The Little Photographer

Quickie post tonight:

As foreshadowed yesterday, my girls got to get outside and play today.

And play they did.

They ran and ran around the yard, especially through the last patch of snow.

Lass fell and got snow on her hands.  She did not like that one bit, and Daddy warmed them up for her. 

They got beautifully wet and dirty and had fits when it was time to come in for lunch and naps.  Hopefully we will have more of the same tomorrow.

Miss got a little camera today.  She has been asking for one.  She was so excited and get right to taking photos of everything.

Her sister.

Herself.

Her Yo Gabba Friends.

And various other artistic subjects.

This one was quite puzzling to us until we realized she had taken a picture of the cover of her Daddy's "Whitetail" magazine.

I love this one.  She took it while spinning around dancing.

I didn't edit any of these photos other than to enhance the color on them a bit, as this kid's camera doesn't take the best quality photos.  No cropping or otherwise changing the pics.  I love them!  What a wonderful way to see the world through her eyes.  I'm so proud of my little photographer.

I Guess I'll Just Teach Myself

I have been wanting to take a photography class ever since I got my DSLR camera, about 2 years ago.  It's a wonderful camera, and my photos improved dramatically just by switching to it from my point and shoot.  But I have pretty much been using it on the Auto setting for two years.  I've learned a few tips here and there, and purchased some lens upgrades, but I really have wanted to take the next step to using the many settings my camera has to offer.

I grabbed a course book for the local community college a few weeks ago, determined to find a class to take before the baby arrives.  I found one that looked really interesting, but the meeting times weren't very good.  I found another with a doable meeting time, but it wasn't really what I was looking for.  So, I have decided to try harder to teach myself.  I have a camera manual, a good book my husband bought me for my birthday (almost two years ago), and lots of helpful online resources.  No excuse not to gain some new knowledge and skills.  

One thing I've been wanting to do is learn how to use the settings of the camera so I can get more light into my photos without using my pop-up flash, which I have tended to use a lot even though it gives a weird look to the photos.  Unfortunately, around here this time of year it isn't uncommon to have a serious lack of good natural light.  Luckily, this morning I did have lots of light to get some good photos of the girls without using the flash. 

But tonight I wanted to experiment a little bit in the relative dark of our family room.  The overhead lights were turned off, so the only light in the room came from one floor lamp next to my chair and the light from surrounding rooms.  My wonderful hubby was tolerant as I snapped his photo over and over.  I had read a tip that, to let more light into a photo, I should set the aperture to the lowest (or highest? biggest? smallest?  I don't get the lingo yet, but whatever) setting.  I put my camera on the aperture setting and turned it down (the number got smaller) and got this.

Then I went to the lowest number I could with the lens I was using (1.8) and got this.

I couldn't believe how bright the photos were!

Of course, to get this much light in the photos, the shutter speed was slowed down quite a bit.  To give a little bit of perspective, I then switched to the fully manual setting, kept the aperture on 1.8, and then sped the shutter speed way up.  I got this.

A little slower shutter speed and I got this.

A little slower.

Then I slowed it waaayy down, and couldn't get it in focus.  Just the slight shake of my hand while the shutter was open for so long made it blurry.

A little faster.

Perfect.

Isn't he handsome??

I think I'll do more practicing with the camera on the aperture mode.  I think this will be the easiest way to experiment and still get some good photos of my girls.  That's really why I take photos anyway.

Membership Has its Privileges

For months now, I have been saying that I want to rejoin the YMCA.  My husband and I were members when we first moved here, because we lived in a rental house and didn't have a good place to exercise at home.  When we bought our current house, we set up a nice garage gym area and let our Y membership lapse.  Miss was too tiny to do any activities there and we could exercise at home, so we let it go. BUT, now Miss is bigger.  She's old enough to start getting into some of the little classes they have at the Y and I really need to keep up with swimming lessons for both of the girls. There are so many good activities for families at the Y.  Plus, there isn't a whole lot else to do indoors in our town during the winter.  So, this week I finally got myself in gear and went to the Y to renew our family membership.  We started taking advantage of it yesterday by going to "Wiggles and Giggles."  Our Y has an indoor soccer field, and they open it up twice a week in the mornings for little ones to come and play.  They pull out ride-on toys, balls, big mats, and various other things for the kids to enjoy.  Not to mention there's lots of room to run.  The girls had a blast.

 (Quick snack break)

I'm so glad we joined.  The girls ran and danced and got to blow off some steam.  And we met some other moms and kids there, so I got to visit with some grown ups.  

And speaking of visiting with grown ups, my husband and I had a great date night last night.  We went to a new sushi place, and it was pretty good.  Of course the best part was just being able to hang out and chat with my hubby.  Before dinner we went to Miss's school and met with her teachers for our little parent-teacher conference.

It was great to hear all about what she has been doing in school and to see how thorough they are in their assessments of her.  And it was pretty cool to hear someone else describe her spot-on and know how much time and attention she must get there for them to be able to really "get" her so well.  I loved when they told me how much she likes to sing at the top of her lungs and to shake it when they dance.

No one needs to tell me how much my girls love to dance and that they've got some moves.

Miss got new ballet shoes yesterday.  The ones I got her for her Halloween costume had cut into her little heels and one shoe had totally split on the side from being worn so much, so I told her she couldn't wear those anymore.  She was so upset and asked repeatedly for them for several days.  When I pulled out the new shoes yesterday, I was relieved to find that she loves these just as much even though they're a different style.  She immediately asked, "Momma, can you play some music so I can ballet dance?"

So I did.  What better for ballet than The Cure??  

I got a question in a comment about organizing photos, related to my last post about taking at least one photo a day.  Unfortunately, I'm not really great about organizing my photos.  Mostly I just dump them into iPhoto.  I do "flag" my favorites when I'm going through and editing them, which is how I select the pics I'm going to upload to a blog post or use for something else.  Just in the past few days with the start of this new project I have begun putting photos into folders by month, so I will have a little bit better organization of them that way.  I also have set a goal to start deleting photos a little bit more so I won't have such an overwhelming mass of pictures.  And few years ago I set a goal to make photo books for each of my girls for each year of their lives.  Unfortunately, I've only completed Miss's first year book.  So making the rest of the books needs to become a priority, and I'm hoping to get my photos more organized that way too.  I will make folders for each girl, each year in my iPhoto in addition to making the books.  That's it.  I don't have a great system yet.  Anyone else have a good way of organizing digital photos?

The 365-Photo Project

I like to read a blog called I Heart Faces.  It's a photography blog, and often they have very cool tips or ideas.  One thing I read about on Sunday was the 365-Photo Project.  The (fairly obvious from the title) "project" is to set a goal to take at least one photo every day for a year.  I love this idea, and decided I am going to do it this year, and every year from now on.  What a great way to document all the moments, big and small, of my girls' lives. 

So far, I've gotten some very fun photos.  Sunday morning, Lass woke up really early.  We got to spend a little time playing, just the two of us.  And I got to kick off my new project with these super cute photos of her in her sister's new play apron, "cooking."

As a side note, Lass has recently started wanting to take her jammies or clothes off all the time.  So, there may be a lot of pics in the near future of her in just a onesie.  Or more likely, a onesie with some sort of dress up apparel over it.

Yesterday, I got this photo of the girls as they were playing and waiting for some friends to come over for a play date.

And today, my big girl was happy to ham it up for me when I asked her to show off her "Go Blue" shirt after school (big bowl game tonight, after all).

I love this face.

She really wanted a photo in this pose.

And of course, my other beautiful one, crazy hair and all (she pulled out her spout pony this morning).

Here's to a year of great photos of my girls.