April 30: Day 113

For the outtakes behind this photo check out my family blog here. Let's just say taking photos of my daughter is difficult but taking a photo of both my children together is a nightmare!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/160 sec
Aperture: f/3.5
Focal Length: 45mm
ISO: 100
Flash: Off

April 29: Day 112

I was chasing the sunset and the clouds beat me to my destination so I had to settle for this fence instead. At least it's not a plant of some variety!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/100 sec
Aperture: f/8.0
Focal Length: 68mm
ISO: 400
Flash: Off

April 28: Day 111

I took this photo tonight after we got home from the AWANAS Hot Dog Feed & Award Night. The sun hadn't quite disappeared so I hurried outside with my fully charged battery (died on me this afternoon after the first photo I took!) and saw this yellow flowering bush in the scrubby stuff behind our house. Got tackled by some blackberries (but hopefully no poison oak!) in pursuit of this photo and I have to say I'm happy with it. I love the colors and no I didn't do any weird Photoshop post-processing to get this result. All I did was crop and sharpen. The purple/blue tones are too gorgeous to mess with!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/125 sec
Aperture: f/3.2
Focal Length: 38mm
ISO: 200
Flash: Off

April 27: Day 110

I found this pretty nuclear green bush in the church parking lot this morning. I had just finished cleaning up after this morning's MOPS meeting and had buckled both kids in the car when this bush caught my eye. I had my camera in the car so I took a few minutes to snap a few photos. I'm glad I did!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/125 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 51mm
ISO: 100
Flash: Off

April 26: Day 109

I almost used the rather boring photo of the greeting card aisle in Rite Aid but thankfully I was inspired by the pretty candles at my bible study last night and had my camera in my bag. My husband asked me to take the greeting card photo for his PowerPoint presentation for work. I'm sure that's what most people do when they want a particular photo for their presentation. Or maybe they just use Google Image Search. Hmmmm.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/100 sec
Aperture: f/3.2
Focal Length: 42mm
ISO: 800
Flash: Off

April 25: Day 108

I took this photo of our seashell haul the evening we got back home from the beach. I didn't have a lot of sunlight outside but I made it work. Grace is very proud of the shells we found while tidepooling!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/100 sec
Aperture: f/3.5
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 200
Flash: Off

April 24: Day 107

The last night we were at the beach there was a beautiful sunset that I naturally took advantage of! I don't have a lot of practice with sunset shots since I don't have a great view of the sunset from our yard. It was hard to deal with the rather bright sun. I was hoping for some pretty colors but all we got was gold. The ocean was pretty angry with bigger waves then usual. The big waves created the piles of frothy fluffy stuff that covered the beach. I have more photos of the fluff I may post later.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/500 sec
Aperture: f/18.0
Focal Length: 35mm
ISO: 100
Flash: Off

April 23: Day 106

This photo is of my husband and children getting ready to chase some waves. Ethan loved chasing the waves but only if one of us was holding him. Apparently he thinks his little toes are too delicate for cold wet sand but ours aren't. Grace just took advantage of Daddy's offer to carry her!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/400 sec
Aperture: f/10.0
Focal Length: 28mm
ISO: 400
Flash: Off

April 22: Day 105

This was the day we arrived at the beach house for a long weekend at the Oregon coast. We soaked in the view that evening from the balcony. Yes, this view will do.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/400 sec
Aperture: f/20.0
Focal Length: 37mm
ISO: 400
Flash: Off

April 21: Day 104

This little cutie actually belongs to a friend of mine and she's always in a happy smiley mood when I see her. Smiley babies with big expressive eyes are so much fun to photograph, especially the ones in the sitting but not crawling phase. That is a beautiful but short phase. One that never lasted long enough with my own two kiddos! This actually isn't the first time I've pointed a camera in this little one's direction. I got to take some newborn photos of her last fall which was a lot of fun! You can see them here.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/80 sec
Aperture: f/1.8
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 400
Flash: Off

April 20: Day 103

I took this photo tonight after dinner and before I left for my MOPS meeting. The kids were playing with their Legos on the living room floor and Ethan was so very proud of how tall he made his tower. The look on his face when he pronounced his tower "big" was priceless!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/100 sec
Aperture: f/2.0
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 800
Flash: Off

April 19: Day 102

Today's photo is of the two flowers my children oh so lovingly picked from the rhododendron in front of the Indoor Park we went to this morning. They replaced the rather sad looking purple weeds that were in the bud vase on the table already.

