Last Child in the Woods - Louv

I had to share that I just started reading this incredible book by Richard Louv titled "Last Child in the Woods - Saving Our Children From Nature Deficit Disorder". Louv's thoughts echo what I have been thinking and saying for years which is that kids today are slowly losing their connection with the "natural" world. Of course, Louv prose is MUCH more eloquent than I and his explanations and research on the presented subjects is excellent.

Here are a couple excerpts from the book:

P.30 - "We tell our kids that traditional forms of outdoor play are against the rules . . . Then we get on their backs when they sit in front of the TV and then we tell them to go outside and play. But where? How? Join another organized sport? Some kids don't want to be organized all of the time.

P. 24 - "Fishing and Hunting . . . are messy - to some morally messy - but removing all traces of that experience from childhood does neither the child nor nature any good."

p. 21 - "Few of us miss the brutal aspects of raising food. For most young people, however, memory supplies no experience for comparison. More young people may be vegetarians or consume food from health food stores, but fewer are likely to raise their own food - especially if that food is an animal.

p. 14 - "Parents, educators, other adults, institutions - the culture itself - may say one thing to children about nature's gifts, but so many of our actions and messages - especially the ones we cannot hear ourselves deliver - are different. And children hear very well."

For more information please see: http://richardlouv.com/

iPhoto Phun

IPhoto Phun
While I tend to use Adobe Photoshop for editing photos if I want want to be able to REALLY manipulate images I still prefer to use iPhoto to make smaller correction and accomplish basic changes (red eye, brightness, contract, etc). Take a look at the following three images for some of the interesting effects possible with the simple to use iPhoto.

Original photo - Note that the colors are really washed out and there are no clouds to make this a very interesting picture. The only thing that this lighthouse photo has going for it is the "subject" which in this case is the perfectly placed sailboat.


iPhoto Fix Step One - Hitting the photo with a rather big stick I cranked down the brightness, sharpened the image and increased the blue color saturation.
iPhoto Fix Step Two - Unfortunately, even with all of the prep work in the end the sky really is drab and colorless and doesn't add anything to the photo so for that reason on my last step I removed as much of the sky as possible using the matte tool. Additionally, since the colors really weren't that fantastic I also gave the photo an antique finish.
Now obviously this photo has other issues that to be resolved go well beyond the limited capabilities of iPhoto, however, for simple edits I hope I have shown that iPhoto is worth further exploration. Did anyone notice that the third photo wasn't the same as the first two?

Outdoor Treasure Hunt - Part III

Outdoor Treasure Hunt
Little Man and I were outside over the weekend tracking the elusive "BumsB". It seems that the slight changes in temperature have vastly increased last minute nectar gathering efforts and the flower gardens were swarmed with these little stinging insects all weekend. Lil man is amazed by these creatures and my constant warnings that they make "ouch" seem to only delight him to no apparent end! Apparently, I need to consider changing his middle name to DANGER! :)