What I've Been Up To...

I realize I haven't been around much, so wanted to share a little of what I've been up to. I enjoy participating in "study groups" with other photographers--reading books and experimenting with different settings on our cameras. It's a lot of fun, and it's nice to get out and just enjoy taking pictures for the sole purpose of filling up hard drive space. :) (well, that and learning new techniques, of course!)

Here are a couple recent ones. I will spare you the results of the "take an interesting photo of something in your bathroom" challenge. This particular project involved taking many photos of one object using several different lenses at different focal lengths. Bored with the swing itself, I put a kid in it here and there, and got a few cute ones...though I will again spare you--the ones of my older daughter she is picking her nose. I'll just save those to show to her future boyfriends. :)

At first it was fun...



...but she quickly tired of it:



I of course pretended not to notice and kept snapping away. My kids must love me by now!

For my next experiment, involving the control of a single light (thanks to my hubby for the use of his desk lamp), I chose a more agreeable subject:





Just wanted to let you all know that I am still out here having fun, even though I've been "absent" from my blog! Hang in there, tomorrow I will post some stuff from actual sessions! I know it's been awhile, so I have quite a few to share over the course of the next week...hang in there! :)

Raincoats

Just some snapshots of my kids tonight, from a recent assignment for my study group. They both wanted to wear their raincoats and boots. It was a fun evening hanging out with them in the yard, after such a long winter!







We still had some snow on the ground at the time (the stuff just wouldn't go away!), so they got into the spirit of "spring cleaning" and attempted to shovel it all off the lawn. :)




My little one giving her trike a tune-up, to get it ready for riding! :)


oof, JUST...tall...enough! See??


...and off we go!




...of course, outdoor play time is not complete until one of them has to sit in time-out on the porch! :) Such drama!

The Latest Photo Challenge

Thought I would share another one of my assignments from my photography group. We were supposed to create a scene with toy cars and explore space and scale. Having two little girls, there was only one toy car to be found at my house (courtesy of a box of Cheerios!), but I had this idea and my 21-month-old was only too willing to help me out with it. Didn't she do a great job?? I couldn't resist making a storyboard out of them:

Lighting Assignment

I'm participating in a study group right now, and this week's assignment was on lighting. Hubby took big sister to the store, and the little one was feeling left out, so I told her she could go outside. It was overcast that day, but the sun came out long enough for me to get what I needed for my assignment. Just thought I would share a few here since we had fun for the brief time we were out there. It was pretty chilly, but I took the opportunity to photograph her in some of her winter garb since we will (hopefully!) be putting it all away soon. :)

My semi-cooperative subject...she won't look at the camera--just stands there and says "cheese" in a tone of voice that says she is just putting up with me


All she wanted to do was stomp on the snow :)


It's all about the boots! I love these boots! Thought it was kind of neat that I got part of her face in this one though...



We went inside to warm up for a few minutes and switched coats...




Playing her favorite game, where she yells "HOP!" and then jumps across the sidewalk.


Brave girl, venturing onto the ice...


But she wasn't too happy when she fell down!

They wanna be like me!

On Sunday church was canceled again, so I decided to try out my new backdrop! Wanting something different from the usual solid colors, I followed some online instructions and made my own muslin. I used three different shades of paint and hand-blotted it in separate coats onto the fabric. It took me about three hours and I probably burned 500 calories...I love how it turned out!

I also used this opportunity to play some more with the off-camera speedlight, which I mounted to a tripod and bounced off the window behind me. My children were bribed by Daddy with candy, but due to time constraints and sugar limitations we were only able to get a handful of shots. My favorite:



Where is my older daughter, you might ask? Well, she is sitting next to me with HER toy camera, taking pictures of her sister. :) Aww, they want to be like me!

Here are a few others--not really great shots of the girls, but to show my new homemade muslin:


(For this one we bribed big sis--toy camera in hand--into the photo by promising a trip to Grandma's house as soon as she let Mommy get a photo of her with sissy)


Little sister good-naturedly posing for both Mommy AND big sister

My new trick!

