A Photography Challenge anyway! Today's theme is "Moody Black and White" so I shot a couple things today just for this challenge. I have no idea if they are too dark or too bright... I'm not used to this laptop's calibration (or lack of). I was going to just post images I already had edited but couldn't resist!



I like a lot of noise on my B&W's, can you tell? =)

Here is the challenge if you are a Facebooker and want to get in on it: 7 Day Photo Frenzy

Just more things inspiring me so far this spring...










This one made me think of you, Jess! Lucky me?

Seems like we are seeing a lot of the same things! I saw some of your tiny purple flowers you were asking about recently and hope to shoot them tomorrow!

These are from my neighborhood. I'm enjoying some time away from home this week and am surrounded but fun new things to shoot so I hope to capture some this week!

{Mommy Moment}
Jeremiah decided he wanted to eat spinach when we were out to eat
(he wants to be like Popeye).
I found some fresh spinach at the salad bar and he was all excited to try it.
He took a little nibble and made a face then said calmly,
"I think you're wrong. It's not spinach... it's just leaves."
But I'm still proud he tried it!

Can you believe my littlest man is already 9 months?!?!?
This means he's been in my arms almost as long as he was in my belly.
Hmmm... I miss him in my belly... but I do love having him in my arms!


Joshua is BUSY. Crazy BUSY. Fun, but way too BUSY.

He loves to push his little cart around. Or the laundry basket or whatever else will move with him. He is growing great but his 9 month appt isn't until the middle of next month so I don't have his height/weight for you right now. He hasn't been keen on baby food but still loves to eat everything else. He has two bottom teeth and two on top - on of the middle ones and the one next to it! Weird. But the two opposite those are coming in now and #7 & #8 are showing themselves on either side of those four up front on the top! He's been working on these six top teeth for a while and the little ankle-biter is chewing up everything!!! He's a happy guy and nothing makes him happier than for you to lie on the floor and let him crawl all over you. His fave person is still Jeremiah. He loves everything about Jeremiah and I love it that way!

And now his monthly Tonka Truck pic...

Look how filthy his socks are! It's because We just cut the grass yesterday and I let him do this first thing in the morning:

Oh my goodness he had so much fun! I know you can't tell by the look on his face. lol He didn't even mind the wet grass when he slipped few times, he just got up and giggled away!


Love this face!


And this one too...


As long as someone was pushing, Jeremiah wanted a ride...


But Joshua was too excited to see Jeremiah in it to push, he just wanted to grab his big brother!


Oh, and remember me talking about that big blue tractor in my backyard?

I'll post some more about it another time but here it is looking very out of place!

Happy Nine Months, Buddy!

This week is much lighter... in case you are still digesting last week's post! This is something any camera user can do. You don't need a fancy SLR and all the cool lenses to get a better perspective. Sometimes it's just about moving around a little.

For example, this shot is typical of what you might get when you grab your camera to shoot your cute little kiddo:

You are standing there with the camera shooting down at them and you get them in the picture but that may be all you get from the image. Sometimes shooting from this perspective is perfect but most of the time (especially with shots like this) it is not the best. He is not likely going to face you for you to get the shot you want, he's busy inspecting this great big world. Besides, even if he did, he'd look like a BobbleHead on a tiny body. You know those pics, right?

Change your point of view. We know how things look in real life and sometimes don't think that people are at odd angles, we don't "see" it that way. We don't see big heads on little bodies because we know they don't look like that in real life. But our cameras capture things we don't necessarily see as our minds see. Learning this changes your view of things and then you can start seeing things differently in your viewfinder and start capturing things the way you want to capture them.

I suggest getting down and dirty. Well, at least down. And sometimes dirty. Don't be afraid to get down on the floor to get the shot. I felt funny doing that for a while but now I don't care that my neighbors think I'm nuts seeing me crawling around in the grass, stalking the kids. I get the shots I love and will have them rest of our lives. Besides, they already know we are strange. I mean really, we have a huge, blue New Holland Tractor in our yard this morning and we live in town. (More about that soon - the neighborhood kids are going to LOVE our house when they wake up and see this! haha!)

Back to topic...

Here I shot little man from a different perspective and its much more interesting to look at:

You get his face and his cute little baby way of sitting. The lines of the cabinets in the background are nice and neat and not at odd angles. And no BobbleHead!

I think this tells a better story. It tells the same as the first - who it is but now also how he looks sitting there, how little he is. By placing him more in the bottom of the image, he somehow seems smaller because well, he is. And I want to remember him just like that. Also, it's more interesting to look at an image when the subject is not dead center in the image. Sometimes it works, but it depends on the image and what message you are trying to convey. More on composition another time.

