Our New Family Members!

Here is the new additions to our family. What do you think? The orange one is Cricket and the great striped one is Buttons. Aimee just chases them around all day long. Don't know what I am gonna do with her. But they just love the kids too.

The Five things I like about blogging

I'm supposed to post the top 5 reasons why I blog, then tag 5 more people to do the same.

So #1: I like reading about other people's lives and I really LOVE looking at other pictures. I think that most photographers can agree they love looking at pictures!

#2: I am an introvert so I like being able to post pictures and stuff and no one can see that I am in my UNDERWEAR!

#3: Makes me be more creative. I like looking and reading to make me work harder on my creativity. No one can be as creatively cool as Ellen though. I LOVE her stuff!

#4: I admit I started doing this cause everyone else was but now I love it because it is just so fun!

#5: and lastly I love that people actually come to my blog on purpose to look at the pictures I post and some of you aren't family! That means a lot to me!

Now I gotta find other people to tag!

My Better Ferris Wheel

I went back and took another shot of the ferris wheel. I am bummed to find when I got home that my camera was set at iso 1000! I still like the way it came out.

Also I have been tagged so look for that next.

My Aimee and my ferris wheel

Okay so here is my post for today. I took a few quick snaps of Aimee today. Natural light in my comp room. I also tried my hand at the over done Ferris wheel at night picture. I hand held this at 3 seconds so I have motion blur. I am gonna retry it tonight.

My first two assignments

I am in MLK studios class for photography. It's online and I am such a slacker that I started this 8 week course in Jan and here it is May and I am just getting done with assignment two. So I thought I would post some of my shots here. Just to show them.


Here is the 2nd lesson. We had to fill the frame with colors so here are my colors. I know park equip is overdone but I still like the way these came out and I think that the shadows on my play equip made them a little more interesting.

Self Portrait

My rear view mirror self portrait. Not very good and I tell you I need to work on my skin but I think for this. Turned out okay.

Our Egg

Hi all! John is getting better everyday. He is having a rough time of it but I think that it is going to be okay.

That being said here is a picture I took of an egg we found in our yard about a week ago. This baby bird had long since hatched but we found its empty shell so I thought I would take a picture of it. I wish that I knew how to use the macro function on my lens I got but here is what I ended up with. I used a little AIO bleach on it, but just a little. I thought it turned out cute.

John is home!

Well I am happy to say that my husband is finally home from his surgery. He is hurting still but it is getting better day by day. Here is a picture from the hospital of him and my oldest Faith. I took it with my new lens the 28-75 2.8. Great lens, I need practice with it but I think this looks perfect.

My Water Entries

So they are doing a contest for may with my yahoo photography group. This month it is water. So here are my three entries.

On a side note, John's surgery went well. He is having a tough recovery but he may get to come home tomorrow. I know for sure my little girls sure do miss him. I'll take his picture later and post it when I get home from visiting him.

Church lake slow shutter.


Church fountain. Sparkles are natural. Not added in photoshop.

Water splashing off of my roof.

My first Silhouette

Just my try at a Silhouette. Do you think this works?

I haven't been taking pictures much lately. My kids have been sick and my husband has a back surgery scheduled for next monday on the 7th. Just been working so much I feel like my photography is suffering for it. I gotta get my butt to work on this. I hope everyone has a great week this week. Pray for a safe surgery for my husband and I will take pictures and let you all know how it goes!

A change from the last photo

Here is a different version of the last one. I think I may get this printed big. Aimee is the only thing in color in this image. This was our escape to the park day after our morning of homeschooling. She was off to explore the world and I got lucky and captured it without blowing it out and I get to keep this moment forever. My husband just doesn't get it. He says, you can't see her face, looks like a kid walking away, I say but it is our little girl, and she is growing up. Oh well, not everyone gets it.

Aimee at the park and a squirrel.

Here is the post for today. It is my vintage of Aimee at the park. I really like the way that this turned out. I wish there was less DOF. But hey this is what I got. I love it. And here is our fry eating squirrel. Thanks for looking!

