Archive for October, 2007

Photo Contests

October 29, 2007 | Photo Contests

Don’t miss out on two photo contests that end this week: Mocha Momma’s Autumn Photo Contest and the HP/WWF Pumpkin Photo Contest. Both end today, October 29th.
And for November -

Tracey at Picture This and the women from Mamazine are hosting a contest called Mama Focus. The catch: you have to get over your fear of being IN the picture because that’s the theme: photos OF moms!

Happy Halloween

October 26, 2007 | Douglas, Family

Our local Chamber of Commerce sponsors a downtown trick-or-treat every year the Thursday before Halloween. The main street is blocked off, and all the stores hand out candy to the local children from 4-6 pm. It’s a great way to get folks away from the mall and into the downtown area to see the local shops and restaurants.

We live in a fairly rural area of town, and this is really our best option for Douglas to trick or treat, so we go every year. Usually I walk with Douglas and his Dad wanders around taking pictures of trick-or-treaters for the Chamber website. This year though, I was staffing the table for a local education foundation (I’m on the board) so Doug had to walk around with Dad. Afterward, he mentioned something about maybe I could walk around with him next year, so I’m guessing Dad wasn’t as patient as I usually am

At the table for the Hudson Education Foundation, handily located next to the Chamber’s in front of Town Hall, we handed out candy for the kids and Purell wipes for the clean-up, which was much appreciated by the parents. I think we saw every child from Hudson MA and many many surrounding towns. They kept coming well after 6pm; it was only when the motorcycle cop drove down Main Street to open the road that it finally ended.

I was too busy to take a single photo, but here are a few from David.

In this one, I’m in the background. Douglas (Darth Vader) is asking me something. In the foreground, Marianne Vergano-Laughton, president of the Foundation, is handing out candy.

Here is Douglas as Darth Vader with another child from town. This picture was originally quite dark, so I did some editing in Picasa.

In this shot, Douglas seems to be doing something with the Force, hence the blurred hand.

Red Sox Nation

October 23, 2007 | General

GO RED SOX!!!!

Panda Pumpkin

October 20, 2007 | Animals, Art

While my mom and I were enjoying Wicked in Boston, my husband was kind enough to carve me this Panda pumpkin from the stencils created by HP and the WWF.

Going on a Picnik

October 16, 2007 | Products

I’ve just started to explore the web-based graphic program Picnik, and so far I am impressed. I’ve been using Picasa, but there are some things it doesn’t do (or I can’t figure out) so I still have to use Irfanview for them. For example, resize images.

Picnik seems to be able to handle just about everything I need and it is very easy to use. It just came out of beta, and the premium version is available for free trial right now. I wish it would let me resize images in inches not just pixels, but I can deal.

Here are two images that I messed around with today.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Applefest, Fall photo tips and pumpkins

October 15, 2007 | Douglas, Photo Contests, Photo Walks, Projects, Travel

Yesterday we went to the AppleFest at Mount Wachusett. The highlight was the chair lift ride to the top of the mountain. It was a gorgeous, cold fall day — clear enough to see Boston in the distance.

Here are some pictures I took on the ride back down the mountain. More on Flickr.

More fall photo fun:

Great fall photo tips from the folks at Photojojo

Jack-o-lantern carving stencils and a pumpkin photo contest from HP and the World Wildlife Fund. The carving stencils feature endangered species and wildlife scenes, and are available at www.worldwildlife.org/pumpkins and the HP Activity Center.

To enter the contest, upload a photo of your carved pumpkin to www.snapfish.com/goingwildwithpumpkins by October 29.

(Disclosure: HP is a client, although I did not work on this project.)

Autumn in Vermont

October 10, 2007 | Vermont

Waiting for you…

The view from my “office” window in Vermont

More pictures on Flickr

In Support of the League of Maternal Justice

General

Tomorrow, I promise to post some pictures from our last two weekends in Vermont. Today, however, I post in support of the League of Maternal Justice. And I remind you, this is from a woman who chose to not breastfeed for my own personal reasons, but will defend to the end another woman’s right to do so, wherever and whenever her child is hungry. (YouTube video embedded below)

Tags: League of Maternal Justice, Facebook, Facebook sucks, breastfeeding