So your homework this week is to review last week's overly long/indepth post (lol) and to get a new perspective on things. You may feel silly doing it but when you get a good shot, you'll do it all the time because it's worth it. And all those people who you're afraid will think you are nuts? Well, they are going to think that anyway for a million other reasons so who cares! lol Enjoy yourself and capture life how you want to remember it!


------------> Any ideas/questions for future Fridays? Leave me a comment!<------------

Even if you are not a blogger, you can click to leave an anonymous comment and share some love and your name there so I know who you are and that you are stalking me... lol

Just some random things we saw on a recent walk to the park from the park itself and our neighbors' yards along the way. I have no idea what most of these are but enjoy anyway!







These reminded me of Jess's winter shots...






{Mommy Moment}

On the way to the park, Jeremiah said he was going to play Superheroes and we were going to save people at the park. He had my cell phone in the wagon with him and pretended someone called to tell him who was in trouble and where. When he hung up he told me the problem and I asked him who called. He said, "The Pope!" We're not even Catholic... how does he know about the Pope? lol

Digging through some old images and I found these of Jeremiah flexing his stuff...





He's hot stuff in these shades, isn't he? lol




{Mommy Moment}

Jeremiah calls all people "friends". As in instead of the word "human" he uses "friend". Ex: We are at the park and there are lots of people there. He says "Mommy! Look, there are lots of friends here already!" Or he goes somewhere and there are too many people for his liking, he'll say "Too many friends are here..." It's kind of sweet to hear but then it's funny when he introduces his parents and brother to others as his "friends". Does that mean he's saying we are his humans?!

I seriously get all giddy when Spring finally arrives. The Winter weather finds me depressed and longing for signs of life. And now... the time has come and I am not disappointed! It's so refreshing to see life blooming all around. I am so ready to be outside soaking up some much-needed sun!

One of my first signs of Spring's arrival are my neighbor's daffodils...



I'm so glad she planted these, I'm terrible with plants no matter how hard I try!

Another fave sign of Spring:
Sun shining on the chains...

Time to dust off the swing set and put it to months of good use!

{Mommy Moment}

Yes, it's looking like another summer ahead of us with Superman...


So far this year he's ditched the crocs and replaced them with his new love... the rubber boots.
He seriously wears these everywhere and even begs to wear them with his "dancing clothes" (suit).

Niiiiiiiiice.

And, of course, the infamous "jungle hat" that never leaves his head outdoors. He still insists that it is going to rain and he needs this hat to protect him. And you should be wearing one too.

We took the wagon to the park to enjoy the warm weather - finally! I love warm weather!

Jeremiah looking ever so spiffy...


These next two just crack me up. He looked so silly romping around the playground! The other kids seem to love it, though...




And Joshua enjoyed his first ride ever on a swing...


He just giggled and laughed his funny little laugh and he loved watching all the kids playing. And probably got more giggly watching Jeremiah in his lovely getup!


Then we took the wagon home and Jeremiah wanted to help. I love Joshua's face here...
"You're really going to trust this weirdo to drive me in the wagon?!?!"

Jeremiah's leg looks so funny, I guess he was turning around when I snapped that shot!

Most of the time Jeremiah rode in the wagon too with his new "Magic Stick"...

As you can see, they were getting very tired and ready to go home for a nap!

{Mommy Moment}

Joshua took two steps all by himself today! He took several singles but actually took two in a row. He was so proud of himself, it was so cute. He didn't want my help. He'd crawl over to a chair and pull up and then let go and try it on his own. Fun times ahead! This little stinker is already so busy, I can only imagine what the next few months have in store for us!

"What in the world do all these buttons do????"



There are a lot of buttons and dials, aren't there? Fun! I think it is super important to know what your camera can do so you will have all the power possible to create the images you desire. Grab your camera and have a seat... this is a lengthy post. I feel like I'm writing a book! But there are so many great books out there already that explain and know much more than I do so I'll refrain. But you can print all this out and take it with you when you practice. Because you are practicing, right??? Go get your camera, already! Hold it as you read and play as you read so you get the hands on learning thing going on. I'll wait for you. Go, lazy!



First off, it's good to understand how your camera works. At least to a certain degree. I'm going to be super basic for those of you who don't really care for the technicalities and just want to understand enough to work your camera.

