Bath Time!!

So like I said in the theme post I saw a series of photos that someone did, highlighting her kids' bath time. I tried to find it again so I could post a link but I couldn't, sorry. Anyways, I know that mine need some work but I do feel like I came away with some fun photos that I will cherish for a long time, thus progressing in my goal to take more pics of my kids in the winter :)

I wish I had a white tub with white walls and a beautifully lit bathroom, of which I have none. I have a beige tub with green walls, and although my lighting isn't terrible it isn't great. I would have liked to have shot with him facing more towards the window to get more light in his eyes but I couldn't figure out how to do it without blocking most of the light. The color I felt was off in some so I took the easy way out and turned them black and white. Of course this was after I started editing them thus the inconsistencies. I think the series would flow better if they were all one or the other, but some I liked in color and others in b&w...

Even though it doesn't look like there is a body attached to his cute little head, I still like it. I wanted to get the feel of look over the side of the bathtub at his level.

What's a bath without a rubber ducky :)

I know you have all heard me say that this kid LOVES his dad but this series really shows it. I had to really coax the half smiles that I got out of him previous to this but all his dad had to do was poke his head around the corner and he was immediately all smiles, so I was able to get these :)

Settings were f2.5-2.8 ss1/160-1/200 iso 400-640

I thought it would be fun to document it from pre-bath to out of the tub BUT after he had been in for a few minutes and I wanted to look through all the cute shots I'd been able to get thus far, I pushed play on my camera and got a message "NO CARD!!!" I am such a blond sometimes!! So note to self... make sure there is a card in your camera BEFORE you start shooting!

Finishing up the Action Shots...

There was one more shot I really wanted to get and I didn't want to procrastinate it into next week and when I saw the boys outside playing I knew I had to take the opportunity while I had it. My kids are really cooperative when it comes to shots like this, which is really nice :)

Here I just combined the two so I don't hog up too much space :)

Settings on these were f2.8 ss 1/400 iso 100
shot with my 50mm

This is my panning shot that I really wanted to get and since my boys aren't world record fast on their bikes;) I had Lan jump on the four wheeler so I could get what I wanted. I told Ryley he could ride if he would look at me and wave as they went by:)

Settings: f6.3 ss 1/80 iso 100

Caught in Action!

I just had to add this last action/motion picture for kicks and giggles even though it is not much of a "motion" shot...

Sometimes you just gotta go!

Someday this picture will be great blackmail! :)

Week 5 - Bath Time!

Thanks everyone for your action/motion shots (and Amy for the bathroom shots:). It was fun to see everyone's take on it. So I saw a series of photos the other day online highlighting bath time and I want to try it. I know I just did bathrooms but after this I promise we will stay away from the bathroom for a while :)

better late than never right?

every time I would go into my bathroom to...you know...I would think about this assignment and feel like a bad student for not getting it in, so to appease my guilty conscience I am turning it in anyways.

oh my bathroom, has seen better a days that is for sure! For those that don't know I live in my grandma's house, the house where my mom grew up, the house that was OLD then. We tried to figure out how old this house was one day and the closest we could come up with is that it is over 110 years. It is a pioneer house at it's finest! So when taking these pictures I was trying to take pictures that might mean something to me on that sad, sad day when it is knocked to the ground and a new house is built on its dust.
at one time the bathroom was pink, and it was pink until long after all her kids (including my rough-tough cowboy uncles) moved out. It makes me laugh, if you ever had the privilege of knowing my grandpa or my uncles you would laugh too. There is NOTHING pink about those men and I am surprised they put up with the pinkness. It has been painted over, but there are a few spots that over time have worn off the blue overcoat and the pink is showing through a bit. The door knob is one of those spots. I kinda wish that the door knob itself was a little more focused, but at the time I was really trying to bring the focus to the pink...

1/250 f2.5 ISO 200 and I bounced my flash

in a house that NONE of the bedrooms have working lights the bathroom has 2

1/400 f2.5 ISO 200 bounced my flash

I feel privileged to have original art aka junk with a functional use as our towel rack...I won't show you the TP holder (it is a piece of OLD wood)
alright this one is not old nor does it tell the stories of this old house, but it is our most reliable clock in the house, as long as we remember that it is an hour fast. It is the only clock that did not get changed with the time change, and now if we did I am sure we would be late to everything! In a few months we will have to remember that it is actually the correct time. :) \

1/200 f4.0 ISO 200 flash bounced

There are quite a few patches of cool texture in our bathroom as well-the box that holds our towels has the coolest wood top with awesome texture, and then there is the tub...it has been painted over so many times, worn off and painted again that the texture is very cool there too, but since those aren't fun pictures I wanted to do something fun with them...I give you texture overlays...

just grabbed some old pictures really fast and opened my textured images copied and pasted them onto the picture changed my layer mode to overlay (I also usually like softlight too) and voila I do erase the texture off their skin so they don't look mottled and sickly

wood texture

bathtub

Catching Up...

