together.  I have to admit, I was stunned at the quality of pictures that Aiden shot!

Every picture of me was taken by him and vice versa.

Check out his skills with my camera!  Do I sense a future photographer?

I love where I live!

I love where I live, the middle of nowhere, out in a cornfield. 

One of the many reasons that I love where I live can be described in the picture below. 

And for all you photographers out there, I did something that I never do with a picture this once.  I did nothing!  I mean it, no bump up of contrast, clarity, color....nothing!  This is exactly as I shot it this morning, three images stitched together, no other editing. 

I love it when God gives me such a great gift to start out my day with!