Sweethearts on the Hill

I had a rather sad showing in week 4 of my Project 52. Such a shame too because this particular topic happens to be the whole reason I originally fell in love with photography.  Bokeh ~ The gorgeous blur that becomes of the non-focused part of your photograph, particular when you have a shallow depth of field.  I took a lot of pictures this week, but never really got that million dollar, bubbly shot that makes my heart skip a beat. So this is the picture I used for my project While also throwing these in there from months gone by… I guess that's probably called cheating... and defeats the whole purpose of participating in a project focused on improving my skills when I use old pictures ~ but whatever! I'm a busy girl. I've got kids to feed.  Next weeks topic is Best Friends… hmmm ~

Funny thing. After having several camera chats with my neighbor, Kristy, we decided to meet up and have a little Photography 101 session… with me as the teacher  (that's the funny part!) and her as the student. It's comical that it was really only last March that I began comprehending any of the basic settings used in photography and now I'm out playing teacher … as if I'm actually qualified for that. Oh the things I've yet to learn. Anyway.  We had a spectacular time. A really spectacular time. I'm convinced that I got even more out of it than she did. Our kids love playing with each other - we had them with us since they make such fabulous little subjects. We were also joined by Kristy's husband, Mark, who makes for a fabulous little entertainer!  Here are a few of my favorites from the day…  Kristy took these first four pictures - she rocked it out with the 50mm  f/1.4 lens! I think she was pretty excited about it.   (LoVe this picture she...

It seems that our bath tub days are dwindling down, as we now lean toward the ease of showering our little fellas.  Well, Sam and Charlie wanted to take a bath this past weekend, so I decided to get a few shots of their sweet smelling clean little faces while they were in the tub.    Since they can't run from me while they are in the bathtub, it made for a much easier capture! Here we are with our gum issues on display :-/` This thing below is complete silliness…  Charlie told Santa that he wanted a "squirting fish" for Christmas (?? what ??) So Santa brought a tube of 10 different squirting aquatic creatures… It's been a while since Santa shopped in the infant aisle for Charlie's Christmas presents. Low and behold, they've been a big hit! Go figure ~ Woe is me ~ My babies are growing up :(

Meet Charlie Charlie couldn't be more excited about his new best friend that moved in the house next door about 6 months ago (granted, this picture doesn't necessarily reflect Charlie's excitement… I just kinda loved the picture, so I thought I'd share). Meet Yuke  Most people know him as Luke… But this is Charlie's tale, so we will call him Yuke.   Yuke is the greatest kind of friend…  He loves to roll dump trucks down giant hills.  He loves to play cars.  He loves to go on adventures up in the woods. He loves to battle with me against our older brothers. Yuke is that special kind of friend who makes my day happier just by being around.    He even gets grumpy when he misses his nap… just yike me! Me and Yuke really see eye-to-eye. I hope we are friends for a yong yong time!

Last weekend we made some long overdue plans to meet up with our friends, The Avery's. Amy and Howie and their sweet girls, Emma Caroline and Sophie lived next door to us for a couple years. Sam and Charlie have always adored the girls and the four of them play exceptionally well together. This time, we decided to take our adventures to the bowling alley, which turned out to be a great afternoon of fun! Unfortunately, the bowling alley presents some tricky photography challenges ~ but we both did our best to capture a few moments.   Amy made this same comment on her blog… but I can't let it pass by, we swear Charlie and Sophie are long lost twins. Something about those little faces (and personalities too) that fit together so perfectly.   To add to the photo challenges, they turned the lights off and went to neon ~   Charlie had this awesome shot-put style bowling swing that we're considering trademarking. Rarely did he use the bumpers. I think he may have even ...

I've recently joined an online mommy photography group and am currently participating in a Project 52. I've never participated in a Project 52, or 365, but I assume they are all pretty similar. Each week we are given a new topic to photograph and everyone shares their art throughout the week, with the goal of growing with each other. Lucky for me, this week's topic is Food…  Well sort of lucky for me. I do love food.  Down to my core, I love it.  I feel passion for it.  I dream about it.  I plan my days around it.  I create friendships over it.  I vacation around it.  I reward myself with it.  The only thing about food that I've never really embraced is… well… preparing it. It's just not my thing! So, though I am mesmerized by beautiful food photography ~ I haven't spent much time doing it because I rarely have beautiful platters of food in my kitchen. I spent a lot of time this week trying to figure out what I could possibly di...

So, there is a really good chance that I have a "lifestyle" fashion shoot coming up for a clothing retailer soon (holy cow! I know!) … and I'm just a teensy bit nervous about the whole thing. I know exactly the look I want to achieve with the photos… I'm just having a hard time believing that I can actually make that happen. But, apparently someone saw something in my pictures that made them  believe it could be done, so I'm just going to feed off that! To help ease some of the butterflies, I took my go-to fashion gal out for a practice photo shoot last week.    I was trying to focus on "lifestyle" shots as opposed to the portrait shots that I dearly love… but when you've got such a beautiful subject, it's hard to keep the camera from going after those close ups!   This below was a fun little shot… the green blur is actually from the leaves of a plant I buried myself behind. I like the hazy effect it gave the picture.   Again, ha...