1 picture above in a note! :) (To learn why the blue is different in each picture, see the next image!)

Every morning I water the tomato plants on our upstairs deck and when I go out there, I also bring Pumpkin in her cage so she can enjoy the sunshine and look at the scenery while she whistles, laughes, and munches on some breakfast. Also, one of her most important jobs is supervising Mom to make sure I do a good job! :) She's a real task master but I don't mind! :D

Two days ago I was out there and I saw a moth flutter away from the plant I was watering. I saw it fly again and land below the railing. Taking a closer look, I realized it was a pair of mating Silver-Spotted Skippers! I ran downstairs to get my camera and thankfully they were still there when I returned. When I bent down to begin taking pictures, I heard the twitter of a hummingbird, and the whiz of its wings. Peering up through the tomato plant I was under, I saw a darling hummingbird sitting primly on top of one of the sticks we use to tie up the tomato branches. Turning very slowly, I leaned around the tomato plant and managed to get several dozen pictures!! Unfortunately the sun is behind it, so I had to do a lot of work to correct the exposure, but I think that both of the pictures I chose to process turned out nice enough to share! :)

Incidentally, the reason I was able to correct this image so well is because I use the RAW image format when I take pictures. If your camera allows you to use RAW, do yourself the favor of using this format. Each file is much larger than a jpeg because the file stores all of the data of an image, not just a portion. Because of this, the quality of your images will be much better with more colors and details. If you'd like to know more about the benefits of using RAW image format, here's are a couple of links for you! :)

Wikipedia: Raw Image Format

Digital Photography School: RAW .vs JPEG