Week 10

Finding time for photography weekly is becoming more and more of a challenge. Our lives are so incredibly busy, especially this time of year, that the demands of work and home end up taking precedence. This week’s photo is a cute one of Carter as he played peek-a-boo in our tall recycling can.

Photo Details:
Exposure time 1/200 sec, Aperture f/1.8 ISO 200, Focal Length 50 mm, Lens Canon EF 50mm

Why This Photo:
This is the best one that I took out of the dozen or so that I shot.

Challenges/Lessons Learned:
I had a “duh” moment last week as I was thinking through some of my earlier photography where Carter’s cheeks has a slight graininess to them. The ISO was set too high, contributing to that, so now I am trying to keep my ISO under 400 if at all possible. With this particular photo, I put the can next to our sliding glass door to get good natural light, but the end result was blowing out the exposure on one side of Carters face, and a shadow on the other. While I don’t mind some over exposure and shadow for interesting photos, this one is too much. I needed to adjust my settings for less light next time (ideally the Aperture so that my depth of field was just a bit more).

Week 9

I passed my stomach virus along to Jeremy this week, so I ended up flying solo with Carter to my Uncle Al's 75th Birthday party.  I am REALLY happy with my backpack camera bag, especially when I have a baby bag strapped over my head and a kid and blanket in my arms!  Anywho, here is an adorable shot of Grandpa and Carter, hanging out at the party.

Photo Details:
Exposure time 1/250 sec, Aperture f/2.8 ISO 400, Focal Length 50 mm, Lens Canon EF 50mm, handheld with flash bounced off of ceiling.

Why This Photo:
I finally got a really good photo of Grandpa with Carter, of course I had to post that!

Challenges/Lessons Learned:
Getting the lighting right was a challenge, I still am not confident with a flash.  The left side of Grandpa's face was in a shadow from how I bounced the light, so I had to adjust the exposure post-processing.  Also there was a person above Carter's head in the background that I tried to pull out.  I am really loving Lightroom!

Week 8

Nuthin.  Sorry, I have nothing to post for this week - we were battling a stomach virus, I had to travel for work and sadly, photos were not taking priority this week. 

Week 7

This weekend was beautiful - Spring weather in February, which makes me love El Nino!  We got into the 60s and what better way to spend the time than playing in the park.  Lots of challenges this week because the right time of day to get Carter to have fun was the absolute wrong time of day for lighting ... harsh high noon!  Hope you enjoy the end result!

Photo Details:
Exposure time 1/2500 sec, Aperture f/4.5 ISO 400, Focal Length 50 mm, Lens Canon EF 50mm, handheld

Why This Photo:
Carter is such a little man now, this was really fun to see he and daddy walking together.

Challenges/Lessons Learned:
There was a bike and a sweatshirt and a bunch of white lines in the background.  I pulled them out so the background wasn't as cluttered and tried a few different treatments before landing here.

Photo Details:
Exposure time 1/320 sec, Aperture f/3.5 ISO 400, Focal Length 50 mm, Lens Canon EF 50mm, handheld

Why This Photo:
The background color was great - nice & bright and made Carter's eyes look even bluer.

Challenges/Lessons Learned:
He was sitting in the shade and it was really difficult to get the right exposure, not to mention if he stood up, half his head was in the sun!  I am getting faster at flipping through shutter speeds to get the correct exposure for him.

Week 6

This weekend ended up being extremely busy for us - I played in a mother-daughter soccer tournament that would have been wonderful to take some photos during, except it was raining the whole time and I ended up playing way more than I expected.  Valentine's day was then spent running around and I forgot my camera at home.  I did take some photos of Carter eating lunch like a big boy in a restaurant with my iphone, but they weren't necessarily post worthy.

So that means this week I will just post a Carter photo, taken in the morning light.

Photo Details:

Exposure time 1/100 sec, Aperture f/2.8 ISO 400, Focal Length 50 mm, Lens Canon EF 50mm, handheld

Why This Photo:
What is not to love about this photo? (Such a proud mama)

Challenges/Lessons Learned:
I usually shoot in bursts - lots of the same shot or as he is moving around.  I tend to throw away 90% of them, but that is why I love digital.

Week 5

Now that we have a child, we are learning that you end up going to at least one birthday party a month.  This month it was for the twin boys in our neighborhood (they are about 6 weeks older than Carter).  Nothing better than messy frosting on your first birthday!

