Home Sweet Home

Want to know where I grew up? Well, I'll tell you anyways. My family lives in a small town in Virginia. Very small. We have three restaurants now (counting Burger King) and one of them just opened.

In the home I grew up in, my room was in the corner facing the backyard. Outside my window, I could see cows and hills of grass. One year, Mama decided to strip the carpets. From then on, we had hardwood floors. Every morning in the spring and winter, I'd jump out of bed and feel a tingle run through my feet as the shock of the cold floors hit my senses.

Anyways, you get the point. Nanny (actually, her name is Sandy and she is my great aunt) lives with Jimmy and his horses a little up the road from mom's (now my sister's) house. So on my trip there, I snapped some photos.

Welcome to Narrows, VA. Welcome to my home:

For the record, the leaf in the image above was falling from the tree I was under. I've been accused of slapping that in there with PhotoShop! :'D But if you notice the foreground, there are loads of leaves.

As for photography tips, here's all I have to offer today...

While on my photo tour guide in Ireland, the guy mentioned a program called Nik now owned by Google and available for free. The random leaf photo was edited with that program through the HDR feature. So much more customization. I love it! Click here to check it out. One of the things the guide mentioned was that support may stop for it. So, enjoy it while it lasts. And to get started using it, I recommend this guy's YouTube tutorials. Thank you, photo tour guide! (I won't mention his name since I don't have permission).