Photo Fun!

"Polkadot Carly, loves to explore, but loves her camera even more!"

This line is soooo true about me that it totally could be the tag line of my life! I am constantly thinking about the next adventure I could go on whether it be with my little man, my whole family or my friends... I love to go on adventures. And on these adventures you can guarantee I will have my camera with me! If I find myself without my camera, I would not be over exaggerating  to say, it feels like I am missing a limb!

So, this Christmas when Santa left me a new iphone I was extremely excited to find that this savvy little piece of technology has an 8 mega pixel camera and an HD video camera as one of its features! Then to add to this excitement a fabulous app called "Instagram" was introduced to me to make taking photos even more fun!

My blog today is sharing with you the coolness of simple photo editing! Because it has just made sharing photos so much more fun for me! ... I know that Instagram is only available to iphones right now. (I hear it will be available to android very soon.) So I did some very basic research and found some other alternative apps or online editing programmes that do similar effects. Because sometimes its just fun and fresh to see photos in a slightly different way. Its adds mood and vibrance and sometimes a bit of quirk! I also found a free photo collaging programme too!!! SO EXCITED!

• If you have an iphone... totally go and download Instagram now! It gives your photos a great 1970's feel, and there are 17 different filter types that you can choose to apply to your photos! LOVE IT!
• If you don't have an iphone I found an app called picplz which does some similar effects.
• If you don't have a smartphone but would still like to do some simple photo editing, then I found a website called Picnik.com. This site allows you to do some pretty quirky things to your photos, but also has some more classic filters as well.
• If you want to collage your photos into fun designs, then this website is for you! photovisi.com is for you!

So those are three editing tools you can go and have a play around with... and if you know of any others that you have found fun or good to use please do share! I love finding new apps or programmes to play with, especially when it comes to making photo sharing more exciting!

Here are some random shots that I have taken since Christmas to show you the different filter effects.

Filter: Inkwell

Filter: Lo-fi

Filter: Kelvin

Filter: Earlybird

Filter: Polaroid (done in Picnik.com)

Collage done in Photovisi

Photo of the Week

We are totally entering into the crazy season for Polkadots right now! We have shows happening left, right and centre! Today, we got to perform up north in Whangarei and I got to capture this photo with our audience while I was down dancing with them! Its children like this who just get up and boogie and let themselves feel the beat that make all of our shows soooo worth while!

Photo of the week

Capture a moment that shows the candidness of children. 

Ashton and I decided to do some baking and right from the beginning
Ashton was determined to show how independent and capable he was
at doing EVERYTHING on his own. "No, my do it!"
At one point, just after we had sifted the flour into the mix, he went to stir it
in and managed to fling the flour and a bit of batter all over himself. He didn't
get upset though, he just picked some of it off with his hand, put it in his mouth
and said, "mmm, yummy Mum, I taste it!" and continued on mixing.

Photo of the week!

Capture a moment that illustrates how wonderfully uninhabited children are!!!

This is how Ashton came out to me the other day after spending some time with his dress up box! I just love the combo!!!

Photo of the week!

Capture a moment that just makes you fall in love with your precious little one all over again!!!

He read himself to sleep! Soooo cute!

Love Letters to Ashton-Paul

I love keeping journals and photo albums but I always wonder whether the way I am keeping them is interesting enough for the person who may end up reading it, or looking at it. So I'm always looking for new and exciting ideas.... and I just got this idea from a friend on how to keep a journal for Ashton. Its called a "Love Letters" journal.

The idea behind it is everyone that is close to Ashton writes letters to him telling him all the things that they love about him. I write in it the most... because I am obsessed with him!!! But other people like his grandparents, aunties and uncles, and close friends all write in it too. Then every time someone writes in it, I add a photo to go along with the entry.

I love this idea because it gives a really nice well rounded view of who Ashton is to all the important people in his life. And as we all know... a child can not be told too much how much they are loved!

The cute part of this, and why I wanted to add it to my blog, is that while I was writing about Ashton and how much I love his dance skills the other day, he came up to me and wanted to write in his journal. So I gave him the pen and let him go for it! I told him this was his very first journal entry! He scribbled away!

When I asked Ashton what he was writing about, he promptly pointed to his picture and sung "row, row, row, boat" So I transcribed for him and continue to add how a bit more at the bottom of how much he loves to sing and that this is one of his favourite songs.

When I told him I was taking a photo to go in his journal he said, "CHEESE". He's so well trained and I LOVE HIM!