Photo Details:
Exposure time 1/60 sec, Aperture f/1.4 ISO 400, Focal Length 50 mm, Lens Canon EF 50mm, handheld


Why This Photo:
LOVE Nate's eyes and the color of the frosting and his bib.  The expression on his face is so serious, like he is trying to figure out what the heck was going on.


Challenges/Lessons Learned:
For this shot I used natural light, the rest of the shots I used with a flash.  While I prefer natural light shots more, I need to start working more with the flash!

Carter Photo Of The Week:

It's all about Superbowl and here is my handsome man enjoying the game in his Seahawks jersey!

Photo Details:
Exposure time 1/80 sec, Aperture f/1.8 ISO 400, Focal Length 50 mm, Lens Canon EF 50mm, handheld

Week 4

I have three VERY late posts - one of the bi-products of working full time is that when things get busy, this is the first thing to slide.

The photo from this week is from our cabin.  Fish Lake froze over (despite the warmer winter - we had one good spell of very cold weather that resulted in a deep freeze for the lake).  Ice Fishing is quite the sport in the winter time up here - the fishermen use an auger to drill through the ice and create their own little fishing hole.

Photo Details:

Exposure time 1/640 sec, Aperture f/13, ISO 400, Focal Length 300 mm, Lens Canon EF 70-300mm, F4-5.6, handheld

Why This Photo:
I tried using my zoom lens to see what would happen here - the fishermen were so far away, that I wanted to try to show some perspective of distance, while still being able to maintain a little detail.

Challenges/Lessons Learned:
Snow photography is tricky - I kept messing with my metering modes to explore how to best get some detail without blowing out the photo.

Carter Photo of the Week:

Daddy and son sleeping on the couch at the cabin - so precious!

Photo Details:

Exposure time 1/100 sec, Aperture f/1.4, ISO 400, Focal Length 50 mm, Lens Canon EF 50mm, handheld

Week 3

Sadly, I am already posting late!  This week I do have a valid excuse though since my 10 month old sneezed on me (well, directly in my mouth) and I have been fighting a nasty cold ever since.  I didn't have much energy to do photos over the weekend and today I sound terrible, but strangely feel better.  Anyway, I picked a subject that has provided a lot of joy recently, but then swapped it out for a last minute photo opportunity that caught my attention...

Originally I was going to post the photo of my new faucet - the one where water actually flowed with force!  Recently our water pressure in the kitchen and master shower have had issues.  We bought a new faucet and shower head and bingo!  We now have water pressure again.  In the meantime, we either need to clean out our hot water heater or replace it because it looks like there was possible build up that broke free and plugged up both areas.  Since this water heater has been around since 1988, I think it might be time.  Okay, I derailed ... photos.  Here is what I picked:

Photo Details:

Exposure time 1/100 sec, Aperture f/2.0, ISO 400, Focal Length 50 mm, Lens Canon EF 50mm, handheld

Why This Photo:
The end result was way more interesting than a running faucet (even though that made my life much happier).  I was about to run upstairs to process when I saw the candle and thought, "Huh, let me flip off the lights and see what I get."

Challenges/Lessons Learned:
Don't always stick to your plan - other random stuff may actually be better!

Carter Photo of the Week

Photo Details:
Exposure time 1/125 sec, Aperture f/1.6, ISO 400, Focal Length 50 mm, Lens Canon EF 50mm, handheld

Week 2

Living in the NW in the winter means that we have a LOT of rainy days where it is difficult to get outside to find interesting subject matter.  This week I embraced our schedule and decided that Little Ava's birthday party was the right venue to try to find the next photo.  I walked away with about a dozen shots that I would have considered for this blog and instead of sharing a Carter photo this week, I am going to share two photos from the party.  My winning shot:

Photo Details:

Exposure time 1/160 sec, Aperture f/1.4, ISO 400, Focal Length 50 mm, Lens Canon EF 50mm, handheld

Why this Photo?

This young lady was stunningly beautiful when photographed.  I like how she is looking directly at me in this moment and how the sunlight is playing off of her hair (in the rare moment where the sun did peek through).  She looks like an absolute angel and has almost an inquisitive challenge at the same time.  I added a tiny bit of light vignetting to the image to continue the halo look.

