Life in Pictures

Seattle.... Part 7

2012-02-01T08:23:00.000-05:00

We visited the Pacific Science Center while in Seattle. It was fun for the kids. There was a lot to see. The funny thing is though there is this interactive room right when you walk in and it was a little lame. We thought that was all there was so we were kind of disappointed until we noticed some doors that led off to the main attractions.

They had a big play area full of fun toys. As soon as Brady saw this area his eyes just lit up and I ended up staying in this area with him for 2 hours while Matt took the kids around. This poor kid really did miss his toys on this trip.

The butterfly house:

A funny mirror ;)

Seattle Part 1
Seattle Part 2
Seattle Part 3
Seattle - Part 4
Seattle Part 5
Seattle Part 6

Seattle.... Part 6

2012-01-31T08:46:00.000-05:00

They stop you on the way up the Space Needle to get a picture. Here's the one from our second trip up.

The view out our hotel room:

We did a boat tour on Puget Sound this day. I think I was the only one who enjoyed it. Turns out, Matt (and the kids) doesn't like boats.

Another beautiful sunny day in Seattle!

Snagged this one off of Kirsten's camera.

Mount Rainer below. It was clear enough to see it this day.

Your kids toys coming straight from China:

Getting these ice cream cones was the biggest mistake of the trip..lol. They were a mess!

Our favorite breakfast location. We ate here every single morning. It was right across the street from the hotel.

If you are ever near a Specialty's Bakery you gatta check them out! Delish! We usually got an assortment of sticky buns, cinnamon roles and other pastries and shared them all because you had to try everything!

Seattle Part 1
Seattle Part 2
Seattle Part 3
Seattle - Part 4
Seattle Part 5

Seattle..... Part 5

2012-01-30T11:16:00.000-05:00

I think some of the dates are off on my pictures.

I can't remember if this is the evening or the morning.

We have very few pictures of me on this trip since I was the one with the camera the entire time. I snagged this one off of Kirsten's camera. This is in the hotel lobby waiting to start our day.

Lunch at the downtown McDonald's. Don't use locked restrooms in McDonald's in the middle of the city. I speak from experience. There are things in there you do not want your 8 year old to see. (or that I wanted to see for that matter...)

The famous Hammering Man.

I don't remember the name of this building but it has a really cool curved base.

This is the bottom of the curved building which is why they are all looking up ;)

The Public Market is a must see in Seattle. It's neat. We went first thing in the morning before it got too crowded.

The famous fish market. If you order fish they sing and throw it around. It was pretty quiet for us but we did see them throw the fish. I think some people order it just see that.

There are a bunch of shops inside the Public Market. It kind of winds all around in this old building. We were exploring before most of the shops were even open.

This is the original Starbucks. It's right in the public market. We actually went here on accident a few years back but didn't find out until we got home that this is where Starbucks started.

Funny thing about the coffee in Seattle.... We were really looking forward to enjoying it but it turned out to be more of a pain to always be carrying a cup of coffee that we didn't drink as much as we thought we would.

Back behind the Public Market. We didn't have much of chance to see this area last time we were in Seattle so it was fun to explore this time.

On our way to the Aquarium. It's down on the waterfront on one of the many piers.

They have a large dome aquarium with sharks and everything.

Sea Otters.

The Aquarium: (and gorgeous weather!)

On one of the piers.

This was our favorite meal we enjoyed in Seattle. It was not cheap but it was fun! They are famous for their big bowls of seafood and they literally dump it on the table and let you dig in.

If you ever make it to Seattle check out The Crab Pot. It is worth it! Brady slept through most of our lunches including this one.

The poor boy was starting to miss some things from home. One of those things was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. You wouldn't believe how hard it was to find a plain ole peanut butter and jam sandwich in the city. He had to settle for Peanut butter and bananas.

The other thing he missed was his toys. He kept asking to go home and we finally figured out why that was. He wanted to play with his toys.

Waiting for the mono rail at the mall. I think this is mixed up and was from before all the above stuff.

The space needle at night. We took two trips up. Once in the day and once at night. Your ticket allows 2 trips within 24 hours so we took advantage of it and enjoyed the city lights.

