My kitty Ginger in her "Elizabethan Collar"
Poor Kitty.

Photography class week 3

Thank goodness for slow days at work! Our creative assignment this week was to Illustrate song lyrics in a photograph. I was running out of time to get this done, so I slipped across the room in between phone calls & set up my daughters train table to illustrate the song "Bank Robber Man" by Lenny Kravitz. I'm quite pleased with the results!

The regular weekly assignment was to use manual mode. For that, I had my always willing daughter pose in the front yard for me. I wanted to blur the background (neighbors house & garbage can) so I used my 50mm lens at f1.8. I used the meter in the camera to select correct shutter speed to ensure a proper exposure. I got some pretty good shots before she had to run out with friends.

Weather Girl

I took Cameron down to the newspaper office today for a photo shoot. She will be pictured on the weather page holding a cut out symbol for the days forecast. I'm told it will run sometime in August or September. The photographer took pictures of her holding up each of the elements. As she finished up, I snapped a few. I was a little off center but didn't want to get in the way so my pics aren't as good as the ones that will be in the paper. I have to say, Cameron did a fantastic job. There was none of the attitude , wiggles or campy smiles that I get. Oh no... Cameron was very professional and we were done in less than 10 minutes! I was quite proud of her.

Photography class week 2 creative assignment

I had to take photographs of something in my town I've never noticed before.
That was hard for me because if I've never noticed it, how do I know it's there??!?

I did have an inspiration today & I loaded the girls in the car and went to an arboretum that I've always known was there, but had never been to. It was actually a pretty neat place. It's located sort of behind a car dealership, right on one of the main streets in town. Not where you'd expect miles of walking trails. Typical of us, we did show up in flip flops and without bug spray so we didn't stay more than an hour or so. I took a few pictures of the girls, which after looking at them, I realize I should have used a different lens, a different apeture and probably a different shutter speed. Oh well. I guess that's what learning is all about. Either way I managed to get a good photo for my creative assignment - although I have NO CLUE what this particular piece of vintage farming equipment is, I thought the photo came out nice. I also got to explore a bit in a place I've never been to before and to spend some quality time with my girls. Oh.. and then there was the ice cream.
Dairy Queen was conveniently located on the way home.

I did this for my "homework" in my Layer mask class at
www.scrapgirls.com. The kit I used is a freebie from that
site called Refresh. If you haven't seen it you should check it out. Freebie kits are a great way to try digital scrapbooking
and this one really goes above & beyond!

I loved these pictures of Cameron & Noah playing over Memorial
Day weekend. They had such a good time together! Even though
there's no actual relationship, it's almost as if they are cousins with
the long standing friendships in our families.

Photography Class Weeks 1 & 2

I've been taking an online photography over at www.jessicasprague.com in an attempt to learn how to use my new Canon Rebel XTi beyond the "auto" mode. Week 1 was shutter speed. My assignment was to take pictures of motion. One using a fast shutter to freeze the motion, and another using a slow shutter to freeze. These were my pictures.


Fast shutter


Slow Shutter

Thankfully Jordan was a willing participant in my quest for motion. (don't you just love the look on her face??!)

Week 2 is Apeture. I had to take 2 pictures showing opened & closed apeture. This time I left my kids out of it & went to my garden.


I assume *gulp* combining the two is coming next???

We spent a quiet 4th of July at a family friends house. My in laws always drive down from Massachusetts to visit with these friends, who they've known for 25 years or more. They split the time they're in town between our two houses. It's really the best of two worlds for them.

In years past, the 4th has been a big family & friends celebration but in recent years the participants have branched off to "bigger and better things" This year, it was the four of us, my in-laws and their friends the Henderson's who were our hosts. They had one granddaughter staying with them because her parents were with her sister at some big softball tournament out of town. We did the typical hamburgers & hotdogs BBQ and spent a nice quiet day catching up.

We left in time to watch fireworks and spent 2 hours sitting in a parking lot, watching the approaching lightning until we finally gave up and went home. Unfortunately because of the storm they had to postpone the event until Saturday night. What a drag! The highlight of the night was watching a fox come out to do her nightly prowl. After a few minutes of watching her, more people started showing up & she went back in to hiding

Cameron had some friends over last week to play. The kids all had fun splashing in the blow up pool and playing in the sprinkler we call "Mount Wanna Hock a Loogie". I pulled the little picnic table over to the pool so they could jump from it. I think that's 99% of the fun - launching yourself in to less than a foot of water, in to a blow up pool (feet first only please!). The surface of the table does get a little slick when wet. I should look for some of that "no skid" stuff they use in the Navy! lol

The main picture I used of the boy jumping, was one I used in a homework assignment for a layer masks class I'm taking online. I created the blur you see on him. Not very interesting, but I'm learning something new - which is always good!