February 28: Day 52

Today's photo was taken on the way home from finding a geocache at a nearby park. We walked the half mile and the kids rode in the bike trailer. We found the geocache pretty easily and even picked up a travel bug which we plan to take to Denver with us in two weeks. David was in a hurry to get home before it got dark so I didn't get to stand still and play with sun flare for very long. Too bad, it was a delightfully golden evening to practice!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/60 sec
Aperture: f/11
Focal Length: 75mm
ISO: 200
Flash: Off

February 27: Day 51

The world is upside down. Today's photo is of my husband. That's right, that makes two photos of my camera shy guy in one week. Somebody pinch me because I must be dreaming this.

All four of us piled on our bed this afternoon after a groggy trip home from Bridgeport Village. This was taken with Ethan in front of me (he would be the blur). It's not the sharpest photo in the world but I like it because it's of my sweetie.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/80 sec
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 65mm
ISO: 200
Flash: Off

February 26: Day 50

Today's photo is of one of my hydrangeas. Can you see it? It's there, just munched down to practically nothing. This hydrangea was planted four years ago and has been about this size for the past three years, mostly due to its unfortunate placement in the back of our yard. If you think this is bad you haven't seen a few of my azaleas next to it. Actually you'll never see them again because I'm pretty sure they're toast. The deer must think my azaleas taste better then my hydrangeas and I'm quite okay with that. I don't like the azaleas anyways. Every spring I'm surprised to see green leaves on this particular plant. I don't know how it survives but I'm glad it does. Someday we'll have a fence and it might even get to grow bigger then two inches tall!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/100 sec
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 60mm
ISO: 100
Flash: Off

February 25: Day 49

Today's photo was taken tonight in Corvallis at the Oregon Pound Jiu Jitsu class. My husband started Jiu Jitsu several months ago and earned his first stripe about a month ago. Jiu Jitsu doesn't move people up belt colors very quickly, in fact he probably won't make blue belt for another year or two since he only goes to two classes a week. Thanks to our friends Pat and Katie (thank you again!) I was able to tag along kid-free with my camera and hang out in a gym full of sweaty men. Every girl's fantasy come true. Or not. It was pretty interesting to watch and I had fun trying to take photos. The gym wasn't exactly well lit and I was smashed up against a wall and had to keep dodging feet and elbows so my photos aren't exactly stellar. I probably should have cranked the ISO up even more and/or used a flash. I didn't think the guys would appreciate a flash. Just my being in their way was distracting enough!

This particular photo features my husband. Don't hold your breath waiting to see another photo of him anytime soon since he's camera shy. It took me nearly 50 days into this project to get a photo of him!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/80 sec
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 28mm
ISO: 400
Flash: Off

February 24: Day 48

Today's photo doesn't have a great story behind it. David asked me to make hot chocolate this afternoon (I think we were both feeling the cold rainy weather today!) and I took a picture of my cup of hot chocolate. I confess that I did have to wipe the crumbs off the counter first because I thought they might detract.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/60 sec
Aperture: f/21.8
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 400
Flash: Off

February 23: Day 47

Today's photo was taken in the car again. Grace fell asleep on the way to gymnastics so I took the opportunity to get a few little girl sleeping photos. There's really no other way for me to get any these days! Today is also the first time I've edited photos on a calibrated monitor. My husband can't tell the difference but I can! Sooooo much easier.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/60 sec
Aperture: f/2.0
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 400
Flash: Off

February 22: Day 46

Today's photo is of my beautiful roses that my sweetie let me pick out at Costco this weekend. With the all the sunshine lately I had to pick this mix of roses that remind me of warmer days!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/100 sec
Aperture: f/2.0
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 100
Flash: Off

February 21: Day 45

Today's photo was taken late this afternoon while we were geocaching with friends. We trekked half a mile with these four kiddos only to discover we couldn't get to the geocache after all. We found the last geocache we looked for and it happened to be at a park which was a great ending spot for the kids. We played in the sunshine for awhile before heading to Burgerville for dinner. I'm totally loving the winter sunshine!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/200 sec
Aperture: f/2.0
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 100
Flash: Off

