Family

A big thank you to the P family for allowing me to photograph them. It was great fun and I hope I get the opportunity to photograph them again! These are my two favorites from the session. I think the second is just so sweet and loving!

This years winner!

This is my favorite photo this year! I love the light, the color, the expression! Absolutely, hands-down my favorite!

Emma

Emma was showing her brand new lose tooth!

She's the birthday girl!

Happy second birthday sweet girl!

The film check!

I still use a film camera. For some reason, everytime I start to take pictures, I second guess whether I have reloaded the film. I know that I reload unless I am out of film but I still second guess myself. So I do this thing where I rewind one image to make sure there is resistance on the rewind button. Usually I can just mark the image off as a total mess up, but this one turned out quite interesting!

Elijah and Frances

We want a warty pumpkin!

We had to get some pumkins today for carving and painting. Abigail found one that looks really wart-y, which I assume is a hybrid of a pumpkin and gourd. The kids loved it so, the wart-y one it is!!

A little ghost-y fun!

My husband and I took the kids to our church's Halloween party over the weekend. It was really nice and we had a great time! They had set up a dance area with disco lighting and spooky music. A real hit with the kids! The room was really dark so I played a little with the disco lighting. It was fun!

fall photo shoot!

This was a really fun photo session with some fantastic kids! We spent a lot of time keeping up with the little one and a little time striking a pose! It was great fun! Thanks H. family!

Evaluation

I'm really hoping to be ready for business in the spring but I can see that I still have a lot to learn. I made a list of some areas that I could really use improvement.

• Try to get more interesting compositions. I do ok with my own family but I become very shy with others. I have to take more chances, get closer to my subjects and on their level, and be a bit more aggressive.
  
• Better contrast- this will improve when I improve my sharpness and use of aperture and shutter.
  
• Focus in on the eyes- I tend to try to focus the whole photo. That's fine on f/16 but with a larger aperture my depth of field is decreased significantly. So, when I think I'm focused, I get the photos back and see that the faces are softer than what I want. The eyes are the most important thing for me to focus on, unless I'm focusing on another feature on purpose.
  
• Work on my focus/sharpness/crop in general. I should check each corner and know what's in the frame.
  
• Always be aware of the sun's position and the direction of the light- I'm really doing better at this.
  
• Always remember to adjust my aperture and shutter- And it might be wise to take some notes until I get the digital camera, which will record this info for me. I'm still playing around with exposures but I do tend to remember to check. Of course, that doesn't mean I get it right, hence taking notes...
  

I don't know. I'm going to have to re-evaluate myself after a few more sessions and see where I stand then.

Today feels like fall!

It is so cool out today! I just love the fall air. I realize it may be randomly cool and hot over the next month but I am enjoying it today. It was HOT at the last photo shoot. I really appreciate the G-R family for letting me photograph them. Here's a little preview of the last photo shoot!

Documentary of a Haircut

Elijah decided to cut his own hair yesterday! Yikes, he really gapped it right in the center. He was embarrassed, so this is the best shot I have of his haircut job.

Steve wanted to try to fix it first.

Elijah did enjoy this part! Even though Steve and I were pretty angry, we tried to make light of the situation and laugh about it.

At this point we were losing hope that we could salvage any hair.

This is when Elijah got really upset. He is so vane about his hair. I really think he thought I was joking when I said a haircut was his punishment.

Look at all those beautiful locks!

He is still such a handsome boy! He's ok with his hair now but he does not look at all like himself. His long hair suited him and his mischeviousness. Well, at least hair grows back fairly quickly.

The triple twist

The kids play a game that they call the triple twist. They cross their arms and hold hands and then turn. The goal is to uncross their arms while continuing to hold hands. Since there are three of them playing, they put triple in front of the twist! It's pretty awesome. But, the teamwork is really my favorite part.

Abigail

family photos

I know it's ridiculous how many photos I have and take of the kids but I think these turned out great, so here you go!

Emma and Ava

Brooke

My family had a picnic with my friends family and while there I photographed her little one, Brooke. She was such a sweet girl and really loved the clicking sound of the camera. She would turn her head and attention towards me everytime she heard it. It was funny.
Now I get to critique myself. I posted six of my favorites here. Overall, I'm pleased. I thought the composition was good. Some of the colors were amazing. We were surrounded by tall, tall trees which made the background very green once blurred. Her pink shirt gave a lovely contrast. I'm usually a black & white person but I love the color best this time. For the first few photos, the sun was coming through the tops of the trees and the light was brilliant. Then the sun went away. It wasn't exactly dark but my camera's built in meter was screaming for more light. I had the aperture wide open to create the blurred background, so that let in plenty of light. But, I made a judgement call to use flash just in case. I had nothing to bounce it from and since I'm still buying equipment and lack mostly everything, I had to use it right on top of the camera. If I could go back to the shoot, I would not use the flash. Some of the images are too light. I also washed out some of Brooke's detail in her face in a few images. Also, a few photos had some harsh shadows. But, that's ok. I made a judgement call using the equipment that I had.
I still see serious improvement in my ability to act quickly and to judge what to do in the situation. Having certain pieces of equipment will help in the future with this type of situation. I still have so much to learn but I can really see my improvements. I also notice myself applying many things that I have recently learned, which is great. I think I did ok at overcoming my shyness too. So, thanks to the B family for giving me the opportunity to learn with their beautiful girl!