A Few Favorites

Since I haven't had time to update the ole' blog a whole lot the past couple months I have decided to just pick a few of my favorites that span what I have been doing lately. so here goes:

In the beginning of December I rented two lenses, a 100mm macro and a 11mm-16mm ultra wide angle lens, to get a feel for what I wanted to buy next. I ended up loving both of them, and buying neither.

I used the UWA lens to take pictures of the famous Star Barn, here is my favorite of those shots:

And I took the Macro lens to Longwood Gardens:

This year something happened that had only happened two other times in history, a lunar eclipse occurred on the winter solstice. So obviously I had to drag Garry out in the middle of the night and take pictures until 3am in the freezing cold. Here are the two composites that I am going to frame and hang b/c I was so happy with them.

Two of my very good friends had a baby in November and I asked them if they would allow me to take some newborn shots of the little guy. They were very nice and agreed. Turns out I am not the greatest at newborn photography. But I did luck into a few goods shots. This is my favorite:


In October a friend of mine from high school asked me to take some photos of her brand new engagement ring. I was more than happy to oblige:




And I took one of her puppy Jinx too. This guy was so excited I am frankly amazed I got this shot.

Christmas Photos

I haven't been posting too much on here because life keeps getting in the way of my hobbies. Don't you hate it when that happens? But I have been doing as much shootng as I possibly can. Over the next couple days I will update with some of the things I have been up to lately. But for now I just want to love on my Christmas photos.

I adore Christmas. Even more than the actual holiday, I love having my family all around and together. So here are some of the photos I have edited from Christmas Eve. I haven't even started on the ones from Christmas day yet, but I can gaurentee they are coming.

I am still obsessed with the warm b&w conversions, and I feel like I have been getting them down pretty well. I decided to do all of the Christmas photos in b&w because my various settings were just all over the place trying to capture the moment. b&w just seemed like the easiest way to get them to look uniform. So here is my Christmas Eve 2010:

Pops and Kolby are not amused with my constant snapping of pictures

Big Sis Jess and her boyfriend Joe discussing something of great importance with someone

Kolby wants desperately to be let into the adult room with all the breakables and the big tree

Who me? I'm not trying to escape

Mom giving Kolby some Nana love

Joe giving Kolby a flying lesson

That is all for now. I promise more posts from now on.

Random Monday

I haven't been posting a whole lot of pictures lately because I have been really busy with my ever exciting health sagas. But that is a story for another blog, we are here for pictures!

I am really happy with how I have been improving both on the picture taking front and on the editing front. I feel like I have come a long way. I have no real aspirations to be a pro photographer, but it is nice to know this hobby isn't going to waste. If nothing else we are going to have very well photographed memories for my whole family. So here are some completely random pictures from the past couple weeks:

My sister's dog Cody relaxing on the sofa


Conner and Kayla checking out one of the horses. I love the sun-flare I got on this one.


Conner finally giving me a decent smile and sitting still for more than five seconds!


Noah on his skateboard


Meg and Conner looking very cute


And one just because I need to get Aidan some more air time.


Some flowers from my local garden center




And a bridge near my parents' house

Babies!!!

So obviously I have kinda abandoned the weekly lessons for now. I still refer to them when I am stuck on how to do something, but for the most part I am just playing with settings and seeing what works.

This week was a week full of babies. I had a baby shower I was getting ready for and I got to babysit my sweet little nephew on Thursday. So baby shower and baby nephew equals lots of photo opportunities! Here are a few of my favorites from the week.

First two edits I am pretty proud of. I took Kolby on a little walk to the horse farm by my parents' house and caught these two shots of him and one of the horses. The problem was I was really nervous about the horse mistaking his little figures for baby carrots, so I would step back and grab a pic really fast, then run back to the baby. As a result my settings weren't the best. Kolby is completely over-exposed. So what do we do with over-exposed pictures? Convert them to black & white!





This may be my favorite shot of any shot I have ever taken so far. Kolby was taking a nap so I used the opportunity to play with my extension tubes. That kid has amazing eye lashes, as you can see.


And a baby foot for good measure.


Here is a shot of the cupcakes I made for the baby shower. I even sculpted the little rubber duckies out of fondant. I was very proud of how they turned out. And the picture ain't bad either.


And some more horse shots:

Lots O' Pictures

I haven't posted a whole lot lately, so I apologize for that. But I have been having a lot of fun with the camera and a couple new trinkets I got for it. So here are loads of pics I took in the past two weeks.

First lots of baby love. Kolby is turning out to be my best model, he is cute and doesn't know to cover his face when I pull out my camera yet, unlike my other nephews and niece.






I got some extension tubes for my camera which let me take some macro shots, and I am having a lot of fun with them. Here are some close ups of flowers and our wedding rings I took this week.




I really like this one of Aidan and the edit I did on it.


That is all for this week, hope you like them!

The Speed of Shutter

In week two of the 2 Peas 12 Weeks to Better Photos coarse the lesson revolves around ISO and Shutter Speed.

ISO refers to the film speed, how fast the sensor will capture your image. The ISO you choose with depend a lot on what the light is like where you are shooting. Bright sunny day out? ISO 100 will do. Overcast? 200-400 might be better. Indoors you'll most likely need betweeon 800-1600 depending on hor much light you have availible.

Shutter Speed is how long the camera shutter remains open to expose your sensor. It is measured in fractions of seconds (I know I hate fractions too). The slowest you can usually go without a tri-pod is 1/60 of a second and you can go all the way up to 1/1000 of a second. The length of time your shutter is open determines how much of the action in your shot is blurred or frozem. To go more in-depth with wither ISO or Shutter Speed and how they work check out the link to the 2 peas lesson.

Ok so for this lesson they do what is called the kitchen sink test. You are supposed to take pics of the water running from your faucet in your kitchen sink at different shutter speeds. However, my kitchen is directly under three HUGE pine trees in my back yard, so it never gets enough light. Instead I did mine in the laundry room where there is more nautral light, but still not a ton (which ends up being a problem). So let's call this the washing machine test.



For this picture I had my Shutter Speed set to 1/80th of a second. As you can see the water is completely blurred. Slower Shutter Speed = blurred action.


For the second one I had the Shutter Speed set at 1/800th of a second. The fall of the water has been frozen, you can see the ripples and a few droplets. Higher Shutter Speed = action is frozen. You'll also notice the exposure in this one is also a lot darker than in the first. I couldn't take the shutter speed up any further than 1/800 or I would have had a VERY underexposed pic. Also, because of my lighting issues I had to set my ISO very to 1600, this makes the picture very grainy. That is the price you pay for higher ISOs.




Annnnnd my favorite pics of the week:

This is Watson's "I will tolerate you silly humans and that idiot of a beast you call a dog" face. (I was also having fun in photoshop)


A Sweet moment between Meg and Kolby


Speaking of sweet some Red Velvet Cupcake goodness


And the goof ball himself telling me to quit it with the camera already.