I have another location issue to share with you my readers.  I am in the process of moving my blog to a self hosted WordPress blog located here.  So be sure to bookmark it and subscribe to the new feed so that you don’t miss any of my wonderful photographs.

That’s all I have to say for now.  But make sure you click on over to the Bumbles first.  Have a scent-sational day!

Do you have past summer vacations on video, why not have them transferred over to DVD.

We soon learned that CJ has Amlyopia or commonly known as “Lazy Eye”.  I have a cousin who has a severe lazy eye but I never really noticed it on CJ until the Optometrist pointed it out.  Then I noticed it all the time.  The Optometrist recommended a pair of glasses for CJ, an Eye Patch and some Vision Therapy.

While doing my research on Vision Therapy and eye patches, I learned that traditional eye patches are devices that are taped over the child’s good eye.  And can sometimes be difficult to remove because of the adhesive.  I thought to myself there has got to be a better product out there.  Because as a Mother I know, that if there is pain involved, the child is not going to be too willing to wear it.

So I kept searching through countless pages on the Internet.  Page after page held the same type of traditional eye patches.  Until I came upon Anissa’s Fun Patches.  A Grandparent invented a unique but simple eye patch for her Granddaughter, Anissa.  This eye patch slips over the arm of the glasses and onto the nose piece to block the vision in the good eye.  No adhesive is needed whatsoever.  Credit Card in hand I order a five patches.  I was quite pleased with the product.  And they even sent CJ a Christmas card and a Free eye patch in December.

There are days when I still have to fight CJ to wear his patch, but this is an easier battle than what I would have been fighting had he had to wear the traditional eye patch.  And here is the puzzle we completed tonight as part of his Vision Therapy.

I hope that you are enjoying your time in the blogosphere.

If you’re part of the Blog Hop then you already know that this week’s Theme is Favorite Kid Photo.  I have to say it was hard to choose a photograph that I have not already displayed here on my blog.  If you look around a bit, you will see that I love Photography with a capitol P.  You can see some on my work displayed here in this post.

One of my goals with my blog besides sharing my life in the desert is to help others learn how to take better photographs.  Just the other day I wrote a post on Summer Vacation – Telling Your Story.  Here are some other helpful photography tips as well in this post.

Without further delay, may I present one of my favorite photographs.  This is my son CJ and that’s his daddy holding him when he was about 6 weeks old.  We went camping in Joshua Tree National Park for the weekend with my cousin and her family.  Naturally with a baby we we’re the first ones up and I just happened to have my film camera in hand when CJ displayed this wonderful smile no I don’t believe it was gas.

Well I am off to do some Blog Hopping of my own now.  Don’t forget to leave a comment as I will be leaving many a comment for all the other blogs I visit on this week’s Blog Hop.  And if you’re not already part of the fun, there is no better time than now to start having some fun.

Click here to enter your link in the blog hop and view the entire list of entered links…

The sun was just beginning to rise as I snapped this photograph of the flowers.  You can see shadows on the ground as well.  Areas of light and dark are what you want to capture when composing a good photograph in monochrome.  After doing a little cropping and adding a frame, I knew I wanted to save this photograph for release on a Monday for the Monochrome Weekly blog meme. 

If you would like to purchase products featuring this photographic print, I have made them available for a limited time in my Cafe Press Shop.

What story do you want to tell with your photographs?  What is unique about this summer trip?  By taking some time to plan your photographic story, you will end up with more photographs with the “wow” factor and really capture the spirit of your summer trip.

To tell any good story, its needs four elements.  Plot.  Character.  Setting.  Details.  This holds true for photography as well.   Here is how you can incorporate story telling while taking photographs.

1. Plot – What action is taking place?  Is there a tension or conflict in the story?  What is important to the story?  Perhaps this summer trip is a family reunion.  Or the first trip for a toddler.
2. Character – What is unique about the person you are photographing?  I know I have an uncle who loves to entertain the kids at Christmas in-between opening presents.
3. Setting – What is important about your surroundings?  What is unique?  I know someone who traveled abroad and they had an outdoor shower with an amazing view.  Her husband took a wonderful photograph of her using the shower and the view just beyond.
4. Details – What are the little details that help tell the story?  Like the bucket the children used to build a sand castle on the beach.  You could compose a photograph of the discarded bucket by the sand castle with the children playing on the beach in the distance.

Once you have arrived at your summer destination, here are some tips for capturing your summer story in pictures.

• Leave the camera behind.  If you’re going to be there for a week, leave the camera behind for the first two days.  Spend this time just enjoying the atmosphere with your family.  If you do this, once you do whip out your camera, your family will probably be more cooperative with you taking pictures and may be less prone to whining about you being behind the camera all the time.
• With your camera packed away, take the time to make some observations about your surroundings.  This will help you plan out your shots when you do have your camera in hand.
• Choose the day, time and location for your photographs carefully.  Take the photograph we mentioned earlier of the bucket the children used to build the sand castle.  This photograph will have more “wow” factor at sunset with less people on the beach versus the middle of the afternoon when the sun is high and there are a lot of people on the beach.
• Be prepared to come back when the timing is right for that perfect photograph.

Here’s one story I have captured this summer.  I have digitally scrapped this story and it was easy to do since I knew ahead of time what I wanted to photograph.

Scrap pages were created at Scrapblog.com

You can have better photographs by thinking about the photograph you want to capture ahead of time.  And don’t forget to get yourself in the photograph.  These techniques can also be used for capturing those photographs for Summer Stock Sunday hosted by Robin over at Around the Island.  Click on over to see more photographs on this Summer Stock Sunday.

Do you have past summer vacations on video, why not have them transferred over to DVD.

Welcome fellow BlogHoppers!

I hope that you will take a few moments to look around and enjoy my desert way of life.  As you can see, I love taking photographs.

If your new to my blog, I hope that while you are here, you will take a second to sign up for my RSS Feed

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To learn a little about me, just click here.

Just last weekend I participated in a World Wide Photo Walk and you can view some of those photographs here and here.

And if you’re looking for a Give-a-Way, just click on over to my website and enter.  New winner chosen every Monday.

Now I’m off to do a little Blog Hopping myself.  See you in you’re comments!

To see more photographs from Sky Watch Friday participants or to submit your photograph, just click on over with the banner here

A great source for photography gear so you too can take wonderful photographs for Sky Watch Friday!

Thank you for taking the time to view my photographs.  As always, your feedback is greatly appreciated.  Now if you would like to join in on this Meme or just want to check out the other blog participants there here it is…

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others’ comments. It’s easy, and fun!

Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Today’s blog post is brought to you by Mozy.  Have you backed up your computer?  Highly recommended.  I literally cried the day my computer crashed and I lost hundreds of photographs that were irreplaceable.  i high recommended Mozy.  I have never had a problem since I started using their service.