When you click to take a picture, your shutter opens up and the light from the scene burns an image onto your film. In this digital world, it "burns" an image onto your sensor. The amount of light that hits the sensor will determine what shows up in your picture. So if you are taking a picture in a low-light situation, your camera will use a flash or your image will be blurry due to motion. Know what I'm talking about? Now we'll talk about why...

Shutter - This is the little "door" that opens and closes. Your film/sensor is in darkness just waiting for light to burn onto it and create an image. When the shutter opens, light is flooded in and burns your image. If your shutter is open for a long time, more light is flooded in and the brighter the image. Too long and the image is too bright. Too short and the image is too dark. In Auto mode, the camera chooses how long the shutter should stay open to get the best image. In Shutter Priority mode ("Tv" on Canon cameras), you choose the shutter speed and the camera balances out the other settings to get the best image. In Aperture Priority ("Av" on Canons), you choose the Aperture and the camera chooses the shutter speed to get the best images. In the middle of a bright sunny day, your shutter speed will be really fast because there is plenty of light and it doesn't take long to burn your image correctly. In low-light situations (ex: indoors), your shutter needs to stay open longer to gather enough light in to burn your image. However, the longer the shutter is open, the more time the subject has to move and hence a blurry image. Unless you use flash. More on that later...



Aperture - This is how big the opening of your shutter is. This also determines how much light gets in. The shutter is a funky shaped "door" (reminds me of those futuristic space movies) and the size of the opening can be altered by choosing an aperture. Here is an example:

Pretend your shutter starts wide open. You will need to close it a bit to get the correct exposure (properly lit image). Apertures are also referred to as F Numbers (F#). When choosing an aperture, you might say you are choosing a certain f# such as f/4. As you can see, a large aperture like f/16 is a really small opening. You are closing the opening that much. If you close the aperture just a little bit like f/2.8, you still have a fairly large opening. Obviously, the larger opening will let in more light with each click, right? Lenses that offer wide apertures, such as 2.8, are considered fast lenses because your shutter can click faster since more light is getting in with each click.

So why don't they just make the shutter wide open so you always get good light? The aperture also gives you a creative edge. Or so I look at it this way. This is one of my fave things to control. I like to control a lot of things. lol The aperture also controls how much is in focus. I wear contacts and without them, I cannot read the clock across the room at night. Someone once showed me a trick many years ago and it worked amazingly well even though I didn't understand it. I made an "OK" sign with my hand and made the opening really small so it was barely big enough to peek through. BARELY. Like really tiny. Somehow, when I looked through this, I was able to see the clock perfectly clearly. I still don't completely understand it but it works so just trust me! lol When the aperture is large (door closed a big amount), the opening gets smaller and more is in focus. So if you are shooting a landscape, you probably want a lot to be in focus so you would want a higher f# (smaller opening). When shooting people or certain objects, I like just a tiny bit to be in focus, so I prefer to choose a wider aperture (opening) and so I choose a smaller F# such as 2.8 or so. This gives you that wonderful background blur that is so yummy. =)

Clear as mud? Don't worry, it took me a while to grasp this completely and I just kept reading and re-reading and playing with my camera until it clicked. Sorry, no pun intended. Maybe. So remember:

Small opening = high f# = more in focus.

Wide opening = low f# = less in focus.

ISO - Remember the film speed back in the days when we used film? 100 speed was good for outdoors, 400 good for indoors... or so it said on the box. I just followed the box suggestions because I had no idea what it all meant back then! Basically, the ISO is one way to get light in your camera to your sensor. The higher the ISO, the more light comes in with each click of the shutter. I'm trying to think of the best way to describe how this is different from aperture or shutter speed... ??? I guess you can think of it as your film (sensor) is more susceptible to the light. Like maybe the higher the ISO, the more easily it absorbs the light. So on a bright sunny day where there is a lot of light, a low ISO will be sufficient. But in a dark situation, you will need a high ISO so light aborbs faster to the film (sensor) and then you can use a faster shutter speed. I'm sure this is not correct terminology or process but hoepfully you'll understand the concept! High ISO = more light let in. This will allow you to use a faster SS (Shutter speed) or a higher aperture (small opening, more in focus). The downside to a higher ISO is that the higher the ISO, the grainier the images start to get. Sometimes it is not so noticeable, other times it is really noticeable. Sometimes I don't notice, sometimes I like it, other times I hate it with a passion. lol I usually prefer nice, clear, sharp images. Oh, and just so you know, "grain" is "noise" and it's the speckly looking texture your image gets. Like old B&W film. Usually it's not a big deal if you're just printing pics up to scrapbook or 4x6 prints. But it's much more noticeable when you enlarge the print. However, typically, you want your ISO to be as low as you can keep it and still get a good image from your SS and Ap (shutter speed and aperture).

