Audrey starts 1st Grade

My oldest daughter started first grade last week.  To celebrate and mark her growth we went to my favorite photo spot and took some pictures.  Not only do these mark her growth, but marks her change in personality and how much she's growing into such a diva.

Inspired by 10-Challenges

I'm doing the 10-challenges from Her View Photography.  One of the challenges is to tell a story and make a photo book.  Well, I'm not up to that task yet, but I did think that maybe I would try to be more story-telling with my photos.  Here's the story of Audrey brushing her teeth.

Lines ... and then some

My niece is taking a photography class in school.  She had her first assignment this weekend ... lines; we were all together for the weekend visiting Josh's mom, so she and I went out to take photos.

It was fun to have something to think about when taking photos, and not just shoot willy-nilly.  I really was forced to think about my composition and look for things that fit a specific subject.  it was also fun to pass on a little bit of knowledge to someone else, something I don't get to do being so new myself.

Anyway .... Lines and other things from Nana's.

she's such a willing model

Audrey was modeling so well and Annie wanted to join in.  But Annie didn't want to smile.

Audrey was pretty adamant about having a group photo.  It was overexposed and it's just too hard to get another shot set up.  So B&W it is.....

There's an old shed on the side of the house that was just begging to be photographed.  I am picturing a Bridges of Madison County style picture.  Couldn't quite process it right, but I'm content with it.

We went for a walk.  This was the neighbor's cat.  Everybody freaked out at me that I was taking a photo of some other person's house.  But the cat was so purr-fect there on the top of the railing.

This dog looked so pathetic staring out the window like that.  I love the peeling paint around the window.

Stairs always make great line photos

"Ah-ee."

Our favorite winery

This train car was begging to be photographed.

Power lines in the open space behind my MIL's house.  Makes it feel so rural and desolate.

Josh snagged a photo of me and Annie playing with Annie's new toy.

Josh showing us how he can juggle.  He was trying to catch the ball mid-air and missed.

The rest of the photos from our trip can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/biochemtine/sets/72157631668954317/with/8044592558/

Photo A Day - Fun

The girls playing in Kymi's room, making a fort from the bunk beds.

I heart faces - black and white monthly challenge

For their first monthly contest, iheartfaces.com's challenge is black and white.

This is the first B&W photo I've done with Lightroom.  It was fun and a challenge to get the contrast I wanted and could see in my head.

I love this photo. The way her hand is on her cheek. The light from the tablet shining on her face.  The way she looks more like a big kid than a not-yet 3 y/o.

For more b/w photos this month, go check out iheartfaces.com.

Phone Camera

Wasn't sure if I should title this Camera Phone or Phone Camera.  When Camera Phones were first released, they were a novelty and Camera was used to describe the phone.  Now that they are standard (as are digital cameras), the word phone is used to describe the camera.  Hmm ....

Anyway ..........

As long as I'm on the subject of shooting photos with my phone ....

As most moms, I love having a camera with me at all times on my phone.  Usually it's to catch those great funny moments that you want to tweet or FB, but aren't going to hang up on the wall or even email grandparents because the camera on the phone just isn't fast enough or doesn't zoom enough or something and the kid moves or something and it's not quite right.  Every now and then I get a great one that I am super proud of.

This is one of those moments.

Audrey, looking out the window, holding her new teddy bear on the way home from daycare the other day.  I threw in a couple built-in effects from my phone and voila ... an awesome photo that I had to print out and hang up on my wall.  The quality was even great enough that I could print it 8x10 if I wanted.  I opted for 5x7 on this one.  Now I can look at it all day long at work.