Noir (or noire) is the French word for black. An iPhone filter by the same name also creates the look of high-contrast, black-and-white film noir. I have to admit that I often forget about using native iPhone filters. I love playing around in editing apps after I take the shot, but I recently rediscovered that shooting with another filter can be a creative experience.

Jeff, Alex, and I all went on a RZR riding adventure this past weekend in Marysvale, Utah. I have lived in Utah most of my life and I had never heard or Marysvale or been anywhere around the area. It was so cool to find new and beautiful places right in my own state. We rode on the Paiute Trail, visited Fremont Indian State Park, saw old mining settlements, and the most beautiful scenery. We had picnic lunches on the trails and went on small hikes. We listened to a lot of music and talked to each other over our intercom system headphones. We also enjoyed the company of 3 other couples who we have been friends with for a long time. It was a lot of fun!

I love to share a variety of tools to make photos special. I’m always looking for new apps and sites that give me great options to make my pictures unique and exciting. I was excited to find Colorcinch (cartoonize.net) and I love that you can access it through a browser (on any computer or smart device). They offer lots of options for free accounts and you can upgrade to an inexpensive monthly or annual plan if you want even more features.

Here are some of the cool things you can do with this site:

I’ve written about this before, but there really is just one trick that has helped me improve my photography the most, and that is daily practice. I’ve noticed that the time periods in my life where my photos look the best coincides with when I was actually taking pictures each and every day.

While the world stays home, this might seem like a tough time to practice your photography skills. So many photo projects involve traveling, beautiful scenery, or portraits of people. There are so many things to photograph all around us though and this is a great time to get creative with your camera or phone.

I have an ongoing struggle with getting myself in our photos. I keep resolving to improve in this area and I will most likely need to remind myself again. Thankfully, Ali Edwards posted a fun little challenge this week and I plan to try my best to follow along.

I recently purchased the iPhone 11 pro and I’ve been so happy with it. I usually will update my phone every other year and pass the old one on to one of my children. They are definitely the beneficiaries in my trickle-down-phone-economics plan! Then I usually trade in their old phone for Apple credit. I don’t need to upgrade as often as I do, but I like to use the excuse of needing to stay up to date on the latest photography technology for this blog. Sounds reasonable, don’t you think?

It just hit me last night that I better start planning a family photo session sometime soon. We always send out a photo card for our holiday greetings. This is something that my husband has always felt strongly about and I have to say I’m grateful to him for making me get myself in a family photo each year. There have been several times I tried to convince him that we could just use a picture of the kids and he wouldn’t have it. He is absolutely right on this and now it’s time again to try and get over my excuses and make this happen.

There are several events and venues that don’t allow photography. You can’t snap photos during performances like plays and symphonies. You also are not allowed to take pictures during a movie. If you love to document these events, you might want to use one of my favorite tricks. Just hold up a program or ticket for the performance and take a picture of it before it begins.

Whenever I run into a great online resource, I always get excited to share it with my readers here. I was checking out the Shutterfly site recently and I found this wonderful page of photo ideas.