- A short history lesson -

During World War II, Philadelphia was a major center for fuel and weapons manufacturing. By going up the Delaware Bay, the Axis powers could have taken the city with it’s valuable commodities. The United States, in anticipation of such an attack, built 11 watchtowers, an equal distance apart, in order to spot and fire on any enemy ships in the Bay.
The towers were never needed, as an attack up the Bay was never enacted by the Axis powers.
Now they stand along the shore as monuments to an era past. Empty, ghost towers, still watching for enemy ships.

During my vacation I had the chance to climb up one that has been turned into an observation tower. The view was breathtaking. More pictures to come.

 

Firstly, I’d like to apologize for the image-heavy post. It was extremely difficult to decide which photos would go on the blog, since I have about thirty gorgeous ones from this morning.
As you may have guessed, I’m on vacation. I think this is one of the first times since I graduated that I’ve been able to really relax and take some much-needed time off. (The sermon on Sunday was about the importance of really resting. Thank you, God, for driving that point home.)
After doing nothingĀ except reading/eating/pool swimming yesterday, my aunt and I decided to watch the sunrise this morning. If you haven’t already guessed from the pictures, it was beautiful. As I said via my Facebook, sunrise on the beach is the only reason I’ll wake up at 5am on vacation. It’s true, my interweb friends.

(A few notes, my mom is having a blog party/giveaway this week, and I’ve contributed something lovely to the giveaway. click here. Three-ish, probably more like four weeks till college, which means that until I get settled in, I may not be producing that much work around here. No worries, I’ll hopefully be scheduling a couple of posts for that time period.)

 

Sunrise at the beach.

 

There’s something beautiful about going outside to pick something for your meal. The potency of fresh ingredients, and the action of picking it yourself – mothering over the dish through it’s different stages – makes eating it that much more rewarding.

 

A few friends have asked me about my editing process, and I thought I’d put up a before and after on the blog. The original is a great picture, but could use a few touch-ups. You’ll notice that there’s not much visible difference between the before and after, but the image is clearer, with more contrast. The original was overexposed (I was shooting 1/4000 shutter speed because of the brightness), so after decreasing the exposure in Lightroom, I added some contrast to certain points of the image. I used the adjustment brush on the background, and for some small facial touch-ups. (Love Lightroom, but never used the adjustment brush? Try it – it makes LR a far more powerful photo editor.)

So, there ya go! Image is of me and my mom, and shot by Neighgirl (on my camera).

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