We keep trying to get pictures of us with the puppy so we get some perspective of how small he is now. I like taking portraits but I don’t feel that they are my strong point, so I need more practice anyways.

I love this picture of Adam with the puppy. I usually have trouble getting him to smile for pictures.

This is the best one I’ve gotten of myself with the puppy.  I don’t really like the angle at which it was taken.  It makes my huge shoulders look like an extra large Football player with oversized shoulderpads. Cooper looks cute with his eyes closed though.

Cooper and I have been doing lots of training walks lately because he’s quite shy with strangers so we are trying to have him meet as many as possible. So I brought him on a photo adventure on Monday night. I’ll have more pictures later, but I wanted to show a few of them now.

I loved living in Boston when I went to school there. I loved rowing on the Charles. So on occasion I love to go back, watch some rowing races and walk around Boston. I get to see the views I saw daily, but never stopped marveling at. Such as the view of the skyline from the river.

One of the things I like are the many buildings of various styles and types. I enjoy photographing them.

I prepared this post for my Tumblr initially but I decided to expand on it and make it into a blog post.  So my apologies if you follow both.

Sometimes when I’m sitting around bored thinking that my life has no excitement in it, I start going through my picture archives. I’m often astonished by how much I have lived. I may not be rich, popular or famous, but I have been to beautiful places, and in not so pretty places, my lens has caught small astonishing sights that others may have missed. I’ve known people who have touched my life for better or for worst. I’ve explored many parts of my personality with my appearance, the crowd I kept and the activities I did. I’ve hiked, rowed, horseback ridden, painted, swam, raced, climbed, partied, and goofed off in numerous places and with different people.

I hope that someday when I am gone, those left behind will look at my pictures and question “how can one fit so much living into a lifetime”.

Pictures are my instant pick me ups. My pictures remind me that while I may have sad days, bad days, boring days, the days I have enjoyed have made my existance worthwhile. Even pictures of ex-boyfriends remind me of the good times I had with them, and the reasons I am glad to have found my husband.

So go out, take pictures of everything you love and everything you hate, on a regular basis. Because all those small things are part of your history and in the end, hopefully, you will be able to see how amazing and full your life has been.

I uploaded a bunch of pictures from the Laconia Sled Dog Championships on February 15th to my Flickr tonight. I still havn’t played with them in Photoshop but it let me explore Picnik a little more. I like a couple of the results.

I’ve been playing with Flickr’s Picnik Feature.  It’s kind of fun. I like editing in Photoshop, but when I don’t have time to Picnik seems to be a viable option.  Here’s a recent try out.  The first is the Original, a trail sign I took in 2005 in Acadia National Park.  The second is a quick edit I did in Picnik.

What do you think?

Maine Coast, originally uploaded by mbarsalou.

I took this picture over a year ago on the Maine Coast. I just had the film developed. I’m a little disappointed because I think the 30+ year old Pentax K1000 I used needs cleaning. Now this camera is a family heirloom of sorts. It’s the camera my dad used to take all my childhood pictures, and he bought it when he was in college (and broke). The most recent roll of film has shown that I definitely need to bring it for cleaning in because the shutter isn’t closing properly.

Anyone know of a good camera cleaning shop in New England?

Here’s a couple other other shots from the same roll of film.