MomShots

Over the past few weeks, through my kitchen window, I have been watching my neighbor’s little maple tree turn from lush green to vibrant yellow and then slowly turn crimson.  It was been really a magnificent journey.  Each day the beautiful colors would make me catch my breath.  They were so vivid and were a true testament that Autumn is here.   One day I noticed that a few leaves were falling off of it.  As the day progressed, I noticed that it wasn’t just a few leaves, it was as if the tree had decided to just let go of its leaves and they were falling in bunches; hordes even.  I am now looking at a naked tree.  From Friday to Monday, all the leaves have fallen and November has begun.  A new season is truly here.

I am a bit disappointed with myself.  I thought over and over again that I should take some photos.  Not once did I do that.  I always had an excuse.  My main excuse was that it wasn’t a very good composition with the fence in the way.  Now I have missed my chance.  Yeah, sure I might be able to try again next year, but in reality it won’t be the same tree.  Even if we weren’t moving in a month, the tree would be different, more grown and older.  

I have these same thoughts about my kids.  Oh, I don’t want to get the camera out right now, I’m (insert lame excuse here).  We have to just get out the camera and shoot away or we will miss these precious moments forever.  

Each turning season reminds me that my children are getting older.  This Halloween I was reminded of that by thinking about what they had dressed as in past years.  This year we had an Indiana Jones and a Wall-e.  I am remiss to report that I didn’t dress Magnus up.  He was going to be a sailor but I didn’t do it.  How’s that for letting time pass?  I didn’t even give him the chance to be something.  In the end, I really don’t think it mattered because he had a really good time helping dad hand out candy to Trick-or-Treaters.  

Our neighborhood was a mad house.  My husband would sit down for literally 30 seconds and the doorbell would ring.  This went on all night - for a solid three hours.  We totally ran out of candy.  I think it was about the same time that our neighbors also ran out of candy too so it worked out.  

All in all, we had a wonderful Halloween.  My boys loved their costumes.  Gar was wearing Wall-e for the next two days and talking in a Wall-e voice.  Uly has been wearing his Indy hat and playing with his whip every chance he can.  He even asked to sleep with his whip the other night.  Good times!

They have been stuffing themselves with candy.  Ben and I just let them eat their candy until they couldn’t eat anymore.  I love how they will randomly appear with a sucker in their mouth after I think that all the candy is gone.  I may be finding little stashes through the next year!  That’s part of the fun of Halloween!

I hope your Halloween was a good one and your kids had fun and their bellies are full of sugar.  I also hope you drug out that camera and managed to get some great shots of your kids.  But more importantly, I hope you managed to get some shots of your kids.  The most important thing is to document their fun and memories.  We don’t need to be discouraged if our photos don’t turn out exactly as we had hoped.  We just need to take some.  Along the way we will end up with some great ones.  Hopefully!

I feel like today is Christmas.  Except it isn’t cold, I don’t have to cook a whole bunch and nobody else got presents…  Why?  If you didn’t guess why from the title of this post, it is because I got a new camera today.  Well, it’s not new new, but new enough and new to me.  We have a friend who bought my current dream camera (a Nikon D90) and generously sold his old Nikon D40x to us for a song.  While I am still saving my pennies for that future D90, I’m going to go hog wild using this great little D40x!  That’s right HOG wild.  Oink!  Oink!

Right now the battery is charging and I am watching carefully for the charge light to go off.  Who knows what might happen if I don’t watch it?  Who knows…  So I am watching carefully.  Actually, I’m not.  I’m sharing my exciting news with you.  Then the second I finish this post, I am going to immerse myself in the user manual and see what this little camera can do.  

It is little.  I feel like it is so little.  It’s just so cute.  I put my old lens on it and the old lens weighs more than the camera.  The new lens is going to be so much fun to play with too.  It is 18mm to 55mm so I get to experience a whole new layer of photography since my old lens is a fixed 60mm.  I get to play around with zooming.  Watch me zooooommmm!!!!

Ok, I think I’m getting a little silly here.  I am going to leave you with a photo I took of my neice, Cora.  It has nothing to do with this post except that it was taken with a camera…

So enjoy your day, my friends.  I am going to be quite click happy for the rest of the day!  I will get back to you soon to let you know my thoughts on all the cool new features I have access to on this new little camera.

This is a blog dedicated to reuniting lost cameras and memory sticks with their owners.  I think it is a wonderful idea.  If you have lost a camera check for it there and if you find a camera post it there as well. 

I would like to type up a long post this morning about something fun but I don’t think it is going to happen.  My kids are all antsy to get going with our day.  Magnus is literally climbing on my back right now.

So instead of posting something about nothing I will make a quick note about the new Tip of the Week.  This week’s tip is about using the Eyedropper tool.  This is a very useful tool.  I think you are really going to like this tip.

And also a reminder that we save all of our past Tips.  You can pull up any of the Tips by simply going to the Tip of the Week tab (up above).

This post’s obligatory photo is from last year.  One of the first snows.  My boys were so excited to go play in it but I made them slow down for a second so I could get some shots of them.  We are starting to get excited for snow for this Winter.  I’ve been going through the checklist to make sure everyone has all the necessary gear for warm, cold weather fun!

After reading my last post, my friend Bruce wanted to try the trick with his adorable daughter.  He asked her if she could see the monkey in his lens.  Here she is looking for the monkey.

The trick worked!  What a great eye contact shot.  She claimed that she could see the monkey and also could see an elephant in there as well!  Thanks Bruce!!!

How do you get those little rugrats to look at you so you can get those great eye contact shots?

