Photos: Unedited

My new thing: bare-bones photography.  I've been challenging myself to take photos and use only the settings on the camera to alter the effects.  If the picture doesn't turn out, it doesn't turn out -- no Photoshop allowed.   In some ways, it's refreshing.  In others, frustrating.  But I think making a few arbitrary rules like this will help me to become a better photographer now, when I have the time to mess around endlessly.  A few selections below -- perhaps editing could make these better, but here they are, as is:

Most of these were taken not from our house, but from the home of a family friend, where we spent yesterday evening at a fourth-of-July picnic.  The one at the very top was taken from our moving car; I desperately wanted to stop and take more photos of these beautiful, startlingly yellow fields, but impatient kids who have probably spent far too much time in the car recently made that somewhat impossible.  Maybe I'll be able to sneak away and take a few more photos at this spot some other day....