Sal Goes Bowling

Tonight Sal and I met my sister at Fairview Lanes and went bowling!  The occasion was the Bowl-A-Thon fundraiser for Seeds of Literacy -- a very worthy organization.  (Take a look at their website and send them a big check!)  We had some yummy food and a couple of beers and I attempted some shots of Sal in the ball return.

The ball return shots weren't so great, but check out this yummy pre-bowling food!  I'm having Labatt's and my sister is having Summer Shandy.  The Fritos are mine, all mine!  ;)

I wanted to get some photos of Sal by the bowling pins, but my sister told me that this would not be a good idea, as the floor is very slippery and I would fall down.  (She put it more colorfully.)  There was also the possibility that the proprietors of the bowling establishment would not appreciate me walking/falling/crawling down their shiny, polished lanes.  So I put Sal on the floor as far onto the lane as I could reach from behind the line and took some shots.  Since it was dark where we were and light along the lanes, the pictures didn't come out so great.  I've messed around with one of them on iPhoto, which is lots of fun.  Which one (if any) do you like best?

The original picture -- cropped but otherwise unchanged.

Same picture with reduced shadows.

With reduced shadows and color saturation (to make the blue pins stand out).

With reduced shadows and maximum color saturation (for fun).

There could be endless variations on this same photo, but I think that's enough to try the patience of anybody reading this post.  ;)

We ended our Bowl-A-Thon experience with one last shot of Sal posing on a rack of bowling balls.  What a fun evening we had!

Sal was precariously balanced, but did not fall.  Anne held onto her until I was ready to take the picture.  Poor Sal has had enough tumbles already!