This morning I read the best idea I have heard in a long time and it was on photographer Elle Mendenhall’s blog, Elle Bella Photography. It really hit close to home and I am totally going to try it out soon.  The mother of the boys she was shooting told her sons that there was a Clone Trooper inside the lens of the camera.  They were looking and looking to try to see the little guy.  So subsequently Elle was able to capture some fantastic eye contact shots of those little cutie patootie boys.  

Genius isn’t it?!?  Yeah.  I told my husband and he thought it was brilliant too.  We’re going to start telling the boys that Spongebob is inside the lens and that they should try to look for him.

Before I announce the winner, I just want to say that I wish I had copies of the book for everyone.  As I was listing everyone’s name and finding a random number generator (I’m a geek.  I like tools!) to help me choose the number, I was agonizing over this.  I didn’t realize how it would make me feel.  I want everyone to have a copy.  I wish I had more copies to give away!!!   

The random number generator chose number 5.  The name on my spreadsheet that corresponded with that number is Shelle of BlokThoughts.  Shelle, Scott Kelby’s The Digital Photography Book 1 is on its way. Congratulations!

Everyone else, thanks for entering.  It was really exciting for me to see all of your comments.  What can I say?  I’m a simple girl.  Comments make me happy.  :)

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Another thing I wanted to tell you about was a cool website I found last week.  It is called Photodoto.  This is the site where I saw the idea to put kids in a container.  When I wrote the post, I couldn’t remember where I had seen that idea.  This is the place.  My toddler addled brain… I tell ‘ya!  Anyway, it’s a great site.  Lots of good information and fun articles.  Check it out.  I’m sure you’ll love it too!

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So…  I had such a fun weekend.  I want to tell you all about it.  That might take a L.O.N.G. time so I’ll just share some of the highlights.  

We had a family reunion on Saturday in Moab, Utah.  The highlight for me was that my Uncle Eric was there.  He is an awesome photographer.  You may remember me mentioning that or remember some of his comments.  He’s great.  He let me play with some of his lenses.  Can you imagine how much fun I was having?  A lot!

To give a little back story, I should explain and say that I have only ever used my 60mm lens.  In fact, I didn’t even know how to take my lens off!!!  How silly is that?!?  So when Eric put a 70-210mm zoom lens on my camera I was like a kid in a candy camera store.  I was running all over the place snapping photos of people right and left.  I think I was kind of annoying my grandma.  She’s so beautiful and I wanted to get a good photo of her.  I kept coming back and snapping more.  It was so much fun.  

After the reunion, we went to the cemetery to see my granddad’s grave and to see the graves of other ancestors.  This is kind of a tradition in my family.

We went to Arches National Park on Thursday and saw some incredible scenery.  Mind blowingly (I know, it’s not a word…) beautiful.  We walked around until the kids were exhausted and then we drove around for a while.  Awesome.  If you are ever in the area, I whole heartedly recommend a visit to the Arches National Park.

On Friday we went to a rock shop and got slightly mislead but that is always an adventure in itself.  We were trying to find some dinosaur bones and petrified wood but ended up taking a wrong turn and then ran out of time so we didn’t get to retrace our steps and try again.  Next time we’re in Moab, I’m going to try this outing again.  It was still very beautiful and fun.

We spent a lot of time playing in our campground’s over chlorinated swimming pool and soaking up the sun.  My boys had a blast practising their swimming moves, playing with their cousins and charming all the other travelers.  It was a blast!

Now we are back home.  I am almost unpacked and we are starting to think more seriously about Halloween costumes and decorations.  Those will be some fun Momshots!  What kind of Halloween or Autumn plans do you have?  Any good photo-ops coming up?

Tomorrow I will put up the new Tip of the Week.  Tye wrote us up a great one.  I’m excited for you to read it!

I am really excited to announce that our new Tip of the Week section is up and our first great tip is there for your viewing and post-processing pleasure!  This week Tye tells us how to convert a color photograph into a black and white using both Photoshop Elements (Version 4.0 and higher) and Photoshop CS3.   

The example photo is of my 3 year old son Garland cheesing it up in a great big wink.

Or at least blackmail worthy photos of your children when they are young.  

Think to yourself, “Self, is this a photo my son/daughter/niece/nephew would like me to show to a future girlfriend/boyfriend?”  If your answer is a resounding “NO”, than you really should take the photo.  You should take the photo and save it.  One day you will be sitting on a couch going through an old family photo album showing the new young couple photos from your child’s youth.  You will find the picture of them in an awkward position and they will get embarassed.  It will all be worth it!  Or if you’re horrible like me, your kids will find photos of themselves peeing in the backyard on their mom’s website…

Even if embarrassment is not an issue, it sure is fun to have photos that remind you of the innocence and wonder from childhood.  These kinds of momshots will surely remind you of that precious time.

Officially it’s Summer! June 21st brought warm weather in my neighborhood. My oldest son walks outside and proclaims, “It’s just a beautiful day, Mom!” With that proclamation I am reminded of all the possibilities that Summer brings and those possibilities mean many opportunities for great Momshots.

Summer has barely begun and we have already been to two parades and two carnivals. Daily we have been playing in the sprinkler and little wading pool, we have been to the park numerous times and spent much time riding bikes and practicing riding the scooter. We have had a few picnics, campfires, s’mores and even an attempted camping trip. I feel like this Summer is a good one and it has just barely started! Bring on more fun!

These adventures have brought on many Momshot opportunities. They have given me many chances to think about composition, lighting, focal points, capturing action and trying to photograph these fun moments in a way that I find visually interesting.

My Momshot Tip is to take these fun Summer adventures and try to visualize photographs that capture the atmosphere and emotions of the subjects.  Try to think about the whole picture and not just your kids’ cute smiling faces.  Most importantly, take your camera with you everywhere.  Then be sure to take it out of the camera bag and use it.

My philosophy is that if I take enough shots, I’m bound to have one or two good ones!