Since I was a total slacker last week I am hopefully going to catch up and get all the "shots" I wanted to do this week:) Here are mine so far...

I wish I would have had him face me so I could see his face. I only took a couple of them flipping and this was the only one in focus. I tried focusing before they flipped, trying to get them in the focus and not the background. However, I must have refocused because the focus fell on the trees in the bg and not on the boys.

Hmmm... I think he didn't get the memo that it is still winter!!

All of the above jumping ones were f3.5 ss 1/1000 iso 100

These ones I tried to do an effect called panning... I think the subject has to be moving faster than they could go on their bikes:) I am still going to try it later in the week but I thought I would post these anyways since these technically are still "action" :)

f3.5 ss 1/800 iso 100

This is one I tried the other day... This is just one showing more motion I guess :) When I couldn't get the original look I was going for I tried a slower shutter speed but since it was so bright outside I had to raise my f-stop really high in order to get the slower ss.

f20 ss 1/40 iso 100

Action/Motion Week

A little bright maybe? I don't know what my settings were. Amateur here! I'm learning.

Obviously this is from the summer. I stare at it a lot. I wish the flowers weren't blurred - I assume they weren't actually in motion. =o) I'm curious if there was a setting that would have helped or if I just didn't keep my hand steady enough.

Just a fun action one. I like the shadow and her bouncy dress. I played around with cropping. Any suggestions to make it tighter but not lose the distance? I like that she's relatively small.

Okay, that's my first post. I love playing along but I know I have a LONG way to go. =o) Thanks for looking! I'd love to hear your suggestions.

Week 4 Action/Motion Part 2

Well since I was a total slacker this week and didn't get around to doing the shots I wanted I am going to extend it another week. I had some cool ideas I just never got around to executing them so hopefully everyone will continue to play along and excuse my laziness :)

Action/Motion Week: My 1st Contribution

My first picture contribution!  :)

Just got back from the beach today and it was beautiful!  I was sad that I didn't have a nice camera to capture how amazing it was but the i-phone was the did the job for the moment.  So funny to read the theme for the week because my bright idea on the beach was to take a picture of the kids jumping with the sun behind them so all you could see was their silhouette.  I told them to jump with their hands up but as you can see I didn't really catch the jumping part.  Kind of hard to do with a 6,4, and 2 year old and a camera that doesn't respond very quickly.  I still like it though.  I wish Mackenzie was on the right side of Sadie so that the height wouldn't be lined up small, medium, tall.
So think I'm going to get a Canon Rebel from Costco this week, only $400!  Not the most amazing camera but I have to start somewhere right?

Week 3 - Action/Motion

After last weeks flop I thought I would try something a little more fun. As the title states, show us your action/motion shots. It can be a photo that stops action ie your kids jumping in the air etc. or with some blur to show motion. There are lots of things you can do with it so lets see them!

Keepin' it Real...

I thought I would post one more for bathroom just for kicks and giggles:) I could have cleaned the dried toothpaste off of the toothbrush and the the toothpaste off the counter but I thought I'd keep it real. Not that anyone would believe that my bathroom would be any different:)

Settings- f2.8 ss 1/320 iso 3200

My Bathroom...

So I am a little behind this week and I have to say a little uninspired. I don't know whose idea it was to have bathrooms as a theme but whoever it was should be fired!! Anyways back to my bathroom...
You are probably wondering what eggs have to do with my bathroom... Well I will tell you:) Last year my husband decided to go into the chicken business (kind of anyway). We have had laying chickens off and on for several years and when Lan was old enough he became the egg gatherer/washer. Last year when we started raising meat chickens as well and it became Lan's job to feed/water/care for the meat chickens and Ryley inherited the job of gathering and washing the eggs. Well Ryley isn't quite tall enough to easily wash the eggs at the kitchen sink so he uses the sink in the back bathroom. And because it is an everyday job it seems that I ALWAYS have eggs in my back bathroom. Its almost like they are part of the decor:) You might also be wondering what that green egg is doing amongst all the pretty white and brown eggs... Shortly after we bought our last batch of laying hens the boys noticed that one of them had green feet. So we were curious what kind of eggs this green footed chicken would lay and surprise surprise she lays green eggs! At first I thought they looked gross like a rotten egg or something but it is growing on me:)

Settings... f2.8 ss 1/200 iso 1000

Hopefully I will have some better inspiration as the week goes on... Or just hope it goes quickly and pick a better theme next week :)

Gettin' In Another Blue...