Seattle Part 1
Seattle Part 2
Seattle Part 3
Seattle - Part 4

Seattle..... Part 4 (The one with the boring baseball pics)

2012-01-27T07:56:00.000-05:00

These baseball photos are from our Sunday afternoon game. The Mariners played the Boston Red Socks. The funny thing is there were more Red Socks fans wandering around Seattle than Mariner fans.

We sat down on the field behind first base. Ichiro was right in front of us. He's Brady's favorite Mariner so it was fun for him.

I really don't have a clue who the rest of these guys were.....
All of these were taken with my 70-300mm lens.

I wonder if one of those guys would trade me lenses......

Ichiro rarely turned our way so I couldn't get a great picture of him.

Seattle Part 1
Seattle Part 2
Seattle Part 3

Seattle..... Part 3

2012-01-26T09:04:00.000-05:00

Back on firm ground after being jostled around for 40 hours straight.

This is King Station in Seattle. I think we arrived early afternoon.

It didn't take long to get situated in the hotel which was smack in the middle of downtown. We ventured out right away. We didn't rent a car so we did a lot of walking.

We stayed right near the downtown shopping district.

This is the mono rail track below. This is the next block over from our hotel.

Our hotel. Nothing fancy but worked out well. I'd recommend it to anyone.

Our first (of many) trip on the mono rail. It started a block from our hotel and traveled about 12 blocks to the space needle area. There are a few sketchy areas in between so we usually took the monorail even though it's not the cheapest transportation.

Brady missed a lot of this vacation during his naps ;)

We did all the touristy stuff. We visited the EMP museum. It's some sort of music museum. I actually found it quite boring...lol.

On the mono rail again. This time Brady actually experienced it awake.

We arrived in Seattle on a Saturday and caught our first baseball game that evening. We went to games most nights we were there.

The bat chandelier.

I find baseball games quite boring also. But it was fun to use my 300mm lens to capture some shots.

Our little Mariner fan finally getting to watch them play a real live game.

I absolutely hate these super high seats at baseball games. I don't like how helpless I feel being way up that high.

You can get some cool city shots from that high up though.

We really lucked out with gorgeous weather the entire week we were there. The moon was big and bright every night.

Sundat morning we headed straight for the space needle. This picture below is taking the glass elevator to the top.

Our hotel is on the right in the middle of the skyscrapers. You can see the monorail track and if you follow that down it ends near our hotel.

Another game....

This time we had much better seats. We were in the corner behind first base. Much better way to watch a baseball game. I will bore you all with my shots of the game tomorrow. I have no interest in baseball but I do have interest in photographing baseball ;)

I don't know what was more expensive.... the food or the tickets....

Seattle Part 1
Seattle Part 2

Seattle.... Part 2

2012-01-25T09:15:00.000-05:00

Here is 40 hours on the train.

I didn't take a ton of pictures (by my standards...lol) on the train but enough to see some of the really cool scenery we went through. Traveling across this beautiful country by train was so amazing. You see things you can only see by train.

There was terrible flooding in the Dakota's just weeks before we left. Amtrak was actually shut down for a couple of weeks and only starting running this route about a week prior. It was kind of scary going through these floods. The water came right up to the track. We actually had to go through it really slowly. The devastation was crazy!

We brought projects to keep the kids busy. Kirsten made a lot of pot holders on the trip. :)

Doing more projects in the observation car. This car was a really neat place to spend some time.

Below the observation deck there is a dining and snacks area. Cale and Matt spent the entire day building this new lego set.

And Brady didn't miss his nap most days.

It was really neat to see the mountains come up.

The kids watched a lot of movies. We worried about electrical outlets and thought they would be scarce but every seat had a couple.

The Empire Builder goes across some pretty high and long bridges. This was one of them. You kind of hold your breath until you are completely past them. I had to remind myself that these trains do these bridges every single day.. They were scary!

I think this is a well know resort along the track. It's a popular Amtrak destination.

These tiny mountain towns are so peaceful!

We lucked out with really good weather on the train. I worried before we left of bad storms. There was a beautiful bright full moon the second night.

I believe these are the Cascade mountains coming up. I've never seen anything like them. They were so gorgeous!

You can kind of get an idea just how long this train is. That's the front below. I think there were a handful of cars behind us still too.

This area of the trip was probably my favorite. The tracks were not as rough and because of all the turns and climbing up the mountains we went slower. The scenery along this stretch was so peaceful and gorgeous.

