Today’s photo was from last weekend at our homeschool group’s mother/son outing. For years we’ve taken an overnight camping trip (cabins, not tents) at a 4H campground in the mountains of north Georgia. The setting is beautiful, a wonderful place to bond with my boys and the other moms, too. Four boys, including my 17-year-old son (on the right) graduate this year; they served as captains for the four teams that competed in an assortment of events on this trip.

After performing for the moms, my son and one of his best friends continued to play guitar. They’re slightly obsessed right now—at least my son is.

I wanted the image to feel timeless, to capture a moment that defines this period of my son’s life: to give him something to look back on and remember what it feels like to be young, hanging out with his mom and his friends in the mountains, strumming his guitar with his buddy.

Those of you who lug around your camera even when it’s heavy, uncomfortable, inconvenient: you have the power to bestow priceless gifts to those your camera captures. 

The Edits:

1. Crop it.
2. Increase exposure to lighten.
3. Move the Lightroom highlights slider to the left so that you can still see the cabin outside the window (I wanted it to be visible instead of overexposed).
4. Converted to black and white.
5. Push the exposure slider to the right and the black slider to the left to lighten the photo and the whites, but keep the dark areas dark. (Sliders work differently in Lightroom 4 compared to earlier versions of the software.)
6. Add a medium vignette (darken the edges).
7. My ISO was set to 1000 and the photo was a little grainy, but I liked the effect and didn’t try to reduce the noise.

Find Day 1 and links to the whole series here. Be sure to subscribe for email updates either at the end of this post or over on the right above my picture to receive new posts in your inbox each day.

[Click here to read my other 31 Days series, 31 Days of Encouragement and 31 Days of Real Life.]