I'm blessed with friends who let me make images of them. Two of my closest friends are getting married in June and are a joy to photograph. Here's one of the pages from the magazine-style album I'm creating for them. Credits: All images taken by Eden Hensley Silverstein for The Road to the Good Life.

Every once in awhile - photographers need to get in on the action. This past Friday I joined my friends in North Beach for dinner at Franchinos and for drinks and dancing to Livewire Cover Band at Maggie McGarry's . While I still had my camera with me (I tend not to leave the house without it), it left my hands and sat the night out. As the moment struck us, we grabbed the camera and took it out on the dance floor. Credits: Photos of me are courtesy of Steve Gonzales (aka Oznog). In the collage, I'm the one wearing the red top and blue jeans (one of the outfits from my recent excursion to Banana Republic).

Today I dropped my car off for servicing and planned to spend the morning at the mechanic. Luckily my plans didn't go as anticipated. The dealer lent me a car for the morning and I was able to take advantage of soft, diffused early morning light. My goal for the day with the overcast sky was to find color contrasts among details. I headed over to Elizabeth Gamble Gardens in Palo Alto - one of my go to spots to capture fall colors. While at the gardens, I saw that the Palo Alto Lawn Bowling Association was holding their last tournament of the season. Members and visitors were more than happy to explain the rules of the game and let me take their portraits. Every Saturday and Sunday, there are pickup games at 1:30pm. Show up and they'll match you with a team and teach you the rules. It's harder than it looks - the ball is weighted. Check out the galleries for photos: Fall Color Lawn Bowling Credits: All images taken by Eden Hensley Silverstein for The Road to the Good Life.

For the holiday season, I wanted backdrops that had texture and contrast to add to the rich blues, muted purples, and neutral gray - in linens, chiffons, and muslins - that I already had. Timing was perfect - Jo-Ann Fabrics has an amazing Veteran's Day sale on lame, shantung, and satin. After almost an hour of deliberation - pulling fabrics and analyzing textures, colors, and tones, I selected reds, golds, pastel pink, and blacks. Here are some of the fabrics I selected. I'm looking forward to reworking my stages - backdrops and props - this weekend and hope you like the results. Credits: All images taken by Eden Hensley Silverstein for The Road to the Good Life.

My Street and Photography class had an assignment of shooting a still photo utilizing variable focal lengths of a zoom lens at a slow shutter speed. When I got home it had stopped raining and I noticed all these red, orange, and yellow maple leaves lining the walk. I picked up a handful to shoot. While arranging the photos, Sprite stepped into the shot. I decided to practice zooming with Sprite. (I'm going to be trying some creative zoom shots at the Jake Morgan Band's performance at the Rockit Room in SF this Saturday.) The photo above is my favorite shot from a 45 minute session. It was taken late evening indoors with my camera on a tripod. The sole source of light was 1-60W floor lamp to the left and above 3 feet. I selected ISO 800 as I wanted to freeze Sprite (she's an indoor cat and was very excited about the smells on the leaves) and create a radial blur. I manually focused on Sprite's eye using my EF24-70mm f2.8L USM lens, starting at 35mm and slowly zooming out...