i took pictures of my own children.

I've been reprimanded more than once lately for taking lots and lots of pictures of other people's children and neglecting my own. Guilty as charged. Andy's sister and her hubby came down for a quick visit and since we were taking them to the beach, I forced my children into attractive clothing for a few minutes and took their pictures. Note: I do have one of them together from the front, but I like their backs and I'm saving that one for a special purpose anyway, so I'm sorry, you can't see it yet.





I also took advantage of the free time on the beach to play with my new fisheye lens, which can do crazy things to people, but is fascinating to play with. Here's some landscape type shots, which I don't normally get to take.

The fisheye is what's bending the horizon like that. If you don't know what a fisheye is, it's kind of hard to explain... it's the opposite of a telephoto lens, which gives you a very narrow (straight forward) field of view. A fisheye can give you such a wide field of view (which is why it's called a wide angle lens) that depending on the angle, the sensor, and other things, the photographer may have to be careful to keep his feet out of the picture. Mine isn't quite that wide, but it will give the typical fisheye distortion, which is evident in the above shot. If the horizon were in the middle of the picture you wouldn't notice the distortion as much (see below).

I couldn't believe how close I was able to get to this plant in order to get this picture. The fisheye still gave plenty of background but I was inches away from this flower. Did I mention that it's really fun to play with?
There were storms within hearing and sight distance but the sun managed to shine on us before we left for the evening. It was really beautiful.