Our Yard Snake

So here is our yard snake. We actually let this little guy go about 2 weeks ago when we first found him and my husband was working in the yard again and found him again. So I took some pictures of him. My sister named him Sakkura (I probably spelled that wrong) It's a name from Naruto. I know I spelled that right. lol. Let me know what you think. He is still such a small snake that it was hard to focus on him.

My girls

My first good picture of the girls together. It's technically terrible since I used on camera flash and had to do it really quick but I still like it. I am so gonna work on this after Faith gets her new clothes today. Today is her birthday party so tomorrow is photo shoot with the girls. Hope it goes good.

Thanks for looking!
Tiarra

Just the collage pictures

For some reason it is posting my collage really small so here are the pictures that I put in it,..

Just some snaps

Here are some recent snaps. I am hoping to take the girls out and do a full shoot of them. I will post them when I do. Here is my Birthday girl in her new pj's that her grammy got her. She just wouldn't take them off so here is her moody with them on in the front yard. Also my nephew and some urban acid, and a collage of Aimee and her many crazy faces!



And here is JJ in Urban Acid and his VERY short hair that he had to get cut after his big brother gave him a home haircut:

Some TX Lightning and 1 Old Picture of Aimee

So I tried my hand at weather photography last night. I am so not good at that. Here are the two best lightning shots I could get. I need to do some research on how to do this right for next time.
And here is an old picture of my Aimee from October. It is so funny but I always forget to go through all my pictures that I take of the girls.

Here is Faith smiling

Just a quick post before I put my girls to bed and work on the photo editing that I need to do.

Faith with her cup. I have been getting great catchlights now without my fong. Not sure why. Hopefully it will keep up this way. After I get all my junk done maybe I can share some of my recent sessions.

My Moody Fatih & My funny Aimee

Well all, more practice with the D80. These were all taken with my sb800 flash and without my fong on. I am getting better catchlights without it. I think the D80 likes my flash better than my D50 did.

Think I am really starting to get it down. I have trouble somtimes with the focus. I was worried for a little but it seems that I do better with my center focus point. I gotta get the hang of using the others . Here is my tries for today.

Faith moody, I really really like this one. THe stuff on her face is pink frosting from grammies cupcakes.

Vintage action thanks to Brenda, wish I would have lightened up her eyes on this one.

And then crazy Aimee...

Please ignore how ugly I look. I am in my laundry day clothes. This is Aimee's uh-oh face.

I don't really have a new picture today...

So you have to see my dog picture that I forgot to add yesterday. Hope you all like it. It's all i'm adding today. Here's Kiki. Our EVIL beagle who has no loyalty to us at all. If she could leave, I am not sure she would ever come back. When she gets out we have to chase her with a car. She is almost 3 years old. I don't think it's gonna get any better.

More practice. CC on my D80 work please!

So I practiced more. I wish I had gotten more practice in but today was a lazy day. I was kinda enjoying a break from work. I have 2 sessions to edit but a break is sometimes needed. Here is what I got:


I know his eyes aren't in the upper third but I didn't want to chop off his head too much this time. I may try another crop later.

I am a limb chopper and I am so terrible about this. I am working on it. Here are some flowers, they weren't moving so I had a better chance with them. haha!





Here is my Faith, she has been a tiny bit more cooperative with my camera lately:
Some more Faith, Aimee has turned into the uncooperative one now.
Color or BW? I know that here right eye(looking at the picture) is softer than the other, I just still loved this capture.



Heres Faith's reflection in a tiny puddle. This is the best puddle we got from the rain our wonderful meteorologists told us we would get.

Okay, I'll stop for now. Thanks for looking!

Faith with the D80

So DH lets me get the D80 (since my mom got the girls some clothes and I had been saving for it forever!) Here is one of my first images with it. What do you think?

Great catchlight with fill flash

I just wanted to say that the on camera flash is not totally useless. While I am trying hard to figure out how to use my SB800 for fill, I played with my on camera flash in full sun yesterday. THe pictures were less then pleasant but not because of the flash, cause my kids won't hold still and one picture made my daughters head look very large in proportion to her body. So all I am gonna show you is the catch light. You can see me and almost the detail of my face. I thought it was pretty cool.

Let me know what you think. I thought it was pretty cool. Thanks for looking even though I am a slacker and don't post often enough.