Assignment #3

Dave liked all of my photos this time, some more than others of course. He was really impressed with my shots and my "eye" on all of the assignments and told me to keep at it.

Yesterday was supposed to be the last class of my photography course. For some reason, though, the teacher left before class started (I saw him leave) and he didn't come back. My classmate and I stayed and waited for thirty minutes thinking maybe he forgot something and was going to return, but we eventually gave up on him. I called the Meridian Parks and Recreation dept. and asked them whether we are going to get a make-up class, but they didn't know that the class was missed so they will e-mail the teacher and get back to me. I imagine we will meet next week either Monday or Wednesday since we payed for a four week course.

Last week's assignment was to shoot black and white photos of anything we chose. I had no immediate ideas, but once I got my camera out it proved pretty easy to find stuff to photograph. Otis is an easy and willing subject to shoot, and he has such a charismatic face that he was my first guinea pig. I think these turned out really great! The contrast from all of his wrinkles shows up so good in black and white. Plus he just looks so sweet!

Dave really liked this one of Otis

I forgot to upload this the first time around

Next, I wanted to photograph something that was inanimate. I was looking for something with a lot of contrast and happened to look out the window to see if there was anything outside I could shoot, and figured that the snow on my picnic table would look good.

These chess pieces were something I actually shot for the second assignment, but they looked way too blah in color to take to class. I used the program paint.NET to get more contrast and turn the picture to b & w and I really like how it turned out.

He liked the composition of this one

And of course, I had to shoot some pictures of my kiddos. The one of Ayden was staged, I let him make bubbles in the sink and play with them and then took various pictures of him at different angles. The one of Anna was sheer luck! I happened to be in the right place at the right time, and I really love the result.

Dave really liked this one. He said that it could win a contest and that I should get a 20 x 30 poster of it

This last picture is one from last week that my friend Kelly downloaded onto her computer and played with using Picasa and Photoshop. I love, love, love how it turned out! Definitely better than the original.

He liked what you did with this Kelly

Oh, and please feel free to leave comments about my pictures. I love getting feedback!

A little behind

Ok, I know I haven't posted anything in a week, but in my defense, I have been sick. So here is a bunch of random stuff all crammed into one I-gotta-get-all-caught-up-in-one-post post (these are not in any particular order).

Some more of Ayden's photography

A couple of great pictures of Ayden and me

if only I had showered that day . . .

The latest good photo of Ayden that I have taken

My Anna, sitting like a big girl, eating snacks with brother

Anna playing on the slide at the indoor park

I couldn't get this video to download onto my blog, so I have put the link to it on You Tube. Definitely check it out, Anna is being pretty cute.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2NmcF9M-sk

Assignment #2

So have I kept you in enough suspense about the photos I took for my assignment this week? Alright, I'll show you. We had to take a picture of a common household item. There are sooo many possibilities and I had such fun shooting this assignment.

The first idea I had was to shoot one of my houseplants. I took lots of pictures of it from different angles, in different locations, and in different light. These are two of my favorite and the two that I took to my class. I especially love the second one.

I looked online for ideas and saw a photo of a clock and realized I had the perfect clock to take a picture of. I'm not thrilled with how dark these turned out, but I liked them enough to take them to class anyway. I was tempted to fiddle with the brightness of the pics on my computer, but figured that was cheating so I didn't do it.

Dave, my teacher, really really liked the photos of the plant, but said that the ones of the clock "didn't do anything for him". I thought they were pretty cool, especially the second one. Like Dave said himself at the very first class, everyone likes different photos and photo styles, so take his opinion as just that.

Our assignment for next week is to take a black and white photo. I don't have any ideas for this one yet, but I'm sure once I get started taking pictures I'll get some inspiration.

Assignment #1

I am taking a photography class offered by the city of Meridian. It is one night a week for four weeks. I had my second class tonight and so far I am loving it and wish it would last longer than only four classes. There is only one other person in the class besides me so it is really layed back and comfortable.

At the end of each class our teacher gives us an assignment to do. Last week our assignment was to take a holiday picture. I was super excited to tackle my homework and I had a couple of ideas rollin' around in my head before I even left class.