I thought I'd share another photography tip with you all. Sometimes you get better photos when you turn the lights off. I know it sounds funny and counter intuitive, but natural light from a window can be soooooo much prettier. To show you the difference I'm posting today's photo (taken on the kitchen table near the sliding glass door with NO lights on but using a white reflector) and following it is the same subject taken in the same spot only with all the kitchen lights turned on.

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

April 18: Day 101

I didn't pull out the camera until right before my daughter went to bed so tonight's photo is of Grace reading her Katje the Windmill Cat book before bed. She was "reading" me the story and kept insisting that Katje the Cat's name was really Lettuce. I really don't think so.

I needed the flash to get a better shot but I didn't want to flash my daughter right before bedtime (after all, the goal is to get her sleepy!) so I made do with all the room lights turned on, cranked the ISO up to 1600, and used my 50mm at the lowest possible aperture with a fairly slow shutter speed. This is as good as I can do with my camera and lenses at nighttime with halogen lighting. Speaking of halogen lighting, I almost made this a black and white so I wouldn't have the awful yellow color issues but it was a little too dark. I did have my White Balance set at Halogen Lighting which helps some, but the color is still way too yellow for my tastes.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/100 sec
Aperture: f/1.8
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 1600
Flash: Off

April 17: Day 100

For Day 100 I thought I'd try and do something fun. Since I was only home for a couple hours this afternoon and the kids wanted to make cookies during that time this is what you get. I set up the camera on the tripod, set the timer, and we measured our ingredients! Ethan dipped his hand into the peanut butter jar and smeared peanut butter all over the place. Grace dumped sugar all over the counter. The kids helped roll the dough into balls, none of which were equal in size, and then Grace smashed the cookie balls with a fork (doesn't everyone do that with peanut butter cookies?). Making cookies with kids is certainly messier and the results are less then perfect, but they taste great and I can only pray that I'm fostering an interest in helping me in the kitchen! Click here for the World's Best Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe...seriously yummy!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/100 sec
Aperture: f/3.2
Focal Length: 67mm
ISO: 800
Flash: Off

April 16: Day 99

Another macro? Yeah, I'm a little obsessed. I would really like to buy a macro lens one of these days to really play because I absolutely love detail. This happens to be a dandelion next to my daughter's preschool modular building. I finally remembered to bring my camera and both lenses I need and after 10 photos my camera battery died. Naturally. Perfect lighting, both lenses on hand, plenty of pretty purple weeds/flowers and dandelions, and so on. I'm so not lucky.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/250 sec
Aperture: f/13.0
Focal Length: 55mm
ISO: 200
Flash: Off

April 15: Day 98

I was sweeping the kitchen floor this evening when I noticed Grace's pink cowgirl boots looked pretty gosh darn cute sitting next to the (open!) sliding glass door. The sun was setting and the golden sunlight was spilling into our house and the pink cowgirl boots in the sun just made me happy. The grimy sliding glass door on the other hand....well let's just say that I'll be cleaning that tomorrow. Yikes!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/320 sec
Aperture: f/3.5
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 200
Flash: Off

April 14: Day 97

This is Grace's friend she named Rock. She's picked up this slightly purplish rock every time we've gone outside in the past month or so. She later found another purple rock that she named Other Rock and they were friends. She also found a leaf bed for the rocks. At least I know my four year old has a very active imagination!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/1000 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 200
Flash: Off

April 13: Day 96

I was prolific today. So prolific that I can't pick just one photo to be the photo of the day so I'm submitting two for your viewing pleasure. The first is a miracle shot of our cat Boo's green eye. Seriously, I don't know how I got this lucky. I was playing with the "poor man's macro" technique again and just for kicks thought I'd try to get a photo of the cat's eye when she looked up at me next to the sliding glass window. Don't ask me how I managed to get this in focus because I'm pretty sure it was a fluke.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/100 sec
Aperture: f/10.0
Focal Length: 55mm
ISO: 400
Flash: Off

I also played around with some old books I have. I love old books, they smell yummy, feel so soft, and have such pretty typography. This photo is so simple but I really like it. In case you're wondering, I have indeed read this book but I'm sad to say it's not particularly good or interesting.

