My kids and I have been getting out more to the local park preserves to explore. My youngest child is finally old enough to be able to walk long distances and to actually listen to me when I tell him not to run off! Fantastic!! Recently, Mt. Diablo State Park in the San Francisco East Bay, CA, has been our stomping grounds.

I’ve been using these opportunities to push my photographic style a bit. Instead of focusing so much on absolute sharpness and color accuracy, I’ve been trying to capture and highlight more sentiment in my images. Letting go of perfectionism regarding sharpness can be really hard, because that was often the ultimate goal when I started off learning photography. The pursuit of “tack sharp” pictures, as they say, has become so ingrained in my photographic eye that it can make me skip over more moving, authentic images that would’ve otherwise have been incredible.

The same idea applies to color post-processing. Instead of trying to clinically match image colors to real-life colors, I’ve depicted them as awash in the autumn sun. Happy, carefree days are warm and sun-drenched. Changing the colors selectively gives the images a bit of a feeling of the simpler, older days past.

Enough writing. On to the pictures!

Who knew it could be so fun picking up small rocks, climbing big rocks, and kicking pine cones around?

The constant motion of kids can be challenging. Kids might look good sitting still and posing, but they look great running and behaving naturally.

This may be just a picture of my son’s little butt, but it’s still awesome. He’s trying his best to clamber up a steep rock, and the side-lighting is incredible.

Exploring until the sun goes down makes lasting memories.