Dogwood Tree

A few weeks ago, when my family was driving somewhere together, I spotted this tree and fell in love!  I'm very fond of dogwoods, and especially pink and white dogwoods!  I've been scouting around for a suitable tree that I could photograph for a local Arbor Day Photo Contest, and I knew I had found the perfect candidate (doubly suitable because the dogwood is our state tree!).  On our way home, my family was kind enough to stop in a crossover and let me run back along the median strip until I found a good vantage point to take my picture (thankfully I had my camera with me!). 

I downloaded a free trial of Lightroom 4 and set about to edit the picture.  It has been a very humbling experience.  My eye didn't catch some major color issues (like the overall tint of the picture) until I accidentally fixed them by playing around with the adjustment sliders.

Original Photograph:

Edited Version:

The contest closes at 4:30 tomorrow, so I think I'm done editing and tweaking.  I have so many projects in my queue that I'd best move on at this point.  I have pictures of cute babies to edit from the Walk for Life yesterday (and hundreds of pictures from the grand opening of a local branch of the Museum of the Confederacy from a few weeks ago...and hundreds of pictures from my pastor's birthday part from a few weeks before that...). 

Oh, and I've started a second part-time job working at a church-based day care center.  I worked there three half-days last week, and have no idea if or when they might call me this week.  Add to that several hemming and altering jobs I just acquired from the president of a local college and his wife, and I have a pretty busy week ahead of me!