Fireman Helmets and Photography

J got issued a new "lid" at work: a new helmet. He sure was/is proud of it. Had a laugh when they ran a call and his new helmet had to ride up in the front of the truck with them, LOL.

The next day he brought it home to show us.
I had seen some lovely pics that others (with some real artistic talent) had taken, so I attempted to try my own artsy-fartsy type set-ups. Out of lots attempts, this is one of the better ones

I wanted him to pose wearing it, but he's a terrible model. He can't relax and look natural and gets aggravated when I try to tell him to turn this way or that, makes goofy faces. Ryan had him laughing in this one and I liked it better than all the ones he 'posed' for.

Yes, that is smoke drifting up behind him, lol. Ryan had our fire pit thing lit earlier and it was sitting there and he thought it would make a good "prop" to have smoke wafting up in the background.

While we were out messing with "photo ops" last night, I found out Ryan has all these cool photos effects on his phone, like Vignette, Distortion, depth-to-field and some others. Kinda pisses me off than my nearly $200 digi-cam doesn't have kewl stuff like that.

I know I have Photo-Shop-Pro on my PC, but I'm not good at visualizing taking photos to be able to edit a certain way later.

Ryan owns his own helmet, and had ordered a front shield for it, and it finally got here.
I had gotten him interested in making the artsy type photos of their gear, so he wanted me to help him set up a Scene.
We have this vintage old screen door (J was supposed to be restoring for me) propped up out on the carport and Ryan liked the look of it, so we set his stuff up in front of it.

These are pictures he took with his cellphone camera.

Ryan saying "Don't take a picture of me!" and blinding me with his helmet-light.

My Firefighting Husband

It's that time of the year again, for the annual Physical Fitness Testing. J got his Lt. to take pics while he did his just for me!
(I have been asking...though some may call it whining, bitching and/or nagging...because I can't ever get pictures of him at work actually doing something firefighter-y. If I get any it's when I go to the station and take my own and he just sits and fake smiles at me until I'm done.)
So here I finally have some real action photos:

Blog Hopping

Still away today, hopefully having a great time. Here's some stuff I saw while blog-hopping this week.

Check out these great Fireman Cupcakes idea found at Mary the Kay the Blog.

Mason jar soap pump at Blissfully Content.

My Mom's maiden name is Mason, so we're pretty big collectors of Mason jars. Not your average everyday Kerr/Ball mason jars (we still use those for canning), but unique jars like the one pictured here.

A couple of years ago I found a Lamb-Mason jar on ebay. My Aunt's married name is Lamb, so I filled the jar with potpurri and bought a canning jar glass oil lamp lid and made it into sort of little oil lamp. 

This past September one of my cousins got married, bringing a new Mason into the family.  They used mason jar lanterns for the centerpieces at her shower, it was cute. 

Anyway, I was thinking mason jars might be a good theme for gift-giving for her. I've seen these canning jar soap dispensers at a couple of blogs lately and they seemed like a nice, not too difficult project. 

M&M Turkey Favors at Pink Ink Doodle. Cute! I'm gonna make these for T'giving at Mom's: 

One of the treats I traditionally make for the boys at Christmas is white-chocolate-dipped-Oreos, but I think they would like these Pops with sprinkles version. Or maybe red or green sugar crystals, to customize it for Christmas. They do love sprinkles, though, and probably wouldn't care if they look more Easter than Christmas.

What a great idea! Why can't I think of stuff like this??  Recycled Newspapers Seedling Pots

This is such a great idea - Free, and you can plant the whole thing as is so you don't risk messing up your sprouted seedlings delicate roots pulling it out of a plastic or other pot. 

We love Scrabble! Backyard Scrabble