Sunday, August 23, 2009

Not-so-secret Garden

We ventured out on our annual trip to the Meijer Gardens earlier this week. It was a gorgeous, hot and humid day. A perfect day for running around beautiful gardens, splashing in the fountains and fiddling with camera exposure.


I didn't take many photos of the scenery because let's face it - we have been going there for years - it is a ball to go there, but it hasn't changed much. I was much more interested in portrait type shots with my kiddos. There are so many awesome venues around there, if I lived closer I would definitely have to have the season pass. My lucky kids would be running around that garden every other day!

I came so close to getting the photo of Evan that I am dying to have. In the photo below he is laughing his Evan laugh, but since I was experimenting with exposure, I had the wrong exposure and it got a bit OVER exposed. The black and white tends to remedy it a bit.

Hailey was having a wonderful time on our visit this year. Last year she cried during the majority of our time there due to the fact that her parents were trying to break her toe. I couldn't resist taking pictures of her with her giant flower in her hair. I think the giant bird's nest was her favorite place to be.




One of the newer features of the children's garden is a little log cabin that is filled with games like chess and checkers and old fashioned toys. The kids also spent a lot of our time in here trying to figure out the toys made of wood and string. There was no plastic to be found!

This is my attempt at a collage in Photoshop. It didn't turn out exactly how I wanted. It has been a long time since my class.

The kids favorite sculpture is the giant "dinosaur" eggs. You have to walk down a "secret" path to get to them. They were even more thrilled to discover a real live Blue Heron looking at the eggs as well. Can you spot him? Later that night when I was tucking Evan in to bed, I asked him what his favorite part of the day was. His answer: Watching the Blue "Erin".



It is always a fun day and a learning experience in one way or another. We all look forward to our visit every year.


1 comment:

jensenbo said...

What beautiful shots of the kids in a delightful setting!! Any one of them would look sharp enlarged. I can see where they love to visit the gardens and see all the interesting exhibits.