February 20: Day 44

Grace and I baked a cake today. Partly to celebrate Opa's birthday (too bad I can't mail you a piece!) and partly just for fun. I had a coupon to buy a cake mix for $.13 yesterday and I let Grace pick out the flavor. She chose Cherry Chip. She helped me mix it up and then she chose one of the 11 cans of Betty Crocker canned frosting (don't judge...they were free) from the pantry. She chose Rainbow Chip frosting and we made "polka dots" with the leftover pink Cherry frosting from some sugar cookies. Tasty stuff.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/125 sec
Aperture: f/2.0
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 200
Flash: Off

February 19: Day 43

Today was absolutely beautiful! The sun was shining, my daffodils popped out, and when Grace asked if we could play outside this afternoon I said "Absolutely!" We busted out the sidewalk chalk for the first time in a long while. That lasted about 10 minutes until the kids gravitated to their favorite place to play, right next to the community mailbox (which happens to be right in front of our house). They poked sticks in the pipe until I got tired of it and then we went to the backyard to play on the swing set. That lasted about 5 minutes until the pushing/fighting/kicking on the swings drove me nuts and we went inside. I don't think we're used to nice weather and playing outside. We need more practice.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/200 sec
Aperture: f/2.5
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 100
Flash: Off

February 18: Day 42

Today's photo was taken in Salem while we were on the skybridge at the Salem Center Mall. There's some fantastic lighting to be found there!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/125 sec
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 28mm
ISO: 100
Flash: Off

February 17: Day 41

Today's photo was taken this morning at the Indoor Park that the kids and participate in. We've been attending at least once a week since fall of 2006, hard to believe it's been 3 1/2 years! Ethan had a grand time climbing to the top of the slide and then jumping off instead of sliding down. The lighting in the church basement is not stellar so I didn't get any super great "in action" jumping shots. They're a little blurry due to not a fast enough shutter speed. Perhaps in better lighting conditions...

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/160 sec
Aperture: f/1.8
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 800
Flash: Off

February 16: Day 40

Today's photo is of my beautiful teapot that my brother in law made for me. He's quite the talented potter and this certainly isn't our only handmade pottery item made by Sam but it's certainly my favorite!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/60 sec
Aperture: f/1.8
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 400
Flash: Off

February 15: Day 39

Today I got to play with a real film SLR camera for the very first time. My brother came down to visit today and we went out with his vintage film Canon SLR camera and some black and white film and we got down and dirty in the Arboretum. It took him a little bit to remember how to insert the film but once the camera was locked and loaded we had a good time! The controls were definitely different from my new fangled digital SLR but I still felt like I knew what I was doing. The light meter thingy was kind of cool. We had 400 ISO speed film and the overcast day wasn't overly bright so I had to shoot with a slow shutter speed which makes me nervous. I'm curious to see how the photos come out. I'm so used to having instant feedback on the photos I'm taking that it feels weird to be shooting "blind"!

Since the only lens my brother has for the film SLR is a f/1.4 50mm (super nice lens by the way!) I threw my f/1.8 50mm lens on my camera and we traded. We switched a few times because I wanted to make sure to get my photo of the day and I played with the shutter speed at the creek. This photo is of my brother working hard to get the perfect shot.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/100 sec
Aperture: f/1.8
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 100
Flash: Off

And as a bonus here's a shot of me that my brother took with my camera:

February 14: Day 38

Happy Valentines Day! I'm not going to post a predictable Valentines Day photo because that's not what I took today. The only photos I took were right before dinner when we played Wii Music (Grace's Valentines Day present). It was a hoot watching the kids "play" the instruments! Ethan really got into it. This particular photo is of Grace playing the horn. It's pretty grainy due to the high ISO but it was taken right before dinner time with zero natural light.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/80 sec
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 38mm
ISO: 800
Flash: Off

February 13: Day 37

I didn't take any photos today because I was tired. I got home from scrapbooking at 12:30 in the morning and when I got home I didn't get to crawl into my comfy bed. Oh no. Instead I got to crawl into a sleeping bag on the floor under a tarp "fort" and have my four year old sleep half on top of me most of the night. I never take naps but today, my four year old and I both took a nap together on the couch.