On the drive home, when I got into our neighborhood, I looked for houses that still had their Christmas lights up. Most of our closest neighbors had already taken theirs down, but I did find one just down the street that had a great big tree out front that was decorated with colored lights. So I stopped the van right in front of it and started experimenting. It was really dark outside, so I couldn't get a normal picture of the tree and lights (at least not with my limited knowledge), but we had just learned about a really cool shutter speed setting called bulb. In the bulb setting, the shutter opens when you push the button to take the picture and doesn't close until you push the button again. So I started playing with this setting that I had just learned about and realized that by juggling the camera with the shutter open it made the Christmas lights make really cool patterns. Of course I took a bunch of different pictures using this new trick, and got a couple that I thought were cool enough to take to class to show.

After I got home from taking these pictures and downloaded them on the computer, I called Eric in to look at them. I thought they turned out great and I was stoked about all the new knowledge I had gotten from my first class and I wanted to show Eric the cool, new thing I could do with my camera. He was not very impressed with my photos, however. I was a little discouraged and even had second thoughts about taking them to class. I'm glad I did, though, because the teacher loved them! It felt great to be able to come home tonight and tell Eric neener, neener, neener. :oP

The other idea I had for a picture was to put Anna in her Valentine lovebirds shirt and take a picture of her playing with a Valentine's Day balloon. Of course this was easier said than done. Whenever I get down on the ground to take her picture she automatically crawls towards me, so I have to keep running away from her. She chased me all over the playroom before I finally got these pictures.

My teacher also really liked these, especially the one where Anna has her mouth open. I think I like the one with her looking at the balloon and smiling better just because I rarely get photos of her smiling and this one is especially sweet.

Overall, the teacher was really impressed with my photos. He said I have a good "eye". This week's assignment is to take a photo of a common household item. But, you'll just have to wait until next week to see what I come up with.

"If you're not careful, your face will freeze like that!"

Someday, his wife will treasure this picture

Playing around

While brother was taking a nap, Anna was enjoying having the playroom all to herself!

peekaboo!

More pictures

I got a new camera!

My Christmas gift this year was a new Canon Rebel Xsi (a digital SLR camera). It is amazing! Now if I just knew how to use it. :o) I signed up for a local photography class that meets one night a week for four weeks starting this Wednesday. I'm hoping to get a good understanding of shutter speed, f-stops, ISO, and all the other photog mumbo-jumbo that I slept through when I took photography in high school.

Here are a few of the pictures I have taken with my new camera:

A belated Christmas update

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. It was a very busy one, too. We opened gifts with Eric's family, my family, my grandma, and then at our house Christmas morning. Ayden was thrilled with all the gift getting. He is at the age where it's not only about the unwrapping anymore. At my mom's on Christmas Eve, he only wanted to play with the very first gift he unwrapped - a power drill - we had to force him to open all his other presents. Anna was very uninterested in the whole thing, however, and I ended up opening up most of her gifts on my own.

Ayden is trying to open one of his gifts using his power drill

Anna got her very own babydoll

Ayden playing with his new car rug

A new fun thing to pull up on, and it plays tons of music!

The kids playing with Anna's new baby doll stroller

Anna is 10 months old!

Only two more months to go until the big ONE, can you believe it?

Our mall Santa adventure

I don't know why, but I felt the need to take the kids to the Boise mall to get their picture taken with Santa. I should have done this weeks ago, but it didn't occur to me that the longer I waited, the worse it would be. I enlisted the help of my sister, Saro, who is visiting from New York City.

We waited in line for ever and when we finally reached Santa, Ayden refused to even get near him (no surprise there). Anna was tired and not greatly impressed by the Man in Red and started fussing as soon as she was sat on his lap. Because I was not purchasing a picture taken there and was using my own camera, I was only allowed to take two pictures. I tried to get Anna to smile, but she wasn't having any of it!

To top it all off, when we left the mall around 5ish everyone else was leaving, too. It probably took us close to an hour just to get out of the parking lot!

Next year, I'm going to take the kids to see Santa good and early!

Anna watching the snow storm

in her hand is her favorite toy, baby Jesus

taking time out from watching the snow to be a little naughty

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

The view out our front door today