Happy Halloween!

Another Halloween has come and gone. This year was especially fun since it was our first Halloween in our new neighborhood! People go all out here with decorations. It's too bad that Trick or Treating was made harder with all the snow but the boys still had fun! Shaun & Evan headed home after about 1/2 hour or so and David and I finished walking the block. We had a blast and can't wait until next year. I'm holding out hope for a Harry Potter theme for next year!

The boys checking out the freak snow in October!


Yoda, Obi-Wan-Kenobi & Darth Vader


Our family Star Wars theme!


David checking out our neighbors witch statue!


Evan Trick or Treating!


Shaun getting ready to get some candy!

I Heart Faces / Let Them Be Little

This weeks challenge over at I Heart Faces is featuring the the little ones; the babies and Tiny Tots! I am submitting this image of my (not quite) 18 month old (all the way on the right) and his brothers, friend and cousins all trying to jump rope. Evan is ALWAYS trying to do things the big kids are. He refuses to accept that he's just a tiny tot! One part of me wants to scream "just stay little" but the other part enjoys watching him grow and explore new talents!

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If you're in need of a baby fix, head over to this weeks I Heart Faces thread, it will be impossible not to smile!

Fall: My Favorite Time of Year

I love fall, it's my favorite season. I love the colors, the smells, the activities, the comfort foods, the decorations, and most of all the cool crisp air of a beautiful sunny fall day! Last weekend and into Monday was about as perfect as it could be.

Of course no fall day would be complete without an impromptu photo shoot! Took me a lot of tries but I finally got my annual fall portrait of the boys! Now I can replace the summer portrait with a fall one!

Look how much they have grown in the last year!


And just so that I could be IN some pictures for a change, I was able to pass the camera over to Charlie and quickly grab this shot after Evan climb up on my back, while I was laying on the driveway photographing the older two racking leaves!



And no fall day would be complete without making a big pile of leaves to jump and play around in!




It's a big, big world!


 I love fall and I love my boys!

Week 2 Homework Assignment

Tuesday night was my last photography class. I am sad that it's over since I really enjoyed the night out talking about ways to take great images. I learned so much in the process and was happy to get some positive feedback from the teacher. Below are the images I submitted for the assignment. Part 1 of the assignment was to capture and stop motion.  I did this before during the first class using a pinwheel.  It's fun to play with shutter speeds.  In this class though, we learned how playing around with stopping and capturing motion can create some really creative images.

The first image I used was of the boys throwing leaves from the pile into the air.  The blurriness of the leaves gives the impression of movement.

I took this one of the Halloween decoration in the yard. Because of the windy day and the slow shutter speed, I was able to create a ghost like feel. As opposed to the next shot of the ghost where it's all in focus.  I think the first image is much more interesting to look at!

And now using a fast shutter speed, I am aiming to stop the motion, or capture it!  I love this one because you can see every pine needle in clear focus, it just looks cool!  Plus it doesn't hurt that they are obviously having a blast!

Here is another example of capturing motion.  Plus I also incorporated some viewpoint into this one that makes it a really fun image!

Depth of Field has probably been one of the trickiest concepts for me.  Especially trying to find the right balance of blur/sharpness.  This picture is finally me acing it!  This is my example of creating a shallow depth of field.  You can see the blurriness of the front and back but Shaun is completely in focus, creating a small area of focus or a shallow DOF.  Something that is worth mentioning is that the better the lens, the easier it is to get really great shallow DOF.

And my example of a deep DOF where everything from the foreground to the background is (for the most part!) relatively sharp!

This was the most fun I had doing the assignment, working on angles, perspective and viewpoint!  Thinking outside the box of the typical shots from 5 to 6 feet.  This image got a lot of compliments from my peers.  Everything down from the angle, the point of view, to the lighting right down to the look on Shaun's face.  I am really proud of this image!

I had a fantastic time in class and I am looking forward to taking a few more.  I made my wishlist and I think after Santa (hopefully) brings me a Speedlite for Christmas, I'll be signing up for the Studio Lighting class after the Holiday!

I Heart Faces / Tickled Pink

October is Breast Cancer awareness month and in honor of that, I Heart Faces is doing a PINK themed challenge!

The photo I chose to enter is a photo of my niece Savanah. Savanah is the lone pink in a family of all boys!! 8 cousins in total and she is the only girl! She is all about pink right down to her strawberry blonde hair! She loves her princesses and she loves pink!

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Check out all the other pink entries in this weeks Tickled Pink challenge!

Rules of Composition

Last week I started the Intermediate DSLR course.  It is three sessions designed around the creative part of photography.  In the first class we learned all about the rules of image composition.  The rules we discussed were:

Rule of Thirds
Balancing Elements
Leading Lines
Symmetry and Patterns
Viewpoint
Backgrounds
Create Depth
Framing
Cropping

Our homework assignment was to incorporate these themes into our images and email them for discussion.  I was really looking forward to getting some feedback on my attempts at these rules but my homework was eaten by the interwebs and never received by the teacher.  Here are the images I chose and the rule I was working on (all images are straight out of the camera or SOOC)

The first image was trying to use the rule of leading lines.  Leading lines in photography are lines that lead you through the photograph.  I feel like the eyes follow the slide making the slide a sort of leading line in this image.

This next image was using the rule of viewpoint.  I took this image from up on my parents deck looking down at the scene.

This was my attempt at balancing elements and symmetry since the design of the play set that Evan is in has symmetry in the blue posts and the round circle.  But after the class, it might be kind of a stretch.  In any case, I still like the image!

This is my Rule of Thirds image.  The idea of rule of thirds is that if you divide the photo into 9 equal parts the subject will fall within the lines.  Basically that you're not centering your subject right smack in the middle.  Generally it is not pleasing to the eye.  I also think you can use this image to show some depth too with the 3 levels of the sandbox, the rock and then my nephew Carter on top of the rock.

So that was my assignment and I had a lot of fun trying to incorporate these rules into my images.

I Heart Faces / Hands

The theme this week at I Heart Faces is hands. This is a picture I took of my friends son on his First Communion, hands in prayer. I am so glad she reminded me about this beautiful picture so that I could enter it this week! Thanks Sally!!

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Please go check out all the beautiful images of hands over at I Heart Faces!