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

April 12: Day 95

Today's photo was taken right after I got home from picking up my daughter from preschool. I had to wake poor Ethan up from his nap to get her and he wanted a snack as soon as we got home so I gave him a graham cracker which he quickly smeared all over his face. I love this photo of his super long eyelashes (it's soooo not fair that a boy gets these lashes!) and his dirty little face. Moms of boys will totally understand!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/160 sec
Aperture: f/3.2
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 100
Flash: Off

April 11: Day 94

I hate taking photos at night. I was going to take a photo of the board game we played tonight and totally forgot, so once again I was stuck with roaming the house at 10pm with my camera in hand trying to find some inspiration. I walked through the house three times before I got the idea to open the refrigerator. Aha! Yogurt! So there you have it.

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

April 10: Day 93

I totally forgot to bring my camera to the baby shower I went to today but did remember to bring it along on our walk to Safeway to pick up some fried chicken for dinner. I didn't have a lot of time to stop and take photos of the interesting dead weeds in the empty lot across from Rite Aid but did manage to get a few of my husband pushing the bike trailer. He wouldn't stop for me so I had to do my best to get a photo of a moving subject...kind of like photographing kids!

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/320 sec
Aperture: f/3.2
Focal Length: 47mm
ISO: 200
Flash: Off

April 9: Day 92

The Pioneer Woman is hosting a new photographic challenge next week with the theme "Macro". Since I don't have a macro lens (but I really really want one!) I decided to play with my "poor man's macro" technique of holding one lens backwards in front of another. Not exactly high tech and a little scary since I don't want to scratch my lenses. I used my 18-55 kit lens and held my 50mm prime backwards. It works but it's kind of awkward. Not to mention practically impossible to get any shot in focus while concentrating on not breathing, moving, dropping a lens, or scratching my lens on my subject since I'm literally that close to it. I really have no idea how photographers get these kind of shots perfectly in focus other then using a tripod indoors where there's no wind. Instead of subjecting everyone to a week of macro photos I spent some quality time in the yard this afternoon and will move on to other subjects now that I have five semi-decent macro photos to share with other Pioneer Woman Flickr users next week.

I couldn't decide which one should be the photo of the day so I had my husband choose between my top three. He happened to choose a photo of a purple weed. Pretty no?

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/100 sec
Aperture: f/10.0
Focal Length: 55mm
ISO: 400
Flash: Off

And here's a few more macros from today...

April 8: Day 91

Today was our errand day in town. I stopped at nine different stores/banks/dentist offices with two kids in tow. Needless to say, it was a long day and involved some sweet motivation for my "helpers". We hit up Walgreens towards the end of our trip and I scored three candy bars for $.78 with coupons. I gave my daughter the M&M's and my son split a Twix with me. Two minutes down the road on our way to our second Walmart of the day I heard "messy Mommy!" from behind me. I look in the rear view mirror to see my son completely smeared in melted chocolate. I honestly don't know how he managed to melt it and smear it that fast! Three minutes later I snapped the photo below in the Walmart parking lot and then I expertly cleaned him up (and his chocolate encrusted jeans!) with only two baby wipes. That's right, two. Either I totally rock at stretching a baby wipe as far as it can go, or I've cleaned my fair share of dirty diapers on the go with only one baby wipe left in the diaper bag. Honestly it could go either way.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/80 sec
Aperture: f/3.5
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 400
Flash: Off

April 7: Day 90

I made sure to remember to take a photo during daylight today! I prefer the natural light that shines through the sliding glass door in my kitchen in the late afternoon. So nice, so pretty. And it's not hard to convince my kids to play on the kitchen floor for me either. In fact, they were both in the middle of some serious puzzling action when I started taking their picture, concentrating on Ethan's adorable little toes!

