I Heart Face Constructive Feedback Friday!

Today is Constructive Feedback Friday over at I Heart Faces!  The first 50 readers have the chance to have the professionals over there help us fix up one of our own photos and get advice on how to make it look even better!  Exciting!

The picture I need help with is one I took this ;past summer.  It was taken with my Nikon D40.  It was bright and sunny out.  I edited it in PSE 7.0.  As you can tell, I'm not a pro in PSE.  Well, I not really a pro in anything, but I do realize there is potential for this photo, and I'll take all the help I can get!!!  Here are the details for those wonderful people who might stop by today to help me with my photo:  ISO 200, Exposure 1/4000 sec, f/1.6, focal length 50mm.

What's bothering me about my photo?  For one, half of his head is way overexposed!!  I tried and tried, but I couldn't figure out how to fix it. I think the photo evokes so much emotion, and I would like that to be expressed in the editing.

This is the SOOC shot:

And here are my attempts to edit it:

I didn't do much, as you can tell, because I really didn't know how to tone down that BRIGHT WHITE HAIR that's overexposed!

Help!!!

And one final note, to my regular readers....one of the reasons I am participating in this event is so I can learn from those who know so much more than I do.  If you should happen to read a comment that might appear critical, remember, that's how I hope to learn how to edit better.  No one is leaving a comment to hurt my feelings.  The purpose of this is to gain constructive knowledge from those who know way more than me!  I am so hopeful I am one of the first 50!!

Have a wonderful weekend!

A Trip Down Memory Lane...

Today is Hilarious Outtakes Day over at I Heart Faces, so I thought I'd search through all my photos and try and come up with five (yes, you could enter up to five photos for this challenge....usually you can only submit one photo) funny photos that might have gotten snapped through the years.

Now, I'm not sure any of them are what you'd call "hilarious", but they all bring a smile to my face for one reason or another, so I thought I'd share them with you today to see what you thought.

And FYI, I promise this isn't becoming a photography blog....it's just a passion of mine right now.  Tomorrow or Wednesday it's back to cards, I promise...

This shot of my two boys was taken almost three years ago!  My time flies when you're having fun.  I took them out to our church retreat center one beautiful summer day to take some photos, and as usual, they were being very uncooperative, but at least they were having a good time doing it, LOL!  I have about a million of these two like this, laughing, laughing, laughing.  At one point, I told them to put their heads together (meaning move them together while looking at me) and they looked at each other, bent their heads down and put them together top to top!  Smart alecs!

This second shot was taken a few summers ago.  It is my eldest son and his two cousins.  They were all going to be seniors in the coming school year, so we wanted to do a photo shoot with all of them together (we were at my other nieces grad party, so they were really squirrely).  Since all three of them are a bunch of goofballs, they decided to strike the iconic Charlie's Angels pose simultaneously for me--it just makes me laugh!!!

This third picture brings back sweet memories!  I look at this picture and think, man, I sure do miss those long summer days, sitting at the baseball fields, hootin' and hollerin' for my son.  On this particular day, the boys had just won a tournament championship, and my husband snuck up on them (he was their coach that summer) just as I was taking their picture.  My son is the one farthest on the right.  Seriously, did I did this kid right or what????  He's still looking directly at the camera, smiling!  That's my boy!

And finally, I smile a lot at this shot too-- it makes me giggle when I look at how funny her hair looks when she was dancing up at storm last summer up at COP!  She was having such a blast she was oblivious to my taking her picture.  
So, that's it today girlfriends.  Thanks for sticking with me through today's trip down memory lane.  Be sure and come back in the next day or two to see some of the cards I've been creating lately!
Hugs,Amy