A cold day at the aquarium

We went to the aquarium last weekend. It was cold, wet and windy, so no one was there but the diehards, but wow! The animals were out and there was no one to block our view of them! Even the octopus was active and that never happens!

Black and white

I've been learning more post-processing techniques and decided to try my hand at converting to black and white. There's a real art to black and white, and I love the look when it is done well. My conversion has some strong blacks, but I think it turned out pretty well over all:

Wedding #1: I don't do weddings

I have always said I will not shoot weddings. First: I'm not good enough. And second: it's not the type of photography I'm interested in. But what was I going to do when my good friend Jamie asked me to photograph her wedding? They weren't going to hire a professional, so it was my pictures or nothing. Of course I said yes.

The lighting was tough. Really, really tough. We were in shade but it was a bright day, and a lot of the pictures had half sun/half shade in them so they were pretty contrasty. At one point, as I took a quick peek at the dark images on my camera screen, I was so worried that I was going to completely fail that I switched my camera to automatic and fired off about five shots in the middle of the wedding, just in case.

When I got home and started editing I found that, yes, there were some shots that were pure garbage. But there were also a lot that were pretty workable. I have a lot to learn still, although I'm happy to report that my shots were much better than the automatic ones (I was reminded why I never, ever use my on-camera flash!) so I guess that's progress, right?

Here is a scene from the wedding. Pretty dark and lots of noise, but at least the sky isn't completely blown out, and I do love the emotion:

Here's a shot after the wedding was over and I could choose where to put them:

I'm so happy for them! And now I can go back to saying no to weddings! ;)

Meet Miko

I can't believe I haven't updated this blog since May! How did that happen?! Well, here's a picture for you. Meet our new kitten, Miko:

Family photo session

I am happy to say that my second photo "job" (I say "job" because I don't charge anything) went much better than the first one. I actually checked my settings as I was shooting and wasn't nearly as nervous as I was the first time. A friend of mine wanted to do family photos with an urban look, so I scouted locations downtown. I found a nice brick wall that was in full shade and where they wouldn't be looking into the sun:

They were so much fun to work with! I let them be as goofy as they wanted, and their personalities really came through in some of the shots:

I still have a lot to learn--especially with posing people--but it was a fun afternoon. I can't wait for the next one!

Still loving the lens...

My new lens

I'm in love. I finally laid down the money for an L series lens, and…wow! It is a thing of beauty!

Oh, the wonders of nature!

We took Naomi to the zoo for the first time. It was a fabulous day for it, and we all had a wonderful time. For once, my favorite shot of the day didn't involve my daughter:

These little girls were so excited every time the sea lion zoomed up in front of them (he was swimming in a big vertical circle). There were so many people there that I couldn't get an angle with just the two girls, but I just love that hand sweeping up!

Shooting backlit

I finally had a breakthrough with back lighting. One of my favorite portrait photographers does all her shots with natural light, and they are often backlit. The results are stunning. But whenever I tried it, mine were coming out with the subject too dark. Until now. Cue dramatic music:

The light here is actually coming from behind and to the side in these. But, oh! How bright and beautiful it is! :)

I think I've gotten better...

I haven't been doing the 52 week project (obviously), and I haven't been blogging much (obviously), but I have been taking pictures. A lot of pictures. And something clicked. No pun intended.

A recent trip to the butterfly gardens (a low-light setting):

Week 3 (Phew! All caught up!)

We've had really heavy rainfall lately and some flooding. I went down to the river today to take some pictures. I wish I had a "before" shot to show you because this picture just doesn't do it justice. The river is high.

Week 2 (only 1 week late)

We spent last weekend at the coast and woke up to snow! Here's the storm coming in...

Week 1 (2 weeks late)

I've been doing the 52 week project...I just haven't been posting. Let's see if I can keep up! Here's week 1. I messed around with some editing stuff in Lightroom and came up with this...