Are you catching the triangle? Shutter Speed, Aperture and ISO. They all allow light to come in to your sensor. However, they do them in different ways and that gives you some creative control. There is not just one combination of the three to give you a correct exposure (properly lit up image). It is a balancing act between the three. In Auto modes, you camera balances them for you and chooses what it thinks will be best for the image "it" sees. You may want something else and so you have the other modes to play with where you get to control the settings. Av and Tv allow you to control one component while the camera does the rest - but you still choose the ISO in these two creative modes. Manual (M) gives you complete control of it all: ISO, Ap and SS. So if it's bad, it's all your fault. No pressure. =)

Ok, have I thoroughly confused you all? Good. Now I feel normal! I was confused for a while but stubborn enough to hang in there and keep at it. And, I still take awful pictures. I just don't show you those! lol This was a very rough run through of these settings. I know I probably missed some stuff so if you have any questions or corrections - please let me know! It's a quick crash course. If you want to go deeper, tell me and I'll do that one week.

Here is your homework: Study the following images. I included the settings so you can compare them. After studying them and the differences between them, go shoot some stuff with your own camera and see how it all works. And don't worry if it's something pretty or your unwilling victims... er, I mean "kids"... I shot thousands of shots of my kids toys while I learned. Those subjects stand still and don't require M&M bribes. =)

In honor of the first day of spring, I went outside and shot some springy looking stuff! Then shot in my living room so you could see low light too. These are SOOC (Straight out of the camera) I did no editing, just resized to fit here on the ol' blog. So you get some not-so-exciting samples! Enjoy! lol

A. ISO 100, SS 1/5000, f/1.8 (See the nice blurry background? Yummy! It's that f/1.8 that made it so creamy. Notice that even the leaves pointing out towards me are not in focus, I focused on the bulb thingies and the slice of focus is really shallow.)


B. ISO 400, SS 1/8000, f/1.8 (changed the ISO, it added more light so I had to raise my SS to keep up... still too much light!)


C. ISO 100, SS 1/60, f/22 (Raised the f# which made the image darker so I had to slow down my SS to keep up. See how the higher f# made more in focus. I shot the exact same thing in each of these three images.)


D. ISO 100, SS 1/60, f/1.8 (He was nice and still so I wasn't too worried about such a slow SS and was able to get my f# down to 1.8 to add enough light for a good exposure. Bonus: the background junk is blurry and not distracting)


E. ISO 100, SS 1/10, F/3.2 (You can see that he got moving and a slow SS cause me to get a blurry image although it is properly exposed.)


F. ISO 400, SS 1/125, f/1.8 (Raised my ISO to allow more light so I could use a faster SS to freeze this quick little booger of a boy, can you tell he's ready for me to sell my camera? lol)


G. ISO 400, SS 1/125, f/1.8 (Another example of a nice blurry background due to the wide open aperture)


H. ISO 400, SS 1/13, f/8.0 (Rasied the f# to get more in focus and that made things dark so I had to lower my SS. Good thing it is not a moving subject!)


I. ISO 1600, SS 1/60, f/8.0 (Raised the ISO so I could get a faster SS and keep up with the high aperture. It's difficult to hand hold at SS slower than 1/60)


Hope this helped someone! See you next week!

(Amy, this one's for you!)

A sweet friend challenged to Break the Monotony of our lives in the month of March. (But here I was hoping to get more monotony after all the chaos around here!) Check out her blog for more details here: Daily Pleasures.

I decided to attept to break Jeremiah's eating monotony earlier this week. (Seriously, the kid would eat the same thing all day long for months if I let him!) I stole the idea for these "Alien Paypakes" (as Jeremiah calls them!) from Denny's. He was so excited about these we've had them a couple times since and now we are back to monotony. Just a new monotony? *SIGH*

Anyway... here are his Paypakes and bacon:


Breaking the monotony was yummy for me too. But I also added some fresh strawberries. YUM!


Joshua loves pancakes too. He loves them with his whole face:


Good times were had by all.
=)

{Mommy Moment}
Random conversation with Jeremiah one day...

Jeremiah: "Oooh, I'm so sick..."
Mommy: "What's wrong, baby?"
J: "I have a headache."
Mommy sees through this...
M: "Oh really? And just what will make your headache feel better?"
J: "Toys. Yes, toys will make me feel better."
I'm sure they will.
=)