Another assignment post

I think all I've posted about lately has been photography, but it sure feels like that's all I've done (well, other than driving my kids everywhere, but that's not really fun to hear about). The assignment we had this week was to learn how to control the depth of field in the photograph, so we needed 30 short depth of field photos and 30 long depth of field photos. My long depth of field photos were really terrible, so I'm not going to post any of them here, but I was pretty pleased with some of my short depth of field. This is my friend's little girl, and it definitely helps to come out with nice photos when you start with such a beautiful subject. She had me laughing too because she was a total diva. First I was going to shoot her inside, but there wasn't enough light. I suggested we go outside thinking we'd go in her backyard, and she insists that we need to go to the park across from her house. After we'd been at the park for a little while, I asked her if she could stand somewhere for me, she says, "No, Jessica, I need to get some water!". After the water, I convinced her to go in her backyard, and I suggested we try to take some near the pool, she refused to go in the pool gate ("No, I'm not allowed!"). She's such a funny little girl and I love her dearly, so it was a lot of fun to work with her. I asked her if she'd let me take pictures of her again and she said yes, so I hope to have some more fun with her soon.

New toys and time to play

Another quickie, but I'm so excited that I got a new toy today.

I even got the time to play with it a little and took some pictures of the page I worked on yesterday and Bailey's invitation for her birthday party.

I totally moved furniture around today just to be make my own little studio so my pictures would come out better. Can I just say how much I love photography? And the best part, I think, is that they're only going to get better. :D

A quick card

This was for my card club this last month. I haven't found the time to be crafty lately other than to rush making my daughter's birthday invitations, so I thought I would post this one. I absolutely love the colors in this card and desperately need to buy more of this paper before it goes away! And I've been having a great time using my markers now that I sort of know how to use them so my images are popping a little more. I just need more time to practice now!

More photos

I'm behind on sharing my photographs for class, so here's one more assignment before I start taking the pictures for the next assignment.

This assignment, we were supposed to practice using the three motion techniques (stop action, blur, and panning) in a creative way. I really struggled with this assignment, not the techniques so much (well, definitely panning, but if you've ever done it, you know how hard it is to master!) but the creative aspect of it. I drove all over taking photos of different things without coming up with something that I really liked. Finally I decided to just have fun with my kids, and sure enough, that's all I needed to do.

I got down into the pool and had them run and jump over me into the pool while shooting the entire time. I think I ended up with over a hundred pictures, most of which aren't great, but this group turned out pretty good.

I really liked this one, I just wish I hadn't got the sun flare right in his face. I tried having the kids jump the other direction away from the sun, but the house in the background just took a lot away from the pictures. But I really love how the sun lit up the water beneath him and his splash down into the water. 

This is the one I presented in class. I love how it looks like he's stepping on the frame of the picture or that he looks like he's walking in the air. Hopefully I learned my lesson from this experience, and instead of driving all over trying to get different things, maybe I should focus my lens on my favorite subjects and work on getting better pictures of them. That is why I started taking this class, after all, so that I had better photos to scrap (now if only I could find the time to scrap!).

Bad blogger

So I'm a bad blogger...and this post isn't really going to cure that because it will mostly be pictures. But, I wanted to catch up a little on my progress in my photography class. I'm having so much fun learning all about photography, hopefully it shows in my photos. 

For this assignment, we were supposed to find our subject we wanted to photograph and then break it down into five smaller close up shots instead of just one overall photo. I immediately thought of a few ideas of what I could do with my son while he was playing with his toys, so Cole was my (sometimes un)willing subject.

This started out as a different photo. I focused on his feet because he does this really weird thing with his toes and I wanted him to do that in the photo, but I couldn't get the shot I wanted with him messing with his feet. I really liked how it turned out though because this is the position he is in a lot of times while he's playing with his toys.

This kid's hair is always sticking up all over the place, so I had to get one of the cowlick.

When I first got Cole into Star Wars at age 4, he was too young for the larger, more breakable action figures, but I found these little guys and we started his collection. He now has hundreds of them and he's never wanted the larger action figures. Even at ten, he still plays with these one. You can see the wear on Luke, how much Cole plays with this toy.

This one is my favorite and the reason I started photographing Cole at all. This boy is always carrying Legos around in his pockets and I knew I wanted to do something that showed that, and I was super pleased with how this photo came out.