After putting the kids to bed (early) I picked my camera up and felt no inspiration. Nada. Then my eyes glanced by the office door where the new fancy shmancy desktop was glowing purple and thought it'd be fun to play around with taking photos of it. I probably spent a solid 15 minutes taking photos of nothing but the purple light glowing from the desktop. Hey, I'm tired and my A game wasn't on tonight.

The room was dark and I upped my ISO up to 1600 for most of my shots. I managed to capture a few star flares from the lights which was fun. To get those I had to set my aperture to around f/22 which made the photo really dark. It was fun to experiment.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/5 sec (handheld!)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 28mm
ISO: 1600
Flash: Off

February 12: Day 36

This morning we went to our Indoor Park's Valentines Day Party where the kids exchanged valentines. They each decorated a paper bag and then went around the table dropping off their valentines in each one. Grace understood the process but Ethan didn't get it. I snapped this pic of the valentines bags all lined up and filled because I thought they were so cute!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/50 sec
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 400
Flash: Off

February 11: Day 35

Today's photo wasn't planned. I had brought my camera to Grace's gymnastics class but when I parked the car and turned around to get the kids out of their seats I realized that Grace had fallen asleep during the 20 minute car ride. I snapped a total of three photos of her asleep. One of her face and two of her hands. I really like the photo of her hands because it's the small details like little fingers that I don't want to forget. So just anticipate a gymnastics themed photo another day.

Sorry if you're all getting bored with this particular group of actions but I'm still really digging them!


Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/50 sec
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 60mm
ISO: 400
Flash: Off

February 10: Day 34

Today's inspiration came from some conversation hearts. This was taken on my front east-facing window sill in the early afternoon. I really should have switched my lens for my 50mm but I was lazy.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/200 sec
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 55mm
ISO: 100
Flash: Off

February 9: Day 33

Today's photo was taken this morning at our MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) meeting. It was our dress up day and I tried to get a few photos of the women dressed in their finery. It's one heck of a challenge to try and dress up and look good and be at a function with kids in tow before 9am! I even broke out my heels. This photo is of my favorite pair of shoes I saw. I just had to get a photo of them on our "red carpet"!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/100 sec
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 54mm
ISO: 400
Flash: Off

February 8: Day 32

Today's photo was taken at the OHSU Casey Eye Institute this morning. My daughter met the eye surgeon who will be performing her eye surgery this August. She did such a great job reading her letters off the vision chart and cooperated perfectly. Of course it doesn't hurt that seeing the eye doctor is old hat for her. She looks so small in that big chair but I'm proud of her for sitting on it by herself so confidently.

Since I didn't want to get weird looks I snuck this photo really quick while the doctor left the room for a moment. Since I was aiming for speed I switched to aperture priority which turned out way too dark. I quickly switched to Manual and got one nicely lit shot but I like the expression on Grace's face in this one better. Thank heavens for RAW!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/250 sec
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 28mm
ISO: 400
Flash: Off

February 7: Day 31

Today's photo is from the end of our Super Bowl party. We had a casual get together with some friends which was fun. None of us are die hard football fans but enjoy the chance to spend time together and eat junk food!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/50 sec
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 400
Flash: Off

February 6: Day 30

I left the house multiple times today with the Redbox movie in my diaper bag to return and forgot every time. So after we got the kids in bed I headed out to McDonalds to return it. On my way out I grabbed my camera with the passing thought that I might try out some night photography since I hadn't taken my photo of the day quite yet. Too bad I didn't remember to also throw the tripod in the car. Oh well. I parked across from City Hall and wandered around "downtown" Dallas for 10 minutes in the drizzling rain giving night photography a shot for the first time. I figured that since everything was soaking wet there might be some nice reflections. If I had my tripod with me I could have got some neat photos of the City Hall building because the lights that shine on it have slightly different colors and with a slow shutter speed create a rainbow of color. Of course I can't hold the camera still for long enough to get a photo of it in focus! That would be where a tripod would come in handy.

So can any of you locals tell where this photo was taken? It's pretty easy to figure out. I'm just pleased I was able to get an urban look in a very un-urban environment!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/16 sec
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 57mm
ISO: 800
Flash: Off

February 5: Day 29

I noticed that my daffodils were starting to bud the other day which made me thrilled because that means that spring will be here soon! Or at least it gets me hopeful, especially on beautiful sunny days like today.

