Before and After...My Ballerina

If you haven't met Monica at Pixel Perfect...I think you should. She has this fun little Before and After blog hop. If you like photography..you'll love Pixel Perfect.

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The sweetest little girl in my life has been visiting a small dance studio on a weekly basis.
She can't wait to flit and float and fleetly flee and fly.
She is a natural.
Gazelle like.
This beautiful creature that emerges is completely opposite of the little "pirate/ninja" character which visits our home frequently.


Recently, while playing with her Gran, S-girl played the pirate and Gran was the princess.


Gran presented an idea to the little sword wielding pirate.


"Why don't you be the princess for awhile? In fact, we can both be princesses."


Adamantly, S-girl declined the offer.


"No way, princesses don't know how to fight with swords. Arghh."


Gran seized the opportunity to introduce her little pirate of a grand-daughter to Joan of Arc. Only then did S-girl warm to the idea of "playing" a girl. 


Have I mentioned she's "in like Flynn" with her brothers?
They truly are "thick as thieves"!


So, to see her gracefully float across the wooden floor, admiring herself ever so often in the mirror, warms and swells this mama's heart.
And despite the occasional Kung Fu like kick and karate chop through the air, her moves are smooth like butter.


Dare I believe a tiny ballerina is emerging?


Here is the photo before the bells and whistles were applied.



Here is the after...belled and whistled.
Ah, first position...the beauty of it.


Now..jate` on over to Pixel Perfect for more photo browsing fun.

I also wanted to mention that the Greensheen Blogger is holding a little photography competition for the month of June.  I told her I'd gladly pass along the info.  Go check it out. 


**I have been "grunging up" my pictures as of late. I desaturated the color with the levels using a levels adjustment layer and the hue/saturation adjustment layer..until it's just right.  I always add a high pass filter...with the grunge look...it needs to be sharpened  A LOT.  I bump the contrast way up by adding a "brightness/contrast" adjustment layer.  Finally I added a layer from Shadow House Creations called Aged Wood and set it to lighten...which helps brighten some of the darkness that the high contrast caused. Then I added a vignette and an edge burn.

This was edited in Photoshop Elements.