This new construction area was surprising. This didn't seem like a very populated area. Plus it overlooked the waterway you see more of below. Talk about a million dollar view!
I *think* this is the Columbia Basin. I should have done
a better job of noting where we were.

I think this is one of the only times I actually got off the train. You can get out at most stops but you have to stay close to the train because it will not wait for you! And most stops are really quick (10 minutes or less) especially when they are trying to make up time.

This might be Leavenworth, WA or close to it. This stop is the same as above.

There are two long tunnels on this route. This is the second one and is 7.8 miles long. It's weird to go through these tunnels and just a bit scary ;) I stood in the last car through this tunnel because I wanted to see us come out of it.

The first tunnel was during the second night and it's around 8 miles. I knew it would be while we were sleeping and was hoping I would sleep through it. But I woke up while we were in it! It kind of freaked me out. I could tell we were in it because the sound was echoed and I could see the mile marker lights as we passed them. I was not fond of the tunnels and bridges on the train.

It was cool to catch the exit of the tunnel. As we traveled on a bit further this is what I saw:

It dawned on me that that was the mountain we just passed through! Seeing it like that is quite crazy. I'm just glad I saw it after the fact and not before..lol.

Finally coming up on Puget Sound! Almost there! This was a beautiful sight to see... the end of our journey!

Ballard, WA:

Quest Field. The station is right near it so we knew we were there!

Ready to get off the train:

Even though the train was almost 3 hours late leaving Minneapolis I think we arrived in Seattle 1-2 hours behind schedule. It was pretty crazy how much time they made up along the route. We were so thankful there were no major delays.

Here is part 1 of our cross country adventure on the Empire Builder.

Seattle... finally!

2012-01-24T11:29:00.000-05:00

I haven't even looked through our Seattle pictures yet. I just haven't had the time! So starting this week I'll post our cross country adventure. And an adventure it was!

We started our summer vacation driving to Minneapolis to catch the Empire Builder. We got on the train in Mineappolis and got off the train 40 hours later in Seattle, Washington. That was 2 full nights and days sleeping in coach with three kids. Crazy.... probably.

But SO MUCH FUN!

This was the first time I've ever been on a train so I didn't know what to expect. It was way easier and way better than I ever imagined. The kids loved it and we brought plenty of stuff to keep them occupied. I brought a book to read but never actually got around to reading it. The nice part about the train is you have a lot of freedom to walk around. Our train was pretty full but didn't feel too cramped.

The most surprising thing about the train is that it is one bumpy ride! I kind of expected a smooth but loud ride. Was I wrong! There were many moments that I was praying we wouldn't derail ;) Apparently all the jostling is normal and you kind of get used to it after awhile.

Disclaimer: I was not a photographer on this trip. I was a mom on vacation with her family. ;) I pretty much just shot in auto for most of the trip. My camera was kind of a pain to deal with. Next vacation I might even consider just bringing a small point and shoot instead.

On the way to Minneapolis. Oh, the anticipation of the vacation we waited 6 months for!! I can remember the excitement looking at these pictures.

Driving into Minneapolis. We were so surprised at how low these planes are! It was fun to try to catch them on camera while driving under them.

The first part of our trip was to visit the Mall of America. The kids had never been there before. It was only my second time. The first being 15+ years ago. Of course the main destination was the Lego Store. There are not many lego stores in this country so this was pretty fun for the kids.

You can't go to The Mall of America without doing a few rides! I don't think Kirsten really knew what this ride was because she is a big chicken but she survived and even had fun on it.

We ate dinner at The Rainforest Cafe. It was a neat place. This is just hours before we were to get on the train. We arrived in Minneapolis before lunch and the train left that night.

The train station reminded me a lot of our little airport up here. Unfortunately our train was delayed a few hours. It was supposed to arrive at 11pm but didn't show up until after 1am.

We were assured we would all have seats next to each other but that did not happen. Because our destination was at the end we boarded last (which I thought was odd) and when we boarded there were no 2 seats together anywhere. I kind of had a little breakdown on the train because there was no way I was going to be separate from my 3 small kids. We finally managed to get 4 seats together and slept really really cramped up that first night.

