Better Late

 I've been busy this week.  I should be working harder, but I'll just admit it, I am lazy.

I got to partake in parent/teacher conferences this week.  It was an interesting affair.  Of my 120 or so students, I saw about a third of their parents.  A few of them were students with less than perfect grades.  Only one of the parents looked at me and wanted to know why I hadn't called her.  Well,  I had not exactly prepared for that, but I explained that while I'd love to call every parent with a student with low grades, I quite simply hadn't had time yet.  She seemed somewhat mollified.  Most of the time it was just a matter of showing the parent the grades and then asking the student to explain WHY they hadn't been working hard enough to do better.  That was more than a little amusing.

Because I ended up going in at 7AM, teaching classes and then leaving at about 1PM after classes and then returning again just before 4PM for the conferences, then getting home after 7PM, I did not get many photos in this week.  I took the camera, but nothing really cropped up in the dark.

I took the photo above last weekend, but just got around to processing it.  I like the way it looks.  I used a picture of an old piece of brass that I have as a layer.  It framed Chloe's face just right.

The one below is my attempt to be a little more abstract with my photos.  Abstract art is something I have always enjoyed looking at, but I just don't seem to come by it naturally like some people, so i don't generally try to create it.  I decided I need to expand my repertoire and tried a few intentionally unframed shots, then I took the ones I liked and combined them.  I was a little at a loss, it seemed it needed something else, so I added the tree in the middle, and it looks a lot better, though I saved the previous one as a layer for later photos.    

This last photo is BY FAR my favorite photo from this past week.  And the thing is, I didn't take it.  Cora did.  Sunday morning we drove up on the top of one of the nearby hills.  Cora wasn't quite pleased with the idea as we drove by signs urging strangers away, but we never REALLY trespassed, so we were fine.  When we arrived at the destination, she changed her mind a bit.  The view was spectacular.

Chloe loves to be thrown up in the air.  I always catch her, so that isn't an issue.  Cora took Precious and started taking pictures as I threw Chloe.  When we got home, I looked at the shots and decided something was missing.  So I added some of the Chloes from other photos.  Although it is a work of Paintshop, it has turned out to be my favorite shot of the week!

I am taking part in these two activites, I hope you will click on over to both and have a look at what others have been doing this week!  Thanks to Photo Art Friday and Weekly Top Shot!

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