Challenges/Lessons Learned:
The lighting was tough as the sun keep peeking in and out, making the room quite a bit lighter or darker depending.  I need to get faster at adjusting my camera settings so that I can quickly adapt to new conditions.  Also, I love how much children move, but try to not be intrusive and keep up with the movement so that I can get their faces - this can be hard, but thankfully I will be able to gain a lot of experience here!

Substitute Carter Photo of the Week:

Here is an interesting example of a happy accident.  I didn't get my settings changed fast enough and ended up having a really dynamic backlit situation.  I like how this turned out as it shows a soft and sweet moment between mother and son.  I originally was going to do this in black and white, but ended up using the "Faded Foto" preset instead because I like how it brought out a soft color.

Photo Details:

Exposure time 1/80 sec, Aperture f/1.6, ISO 400, Focal Length 50 mm, Lens Canon EF 50mm, handheld

Week 1

I have a few lessons learned this week...  Not super crazy about what I ended up with, but here goes... this is from my Mom's Night Out at a Wine Bar on friday:

Photo details:
Exposure time 1/10 sec, Aperture f/1.4, ISO 800, Focal Length 50 mm, Lens Canon EF 50mm, tripod

Why this photo?
I took a few photos of just wine glasses together and one of wine glasses, an appetizer, and one of the moms in the background eating one of the apps - except I promised I wouldn't post any of people eating!  This one was more interesting with the horses head shown on the bottle and the food leading up to the drink.

Challenges:
LOW LOW light.  I brought a tripod with me knowing that it would likely be the case and knew that shooting people would be out unless I used a flash (which I was hoping not to).  I need to adjust the white balance on my camera to a custom setting, as it always comes out warmer than it should and I end up adjusting it after the fact in Lightroom.  Another challenge - trying to still be social while setting up and taking photos ... this is something that I will need to just get over.  I felt bad that I wasn't participating in the conversations while I was setting up and shooting and after the fact I really don't think that people minded.  Also - a monopod would have been nice as space was tight.

Lessons Learned This Week:
I need to take my camera everywhere with me.  I was driving into work on Thursday and the sunrise on Mount Rainier was beyond incredible.  It was hot pink across the entire mountain and I WISH I had my camera, as that would have made it as the photo of the week.  I got a new backpack camera bag for Christmas to allow for easier toting, so I shouldn't have that excuse anymore.

Carter Photo of the Week:

This may not be important or interesting to most people - but it is HUGE in our family!  Carter - our nine and a half month old toothless wonder - is FINALLY getting his first tooth and I had to wrestle with him to get this photo.  He was not very happy with me, wailing the entire time, but I can see the tooth & got a photo of it!

Photo details:
Exposure time 1/250 sec, Aperture f/5.6, ISO 800 (was so excited, forgot to change it until after the fact), Focal Length 55 mm, Lens Canon EFS 18-55mm kit, handheld with flash

Let 2010 Begin!

After spending a week full of long evenings filing and tagging all twenty five hundred photos I took in 2009 (and that was after I deleted all the crap ones), I feel finally ready to start photographing in 2010.  I probably should have called this blog "Project 104" because each week you will likely see a photo of my nine month old son as well as another photo that I took to actually learn from.  I know that my mother will be happy that I will devote at least one photo a week to him, hopefully the rest of you will enjoy it as well.

I have always admired people who can commit to taking and posting 365 photos in a year - I can't do it.  I can hardly remember what I ate for lunch yesterday let alone try to remember to take at least one photo a day.  I figured I would start with a managable one a week until I am able to quit my job and then pretend I actually have more time.

I am shooting with a Canon 40D (upgraded from my 20D last year) and have dreams of getting the Canon 5D Mark II someday, but I think that day is a long way off.  I am working on trying to get the EF 24-70mm f/2.8L lens first.  I told my husband I was willing to sell his body to get it - still don't have it unfortunately.  Read into that what you want ;-)

I do however have the Canon 50mm f/1.4 that I love, as well as the Canon 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6, Canon 70-300mm f/4-5.6 and then the kit 18-55mm.  I borrowed my brothers' Canon 16-35mm f/2.8L lens and fell in love with the L series.  Now I will beg, borrow, and steal to try to acquire them.

I will post my first photo for my weekly project by end of day Sunday, January 10th and will try to continue posting during that timeframe each week.  To start the year off right, here is a snapshot I took of Carter, my nine month old, on New Years morning.  It is hard work being this cute (and yes, the superman curl does that all on its own - we do not pose it).