Enough people starting getting off the train the next day and we were able to get 5 seats all together and enjoyed the rest of the trip. It was frustrating that the attendants didn't do a better job of dealing with us that night. The attendants on the way back were much better at enforcing certain areas that were reserved for large parties. So I'm guessing that all just kind of depends on how assertive the attendants are.

I'll post more tomorrow....

To haze or not to haze

2012-01-17T14:30:00.000-05:00

I talked about hazy pictures in a post last week and came across these today. (Oh how I miss summer!)

This is a perfect example of the difference between shading your lens or not in sunny situations. Both are shot in the exact same location, exact same settings. When I shoot backlit I tend to do some hazy, some not. It can be a neat effect.

The top picture my lens is not covered. I had a lens hood on but just shot normal.

This bottom picture shows what happens when you put your lens in the shade. I always bring a piece of cardboard or something and hold it up while I'm shooting. The cardboard blocks the sun off my lens and prevents the haze you see above. Generally, the better the glass, the less haze is a problem.

I'll take a bright sunny day over a cloudy day anytime so learning these kinds of tricks makes shooting in full sun much more doable. I find it much more fun to work with the light than to wish I had more of it.

My little dude

2012-01-16T08:21:00.001-05:00

He's my baby and I love him to pieces.

2012-01-14T20:38:00.000-05:00

My only willing model today.

Before & Afters

2012-01-13T12:27:00.002-05:00

I love seeing before and afters. It's fun to see what others do with their pictures and it's fun to see what they capture out of the camera.

I enjoy editing. I love having a new set to work on and since I don't have any to work on right now I pulled up some new ones of Molly.

The more I learn Lightroom the more I love it and the less I depend on Photoshop. The first two are Lightroom only edits. The last two had a little additional editing in Photoshop. I tend to prefer Photoshop for hazy or backlit photos.

The left is straight out of the camera. It's pretty hazy because the sun was really bright. You can prevent some of this haze by putting your lens in the shade. I think I was only blocking it with my hand and lens hood. I actually don't mind some haze in sunny pictures but I edited it all out by pulling up the contrast and decreasing the exposure and then just brightening where I needed it.

The leftis not completely SOOC. I brought down the exposure a bit first. I actually blew out her white shirt. I tend to overexpose just about everything. Sometimes intentionally because it preserves more detail in the shadows that way. Obviously I went too far on this one. Just some basic fixes in Lightroom on this final.

The left on this one is SOOC. I should have underexposed it even a little more to prevent her hair from blowing out. Backlit photos is one of the biggest reasons I shoot RAW. It's easy to pull up the exposure in the rest of the photo without losing any detail.

Again there is a lot of haze in this backlit photo. I should have stepped into the shade and knew I would regret it when I went to edit them. I blocked the sun the best I could but keeping my lens in the shade would have almost completely eliminated the haze.

So there you have it. I tend to keep my editing pretty simple. I like a clean, bright and colorful final. I'll post some more before and afters over the slow months.

Looking forward to 2012!

2012-01-08T15:37:00.000-05:00

Photography is one of the greatest blessings in my life right now. God knew I needed a new focus, a purpose and something to bring meaning into my life. I am thoroughly enjoying this new challenge and thank him for it. :)

I kind of feel like it happened so suddenly but I was looking back at some old blog posts (like 4 years ago) and even back then I was talking about learning manual, learning techniques and had a desire to improve my photo skills. I was only shooting on a point and shoot but I realize now I learned more than I remember on that point and shoot.

I put my camera down for almost a year before I got my first DSLR so I felt like I was picking it up again for the first time. When that really isn't the case.

Those who know me and know me well, know my memory is terrible! Somehow I kind of forgot about all those years with that trusty point and shoot. The only thing that stuck in my memory was the year that I barely touched my camera.

Last year was amazing!! And I sincerely thank all the people that made it possible for me to discover and explore my love of photographing people. I thank all the people who took a chance on me, told their friends about me and followed along on my journey.

I'm very excited about 2012! And I'm kicking it up a notch! I'm doing a lot of rethinking on the business side of things. I want to focus on the parts of photography that really make me happy. The subjects that I really look forward to photographing.

2012 will find me focusing more on seniors! I absolutely love doing senior sessions.

