Photo of the Day - 6/30/10

Here's Jacob showing off the prize jalapeno from our garden. Don't be jealous now.

Photos of the Day - 6/29/10

Caroline causing trouble in Jacob's room.









He's a good sport, that big brother.

Photos of the Day - 6/28/10

Sunday afternoon geekdom - a raging game of Star Wars Trivial Pursuit.

Photo of the Day - 6/27/10

Freezing action - not my strength. We learned in our Intro to Photography class that it requires a very fast shutter speed. Since I was photographing Jacob jumping off the diving board in very bright sunshine, that shouldn't have been a problem, but in most of my pictures Jacob was still totally blurry. He is in focus in this one, but unfortunately I didn't get his face, and there is all kinds of clutter in the background. I tried to various techniques to minimize the clutter, but everything I tried looked worse than the clutter. Oh well - the summer is still young - hopefully there will be lots more chances!

Photo of the Day - 6/26/10

Sunflowers at the Farmer's Market.

Photo of the Day - 6/24/10

When she was a baby, we kept waiting for Elizabeth's eyes to change from blue to brown. David and I both have dark brown eyes, and while I know about recessive genes and all, brown eyed kids seemed like a safe bet for us. I'm not sure exactly how old she was when we realized that her eyes were going to stay blue, but it still surprises me that they did. Her eyes are kind of chameleon-like, almost like mood eyes - sometimes they are a deep blueberry color, sometimes they are a sparkling aqua, sometimes they look almost brown. Since I've been taking more pictures I've been frustrated by my inability to get pictures that capture Elizabeth's pretty eyes. So I was really happy to get this one, which still doesn't do justice to her real peepers, but is at least in the ballpark.

Photos of the Day - 6/23/10

Kids in a candy store.

Photo of the Day - 6/22/10

Caroline easing into the morning.

Photo of the Day - 6/20/10

Well, photos plural, I suppose. Jacob has always loved to read. He has been known to spend seven straight hours on a Saturday reading one of the Harry Potter books. But this summer, he has somehow drawn a distinction in his mind between "fun summer stuff" and "reading." We have been trying to remind him that reading IS fun summer stuff (and because I don't want to turn reading into "the enemy," I have been fighting my every motherly urge to withhold other fun summer stuff from him until he completes his reading). So, in the midst of this frustrating, ongoing battle, I was happy to see him settle in with a good book the other day (on his own initiative!).

Photo of the Day - 6/19/10

Elizabeth has been my most difficult child to photograph lately. She either wants to pose with a forced (cheesy) grin; she moves so quickly that I can only get the back of her head; or she gets a Sean Penn-encounters-the-papparazzi look when she sees the camera:


So I was really happy to get the (top!) picture of Elizabeth at our niece's birthday party tonight during an impromptu jam session. I think this photo really captures my playful, impish, and freespirited Elizabeth.

Photo of the Day - 6/18/10

Oooops, missed a couple of days in there! Here is a good one to lead into Father's Day weekend:



David is an incredible dad, and often finds kids hanging from him, as he did in here, when he turned around and found Caroline attached to his back. I can't tell you how many times a day I say "Ooof. Be gentle with your daddy!" He takes the abuse love in stride, and boy does he get a lot of it! He claims that all he wants to do on Sunday is "have fun with you and the kids," and well, we are just a non-stop fun factory around here so I'm sure we can oblige him on that, but, just in case he forgot to say that he always wants to sleep in past 8:00 and read the newspaper in peace, I will try to orchestrate things so that he can enjoy those little luxuries as well. I'm sure as he's reveling in all that peace and quiet, three little people will be hanging outside with their ears against the door, just waiting to pounce on their awesome dad.

Photo of the Day - 6/14/10

Summer!

Photo of the Day - 6/13/10

This photo pretty much captures life in our house.

Photo of the Day - 6/11/10

Nothing could be finer than to wake up Caroline(a) in the moorrrrning!

Our FTJ "places" assignment requires us to photograph our kids in the places they spend the most time, and, well, Caroline's crib meets that description. She has already lived in the crib longer than her older siblings, one of whom started climbing out at 17 months (stinker) and the other of whom got booted at two and a half to make room for Caroline. Caroline is by far our best sleeper, and as there will not be any more babies in this house, as far as I'm concerned she can stay in her crib until we go have to shopping for extra long sheets to bring to her dorm room. And without this workshop, I really wouldn't think to photograph her in it. As you can see, she is thrilled.

Photo of the Day - 6/10/10

Week 2 Finding the Joy assignment - "places." That's Jacob (and Elizabeth's back) on the carousel at the zoo. Still learning to use, but not abuse, the various editing tools - might have gone a little bit color-happy here.

Photo of the Day - 6/9/10

We are actually in week 2 ("places"), but I'm already behind, so here is another "people"/relationship picture. It is cropped beyond recognition - here is the original:



And it was taken indoors in poor light; it's kind of grainy, etc. Still, I love the picture - I think it really captures how much Caroline adores her big sister.

Photo of the Day - 6/8/10

I'm going to try to post one photo a day during the 6 weeks that I am doing this Finding the Joy workshop. This will force me keep up with my assignments (I hope). The focus of week 1 was relationships - we were supposed to try to capture our kids interacting with the people who matter the most to them. (We also learned about angles and other interesting aspects of composition, but the central focus of week 1 was relationships). Here is one "relationship" picture. I am posting it in the downloadable "Joy" blog frame mainly because it took me three days to figure out how to get it to work.

Fun with Photoshop

As I have mentioned (I think . . . or maybe I just thought it?), I got a fun new camera for my birthday last year, and I started taking lessons, most recently with Heather and Amanda. Learning photography has been an incredibly frustrating and humbling endeavor, to say the least. On the bright side, I've been taking way more pictures of my kids lately, which was the whole point to begin with.

At some point it became pretty clear to me that learning how to edit digital images is more than half the battle when it comes to turning out good photos. This should have been great news, but I knew that what it really meant is that I had to learn how to work Photoshop in addition to learning how to work my camera. I'll probably have grandkids to photograph by the time I figure it all out.

Still, between getting some encouragement and inspiration from Heather, who is making the best of her time on bedrest by really getting this whole editing thing down pat, and the fact that I'm taking an online children's photography workshop with Amanda and Betsey that is forcing me to get waaaaaaaay outside of my technical comfort zone and work with "actions" in Photoshop Elements, I am starting to figure out how to edit my photos. Don't ask me to whiten your teeth yet (unless you also want your soft palate to have white streaks), but I've been having some fun playing around with simple "double click and adjust" Photoshop actions.

Here is Caroline straight out of the camera ("SOOC"):



And Caroline after a little tinkering:



Jacob and Elizabeth SOOC:



Jacob and Elizabeth "soft and faded:"



These are not my kids, but a couple of macaws at the zoo {my kids can be as noisy as the macaws, though}. Macaws SOOC:



Macaws with a little help:



I hope that someday I will really understand what I am doing (and become a lot quicker at it). In the meantime, it's been fun playing around!