Day at the Botanical Gardens

It was a lovely day. Until the end. When I fell trying to catch Holden, my daredevil child. I twisted my ankle (pictures to follow soon), gouged a nice chunk out of my knee, and almost saved the camera.

You can read more about it here.

More Zoo Portraits

I want to share some more pictures from our zoo outing last weekend. I got some great shots of my friend Wanda and her daughter Isabella. I have many shots of Isabella in motion. Like most 2 year olds, she rarely stopped moving.

Isabella was wearing this adorable little red coat. I love red for outdoor shots. It shows up beautifully and provides wonderful contrast for the skin and green grass and leaves. It also provides some lovely opportunities for vintage or selectively colored shots.

Here are some of my favorites of Wanda and Isabella:

Silhouettes

As of today, I've missed 3 out of 5 of my photography classes. Why? I can't seem to stop getting sick!

The first week I was throwing up. The second week I managed to show up. The third week I had the plague. The fourth week, I still had the plague but dragged myself to class and hacked through the whole thing while everyone stared at me as if I had leprosy. I finally dragged my butt to the doctor last week and discovered that I have an ear infection, a sinus infection, and bronchitis. I think I should get bonus points for the bronchitis.

Anyway, after finishing my round of Zithromax, my ear was still hurting. I made an appointment to see my doctor later this week but today the pain started to radiate down my neck. And I was having this lovely little problem where one ear would pop like I was in an airplane and then I'd get dizzy and throw up. Fun times.

So instead of attending my photography class this evening, I spent the time at an emergency care facility getting some new prescriptions. Let's keep our fingers crossed that the Levoquin works because Holden and I are going to California next week to stay with one of my favorite photographers.

Since I don't have any class assignments to share, here are some photos I took at the zoo this weekend. Of course the boys were more interested in the giant pile of dirt from a zoo construction project than the animals. I've struggled with attempting silhouettes. They're tricky because you have to meter off of the sky instead of the subject. And you have to think about the bones of your photo - the outlines you'll see in the silhouette, rather than what you see in your viewfinder.

Hollis and his buddy, Caleb.

I think I finally nailed it with this one:



I love how you can see where a plane has left a streak across the sky.

Another Sick Day - Different Kid

Yep, it hit both of them. And then it hit me, but I wisely chose not to take pictures of myself. It wasn't pretty.

So now I give you the many faces of Holden:









I got many more excellent photos, so this will be continued tomorrow. If I can crawl to my laptop....

Lawyer Mama Dabbles

I take waaaay too many photos.

Most of my photographs are of my boys, although a landscape or flower gets a nod occasionally. But here's the thing - I have no idea what I'm doing. I know how to make many of my photos look better in Photoshop, but I have a tendency to "over process" my photos to try and get the look of professional photos. It doesn't work.

I finally decided that I needed to suck it up and get a camera that allows me to do more with lighting, depth of field, and focus. I'm retiring my point and shoot Nikon Coolpix L1 that has served me so well over the last few years and I've purchased a new toy. An intimidating new toy.

Here she is: the Nikon D40x.


It's my first ever SLR camera. Again, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm expecting my new toy this week and I'm starting a basic photography class in a few weeks. I'm in school once again. So I started this blog to document my learning process with digital photography. I hope you'll join me.