I am trying to take better pictures with my new camera. The problem is that I don't have any formal training in photography so I'm reading lots of books then trying to apply those techniques. I have a good friend who majored in photography and she agreed to critique my photos. She even took our engagement photo and she has used me as one of her models for her portfolio. It's funny too that when we were around 10 years old, my friend's mom took us up to the mountains to play in the snow (her mom is also a photographer) and we sledded down a hill several times for that perfect shot. Finally, we just propped the innertube on a ledge and pretended to slide down the hill and guess what? That shot was used for the cover of a small Christian magazine. We liked to joke that we were covergirls!

So my friend tells me the best times to take pictures are early morning or late afternoon to get the best lighting. So at Tyler's baseball practice, I saw lots of pine needles on the grass which we spent kicking around. I was not sure how he would like picking them up since he has that texture thing but he had no problems picking the needles up and flinging them as far as he could.