...gotta hurry before the week is gone. This really isn't anything blue, but it is a look I have worked a LONG time to achieve on my own. I love that it is kinda hazy with a subtle blue look to it. I absolutely LOVE it on girls with blue eyes. It doesn't work on every picture though-of course who would want every picture to look the same? Thought I would share, and since I don't use the ever popular Photoshop (gasp-I know!) I am going to put up screen shots of my curves so you can achieve a similar look if you want.
starting with your blue channel...keep the line straight but bring down/up the points
in the green channel create a very slight curve down in the highlights (upper half of the line)
in the red channel create a small dip in the midtones (middle of the line)
and then for a little extra umph and contrast pull down very slightly in the shadows (bottom half of the line) and then back up even less a little further up the line.
the before and after...I like but feel free to tell me you don't if you don't :)

no to start thinking about the bathroom...oh joyous I think I better clean it first

Week 2 - Bathroom

Bathrooms are my nemesis. They are my least favorite thing to clean. I dread it but feel like a huge weight is lifted when its done (for a week at least:). Even though I don't like them one of my favorite decorated rooms in my house is one of my bathrooms. So this week let's post pics of our bathrooms and why they are unique, or not. :)

Another Blue...

Because my ultimate goal is to take better pics inside my house and because I think he is so cute in his superman shirt:)...
What I learned...
-I still can't get Tate to show his real smile for the camera. This is probably the closest I have come but its still not it.
-If I roll up my blinds, instead of just opening them I get LOTS more light. There was still a little bit of a yellow cast on the left side of his face (camera right) but that was easy to remove.

f2.8 ss 1/160 iso 800

-This one I just pulled him away from the couch and shot from above to remove all the distractions in the bg. Our tv is big and I don't think it makes a very good backdrop. :)
-Looking at it now the color still seems a little off??? Guess I still need to work on that :)

f2.8 ss 1/200 iso 800

Not portrait worthy but definitely better than most snapshots inside my house.

I Got IN!

Thanks Amber for the email! FYI if you don't get an invite in your email box (like me-not sure how many times Sharon sent it) just let us know and we will send you the email then you can just copy and paste the link and sign in that way.

So on to my blue...I posted it on my other blog but thought I would add it here too so when I look back I will not look like a delinquent student :)
1) my settings for this one were ISO 400 1/500 f32


2) my settings were ISO 400 1/250 f32


3)my settings were ISO 200 1/2500 f10


4) my settings ISO 200 1/4000 f4.0


ISO 200 1/6400 f4.0


I am always open to cc-and I don't care if you do one or all images.

Sharon's Blue...

BLUE #2

This idea came to me last night while I when I was trying to go to sleep but also wondering what I was going to do for my "blue" project today. I wanted to find a way to make it more interesting but my mind kept coming up blank. That is until I was sitting in my big comfy chair reading a book, thinking about all the other things I "should" be doing, I looked over and saw the lines on the table. I'm not sure I accomplished the look I was going for but that is what practicing and learning is all about. Right?

What I like/dislike:
-I like that the shadow of the glass leads the eye to the glass.
-I like the lines on the table but not the blinds in the background. Maybe if I had shot more of an upward angle I could have eliminated some of the bg.
-I don't like the water spots/smudge marks on the top of the glass. I saw them but was hoping you wouldn't be able to see them in the photo. Next time I will know better :)

Settings were: f4.5 ss 1/8000 iso 250
Shot with my 50mm

So not the most exciting pic in the world and probably more red than blue but my focus was the blue gum ball.

What I think I could have done better:
- closed down my app. just a little so the focus was more on the blue gum ball
- I was going for the split lighting but maybe should have diffused the light on the left a little so that it looked more blue or reflected the light onto the other side of the gumball so it wasn't so dark.
-I wish I had left a little more room on the bottom of the frame so the gum ball wasn't so close to the bottom.

What do you think?

Settings were f4.0 ss 1/160 iso 1250 -
Shot with my 100mm macro on my kitchen table window light camera left.