McGregor Wine Region - Part 1

Another lovely drive that we took with our youngest child, Amanda, was to the McGregor Food and Wine Festival on the last day of August. Our mission was to go on an outing, enjoy some wines from the area and to check out this festival for our first time. 

We ventured out of our home to brave the rainy weather. It certainly made for some interesting photos. Remember to click on the images to view them larger and to enjoy the finer details. Also, take a moment to check out the neat links (in blue) that I've included.

Driving over a bridge to McGregor

Driving to McGregor

Driving to McGregor with Flowering Plum Trees

Driving to McGregor with a Flooding River

The McGregor Winery

Amanda wore Hello Kitty.

Beautiful Fynbos for Sale
from a Local Farmer

Beautiful Fynbos for Sale
from a Local Farmer

Amanda holding a colorful
bouquet of Fynbos that we bought.

The Blushing Bride Protea
You can find out more about these
show stoppers here on Mayesh
and also here on Wedding Flowers.

The Fynbos was being arranged on the table
and the steel drums for the live entertainment
were getting set up in the background.

The South African boys played steel drums
and other instruments.

South African Girls Dressed in Costumes and Dancing in the Rain
There was a mix of drama skits and dance by both boys and girls.

Cut Flowers - 10

The roses and lavender are from my garden. I took lots of pictures of them, trying different backgrounds and focusing on different aspects of them. Do you see the wire bicycle? We bought that from kids on the side of the road in Zambia.

My favorite part about the roses was the darker shades of pink on the outer petals. I've done a series on them named after the type of rose they are, Simplicity. The Simplicity series gives tips on using a variety of photo editing tools.

Cut Flowers - 9

Flowers from My Garden

I like these flowers, because they are imperfect, simple and sweet. They have a real country feel about them. The background is also imperfect with a rustic look. Always keep in mind your background when taking that special shot.

3 Sisters – 6

With eager expectation, I awaited for PicMonkey’s collage application. It’s been available for a few days already, but I hadn’t gotten around to trying it out. It didn’t disappoint.

You can create your own collage in seconds, literally, and for free using PicMonkey. Without any prior knowledge on how to use this application, I got this result with a few simple clicks. I didn’t even bother editing my photos and my collage turned out awesome!

2010 Soccer World Cup, South Africa

Here are the steps I took: I clicked on Collage, three empty frames appeared, which I rotated with one click below the frames. I then clicked on the blue box with Upload Photos to the left, and chose my three pictures from my documents. I then dragged them over to the empty frames by clicking on the mouse and holding it down. I placed them where I wanted them to be. I clicked on the paint palette, wondering what it was for, and saw that it changes the background color. I chose the dropper and picked a color from my photos to replicate. I liked the green in Jessica’s T-shirt and went with that. My final step was to save it in good quality, not best quality as I hadn’t resized my photos earlier and didn’t want a large file size. That’s because I don’t want to upload large file size images on my blogs or else my blogs will load slower.

3 Sisters – 4

I find editing my pictures very relaxing after a busy day. It’s my way of having some me-time and a bit of fun. In these two photos my 3 girls are watching TV, and Amanda is snacking on apple slices. It looks like it was a long day for the two big sisters.

I did most of my editing in PicMonkey. One feature that I used in the background was Burn and I chose Dark. I wish you lots of success with your pictures at home. There’s no reason why you can’t take a good photo and make it a great photo! And, have fun while you’re at it!

Climbing Rocks – 2

I love the composition of this photo. The kids are all doing something different, yet they’re in the same spot on the rocks. Samantha is looking especially adorable with her hands holding the rim of her sun hat. The rocks also make a stunning backdrop. I didn’t compose the shot. I just captured the moment.

Do you want to apply free and easy photo editing tools to your pictures? I used PicMonkey for this picture and the previous one. They allow me more options to adjust a technique than Picasa 3. I hardly needed to edit these. All I did was open the Exposure tool and then I had the option to choose Auto Adjust or to use the slide bars and do it myself. The options on the slide bars are: Brightness, Highlights, Shadows and Contrast. That’s it!

Isn’t She Lovely – 8

Little Amanda against a brick background

In the last photo Amanda was wearing something from her grandma and in this photo the Snoopy top is a hand-me-down from another child. I thought it looked so cute on her that I had to take this picture. When I found out I was pregnant with Amanda, one of my concerns for having another child was the need for clothing. I’ve written about this in the post "Dora the Explorer." With all the pictures I have of her, it’s obvious that she has been well taken care of.

Isn’t She Lovely – 6

Here are two more photos of Amanda at the Cape Town Scratch Patch. I loved the painted mineshaft background and miner’s car full of gemstones, so I took the opportunity and placed Amanda in it. She had a lot of fun with the multi-colored stones and I’m glad that I captured her enjoyment with my digital camera.