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

April 6: Day 89

I realized this evening that the only photos I'd taken today were very utilitarian ones of miscellaneous electronic equipment I listed on Ebay which I didn't think anyone other then Ebay browsers would be interested in. So I grabbed a candle, plopped it down in the floor in our bedroom, and played with photographing the flame. It's harder then it looks! The flame is really bright and the background is really dark. I didn't want to overexpose the flame, but wanted to see a little bit of the candle too. I also had flare issues. I think I need to clean my lens!

On a side note, I can't get the "Candle in the Wind" song out of my head now. Crazy.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/80 sec
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length67: mm
ISO: 400
Flash: Off

April 5: Day 88

Rain, rain, go away. At least the sun peaked out for two minutes this afternoon. Long enough to get some decent light for a rainy tree blossom photo! By the way, I got soaked in the 60 seconds I was outside taking this picture.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/160 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 75 mm
ISO: 100
Flash: Off

April 4: Day 87

For today's Easter photo I thought I'd turn to the bible. Despite what my kids may think, Easter is not about bunnies, eggs, or candy but about the amazing fact that God loved each one of us enough to send his son to die for us on the cross. That is real love.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/100 sec
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 75 mm
ISO: 400
Flash: Off

April 3: Day 86

Today we dyed our Easter eggs. Two dozen of them in fact. The kids enjoyed the process and amazingly kept the mess to a minimum. Ethan slurped a spoonful of orange dye but doesn't seem worse for the wear. If he turns out weird we now know why.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/125 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO: 100
Flash: Off

April 2: Day 85

I attempted to get some Easter photos of the kids this afternoon which didn't work out very well. For one thing, it was mostly gray and rainy today with random five minute intervals of sunshine that I tried to take advantage of. I'd been waiting for Ethan's haircut this afternoon to do Easter photos because he was Mr. Shaggy and I wanted a clean cut look for Easter. He got his haircut right before naptime today so as soon as he woke up I plopped our wooden kitchen step stool in the middle of the soggy backyard and carried him to it. I changed him into the one button down dress shirt he owns and in order to get him to stop crying and generally looking like a grumpy bear I bribed him with candy. He chose a blue sucker and refused to do any photos until I gave it to him. Naturally he dripped sticky blue slobber all over his shirt and then the sun disappeared and it started to rain before he finished his candy. That ended Ethan Easter Photo Shoot Attempt #1. I'll try again tomorrow, and if the sun won't cooperate I'll fake it and do it next week. In 10 years nobody will know the difference.

As for technical details, I thought I'd point out that I've been moving out of my usual low aperture preference and experimenting with (gasp!) taking photos at a higher f-stop. I know, I'm wild. I'm discovering that I kind of like the results I'm getting by doing photos in the late afternoon sun (today's photo was taken around 4pm with the sun behind Ethan) with a higher f-stop to keep the photo was washing out. I even broke out my flash today to experiment with fill flash on Grace but wasn't happy with the results. I'll have to give it another go.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/160 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO: 100
Flash: Off

April 1: Day 84

I'm still fixated on the color green but I'm rapidly running out of interesting green things to photograph in my small yard. Note that I did not say that I'm running out of green weeds to photograph. I did take another look through the house but nothing green was speaking to me. This afternoon the sun poked out for a bit so I took my camera outside and putzed around the backyard taking pictures of green weeds when I spotted this scene. Isn't it perfect? I barely touched it in RAW and not at all in Photoshop. It looks perfect just the way it is. I'm glad I found it because the other great green weed I shot I found would have required me to get down and dirty in the clay mud. I'm not that committed to Green Week.

Photo Stats:
Exposure: 1/300 sec
Aperture: f/3.2
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO: 100
Flash: Off