Yesterday I remembered another reason I wanted the D200--I can use my speedlight off-camera! The way this works is you hold the flash in your hand or mount it on a tripod, and you set the flash and the camera so that when the shutter-release is pressed on the camera, the on-camera flash triggers the other one to fire! I can't wait to play with this some more...it will be so nice not to have the heavy flash mounted to the camera! Obviously I haven't come close to perfecting this technique...I skimmed the flash section of both manuals quickly, and tried it out in the five minutes before I had to be somewhere. Looking forward to working on it tomorrow--sounds like we're about to get snowed in...again!

These were all taken with the flash held in one hand and the camera in the other--the first one with it pointed at my daughter (who was sitting on hubby's shoulders), and the last two bouncing it off the wall behind me.



don't ask me why she is wearing this hat--she just went and got it and put it on herself. :)

First Session with the New Camera

Other than some snapshots around the house with my kids, I really haven't gotten to try out the new camera much this month. :( Between the bad weather and spring (hopefully) just around the corner, opportunities have been limited! I personally am holding out for that nice weather because I can't wait to go back to shooting outdoors! However, I did manage to round up a friend's kids just so I could try out my new seamless paper and backdrop (and camera/lens, of course!). Here are a few favorites:

Specular Highlights

I'm participating in a small study group online right now, and this week's experiment is with specular highlights and the effect aperture width has on the shape of light in a photo...the more wide-open the lens, the more round the lights. So if your lens is stopped down, the lights will take on a hexagonal appearance.

...I'm sure I've totally lost everyone by now, but anyway, here is one of the shots I took during this experiment (lens wide-open; note the rounded appearance of the lights):



It looks like she is awed by the lights, but really she was just starting to cough. :)

Garage Light

This photo was taken the beginning of September, when I was first learning to use my camera in "Manual" mode. I had heard so much about the great light one can get in a garage, so thought I'd try it out. My children were, shall we say, less than cooperative--they ran for the street every time I would let go of them to put the camera up to my face. After 15 minutes of frustration I gave up and took them inside, but when I emptied the card later I was happy to find this one:





I can't wait until the weather warms up, so we can give the garage another try.

Playing with CS3

I recently downloaded a demo of Adobe Photoshop CS3 to see how vital it is that I buy it. It's a bit pricey, but editing is so much faster since you can use actions. I've always wanted to try out some actions, so after spending some time chasing my kids around with the new camera, I uploaded the photos and ran a few actions on them. I love the results! ...but still not sure I can justify spending $500+ on CS3! ;)


Only a couple of my oldest daughter really turned out...she wanted to take pictures of ME instead, so she ran off to dig out her toy camera.



Tried hard to get both kids in the frame, but with the 50mm you have to back up a bit--and the window was behind me. Oh well, I still like the shot for some reason.



(Note camera in front of older child's face--I cropped this one)




Okay, I LOVE LOVE LOVE this photo...I love what the urban acid action did with my little one's eyes and hair. :)


Grandma and Grandpa came over to see the girls and I took photos of them hugging and interacting.





Okay, bad crop on this one--it was composed just fine in the camera, but the woodwork in our house reflects light badly, and the door behind her was so bright it had to be removed from the photo...but isn't her expression just adorable???




This is my oldest showing off her new doll that Daddy got her while he was on his business trip.





I guess I could put CS3 on my birthday list. Hehe

Taking it for a spin

My first day of trying out the D200 with the new 50mm 1.4! I managed to bribe my 18-month-old over to her toys by the window so I could get a clear shot. Of course she was not going to look at the camera, so I pretended to cry...and not only did that make her look, but it made her laugh! Hmm...sadistic little booger!

Anyway, here it is...I considered removing the toy from the background, but since I was just playing I decided it's not worth the amount of work. :) Besides, it demonstrates the nice depth of field I can get from this lens...oooo!