I recently worked up some images for a competition with the theme "Ice."  I decided to go with self-portraits, which was an experience.  It turns out I have a LOT of bad angles.  Fortunately, out of the 400 that I took, I managed to have four or five that were acceptable after extensive photoshopping. :)  The interesting thing is that I don't think they actually look like me, which made them much easier to work on in post.

The first three have an ice texture that I made and overlaid to the images, the last one looked better without the overlay, but I still haven't decided exactly what to do with the background.  Now accepting suggestions :)

Enjoy!

I was very fortunate to head home for Thanksgiving this year and share the holiday with my parents and all of my siblings and their partners.  Needless to say, it was a full house. :)

We are people who enjoy going for walks and doing things outdoors, even if it is only 38 degrees out there.  The first few photos are from a walk up to the shore of Lake Ontario from our home.  The next batch is from the annual Turkey Trot, which our family participates in every year on Thanksgiving morning.  It conveniently starts between our house and the lakeshore, so we are able to walk up to the race and then walk home to a warm house and bloody marys afterwards.  :)

The last bunch of photos are from a park in our area that was renamed for my grandfather, Lucien Morin, who was the first County Executive in Monroe County and actually acquired about one third of all park lands in the county during his term.  It was the first time that most of us had visited the park.  If you're in Rochester area and would like to know where it is, just send me a note (kristin@kozelskyphoto.com) and I'll give you directions.  Yes, there were both an old, rusty car and a very cute niece in the park that day.

So yes, Vogel State Park in Georgia.  We were there Saturday through Monday with a group of Bo's friends, but I didn't actually get back to Gainesville until Tuesday morning... and I drove straight to work.  So I really still feel like I just got back even though tomorrow is Thursday.

Saturday we spent most of the day around the park and had a nice group dinner in a warm cabin with some wine and a fireplace.  Sunday a couple girls got up and did a 5am hike... we slept in until the ripe hour of 9am.  We had our breakfast, washed the dishes, got some more firewood and got ourselves ready and then it took a while for everyone to get themselves (and their tiny children) ready.  So we had a leisurely family-friendly hike late in the afternoon and I spent some time taking photos while Bo was exploring potential bouldering areas just off the trail.  We had another lovely evening and planned a more serious hike for Monday morning.  Mountains here we come!

Well... it rained all morning.  Rain and rain and rain.  So we checked out, hung around until everyone else was on their way out as well as the rain slowed down and went up to Brasstown Bald.  It was incredibly foggy, which was really quite nice.  It was one of the few times you can feel totally safe while experiencing weather on a mountain. Apparently the view is really great from up there and you can see four states, but we could barely see each other so.... maybe next time :)

As before, the first one in the group gets the exif data and is the one that I'm using for the challenge.

Saturday

28-135 3.5-5.6 @75mm, f/5.6, 1/13sec, ISO 400, no flash, probably with polarization filter

My requisite sunflare shot (oh I have many from this trip!)

Pro tebe, Vašo!

Sunday

28-135 3.5-5.6 @135mm, f/5.6, 1/32sec, ISO 200, no flash, polarization filter

Monday

28-135 3.5-5.6 @90mm, f/5.6, 1/200sec, ISO 400, no flash, no filter