I'm proud that I've switched to the manual setting on my camera and haven't taken it off for the past few weeks. I used my Tamron 28-75 zoom for this even though my 50mm would have probably been better. I've been using my 50mm a lot lately and thought I'd practice some more with my zoom. Plus I didn't have to kneel in the mud like I would have needed to do if I had used my prime. Another bonus.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/160 sec
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 71mm
ISO: 100
Flash: Off

February 4: Day 28

Today's photo is brought to you courtesy of the four loads of laundry I folded this afternoon. While I watched yesterday's Oprah (love our DVR!) and folded clothes the kids made "little houses" out of the two laundry baskets. In fact they're still playing in them an hour later. Such fun play things laundry baskets have turned out to be!

Since we're inside on a rainy afternoon the lighting is less then fantastic. I even switched my White Balance to Tungsten and the photos were still way too yellow. Thank goodness for RAW and Adobe Bridge is all I have to say. I also had to bump my ISO up to 800 which I very rarely do. I have a hard time embracing the grain, but there wasn't any other way to get these photos to turn out other then using the flash and I was just too lazy to dig that out of the closet.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/50 sec
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 28mm
ISO: 800
Flash: Off

February 3: Day 27

This afternoon when I picked Grace up from preschool she pleaded with me to let her play outside when we got home and I reluctantly agreed (it was wet...what else is new?). After we got home I went to grab my camera and when I got back to the living room she had already stripped down to her underwear and announced that she was going to wear dress up clothes outside. I decided to negotiate and said she could wear her tutu but only if she wore leggings of some variety. She chose to wear her pink polka dotted Baby Legs (tell me she's not the only 4 year old who still wears them) and grudgingly agreed to wear a coat. I vetoed the plastic dress up shoes and told her to wear her pink converse or cowgirl boots (her only non-mary jane type shoes). She chose the boots. Part of the negotiating to play outside was that she was going to have to let me take some photos of her. She wasn't too excited about that, but then she saw her reflection in the sliding glass door behind me and started dancing like nobody's business in order to watch herself. She did all sorts of dance moves including pirouettes, leaps, and fancy toe walking. It was quite impressive. I was focusing on her pink boots and they didn't stop moving!

It's Audience Participation Day! I couldn't pick which version of this photo I like best so I'm leaving it up to you all to vote which one should be the official Photo of the Day #27. Color or Sepia? Vote in the poll on the right.

Update: Color Version won 12-7


Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/400 sec
Aperture: f/2.0
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 200
Flash: Off

February 2: Day 26

Today was our big shopping and banking day in Salem which meant that I told the kids that if they were good they could pick out a treat to enjoy at home when we were all done. Since I needed to buy two filler items at Walgreens to make my deal work (I made money on that trip so this candy was totally FREE!) I let them each pick out a candy. Grace chose this candy necklace for $.34 and Ethan chose a chocolate covered marshmallow heart for $.27. When we got home Ethan was passed out in his car seat but Grace was wide awake and very ready for her treat. In this photo she's showing me the heart she had bitten into.

I'm really digging this set of Actions. I can't remember where I got them from but I love the softness! Once again this photo was taken facing our south facing sliding glass door in the late afternoon with absolutely no artificial lighting. It was pretty dark in the kitchen, but that reduces the nasty yellow skin color with the added bonus that you don't notice how messy the kitchen is. Kills two birds in one stone.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/100 sec
Aperture: f/2.0
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 200
Flash: Off

February 1: Day 25

Today is a very typical wet, gray, icky kind of Northwest sort of day. The perfect kind of day to find big water drops hanging on for dear life to tree branches and anything else outside. This is one of the poor trees in our backyard that has been used as a snack by the deer. I'm surprised it's still alive. I used a fast shutter speed because I didn't want to lose the water droplet. I tried to get some photos of rain drops but I think I may have to pose that shot because the cement patio isn't a solid enough color to really make the splash pop. Maybe I'll try that again sometime. I'm sure I'll have plenty of rainy days this spring to practice!

Oh, I used one of the Pioneer Woman's actions for this one. It's called Seventies and for some reason I like it on this photo. Maybe it's because I can pretend it's an old photo of a rainy day and that it's really sunny and nice outside today. That could be it.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/1600 sec
Aperture: f/1.8
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 200
Flash: Off