2012 will find me focusing more on newborns! Doesn't get any better than these sweet little bundles :)

2012 will find me focusing more on weddings! I have loved every single wedding I have had an opportunity to be a part of last season.

As time allows I'll even do a few family sessions.

I also will be focusing on the final products of my sessions. The final product also makes me very happy :) I'll be encouraging my clients to think about what they hope to gain from the session. I'll be offering framed prints, standouts and albums. The results from your session will be instant! I'll be offering products that go straight up on the wall. Stay tuned for more details!

Right now

2012-01-06T13:30:00.001-05:00

This about sums up our household right now.

Legos.... lots of legos!

Starwars... I now live with 4 star wars nerds.

My kids are usually scared of the villains in cartoons but for some reason they all love the Star Wars movies. Can't figure that one out...

Just the boys

2011-12-31T22:29:00.000-05:00

I've enjoyed the break from sessions but I'm starting to miss shooting. These two rarely play out side and I really needed to shoot something so I bundled them up and brought them out.

This is Cale's disappointed look that I brought my camera with me. He thought he was just playing. He didn't know I had other plans.

Mike + Missy { Wedding as a second shooter }

2011-12-28T15:55:00.000-05:00

I'm a little late in posting the last wedding of the season that I shot with Lea at Vienna Glenn Photography.

The last wedding was such a beautiful wedding! I loved the ceremony, I loved the people and I loved the overall loving atmosphere of the day. A great wedding to end the season on!

I joined Lea just as the ceremony started.

I'm excited for the 2012 wedding season!

I haven't decided how busy I will allow myself to be yet but if you would like to request my pricing info or check if I am available for your date, send me a message through my contact page!

Santa came...

2011-12-26T10:36:00.000-05:00

.. much to the surprise of the adults in this house. I'm thinking maybe Santa is a softy and is quick to forget bad behavior ;)

We had a wonderful Christmas this year filled with family, food and fun!

Happy 16th to this kid!

2011-12-16T08:56:00.000-05:00

I'm reposting my favorite pictures of my favorite kid because today is his sweet 16!

Everyone needs a Dan in their life!

Happy Birthday Dan! Hope your day is as spectacular as you expect it to be!

Coming Soon:: Sample Albums

2011-12-14T08:23:00.000-05:00

My favoritepart of the whole photography process is handing off the finished product.

It is so rewarding to see prints in real life, to provide something that will go straight into someones home and hopefully bring smiles and happy memories every time it is looked at.

The final product is so important to me which is why I choose to have ordering go through me. It is also why I love to encourage large prints and in the very near future, albums. I'm doing some price restructuring right now and will be offering session packages that will include my favorite things such as a super huge print or an album.

So today I'm working on a senior sample album. And this girl will be my lucky sample subject ;)

Can't wait to show off the final product when it comes in!

The last session of the season

2011-12-13T11:13:00.000-05:00

We squeezed this session in just in time. The snow came the very next day.

I'm thinking about doing mini sessions right here in my backyard. I actually really love the alley behind my house. I had kind of forgotten about this old trunk that were about to get rid of. I think I'll hold on to it now ;)

Love these two little faces! :)

50mm Randomness

2011-12-11T23:21:00.001-05:00

I walked around with the camera today and took a couple hundred shots. Here is some of the randomness.

Setting the exposure on this girl so i could hand the camera off to her. She wanted a turn.

She directed me in front of the tree. Need to teach her a little more about focus ;)

There she got it....

Brady drew this picture of Sponge Bob holding balloons and it was too cute to not take a picture of.

oops...messy kitchen. Someday I'll post clean kitchen pictures.

Not enough subjects around here ;)

Trying to work his way towards more video game time by writing his letters. Didn't work....

I told him to give me big eyes and he walks into the room with this:

His beloved penguin. Not sure what we will do if we ever lose this thing.

My practice subjects

2011-12-09T09:19:00.001-05:00

It's been awhile since I have blogged my kids. I'm thinking my family will stop checking my blog if I don't put them up every once in a while ;)

Yesterday I was working on figuring out what is wrong with my potentially favorite lens. My 50mm f/1.4G has a really bad front focusing problem. I made some auto focus fine tuning adjustments in my camera's settings and it seems to help. If that's not the issue my camera sensor needs to be realigned which would mean I would have to send it in. Not sure I can part with it for a month!!

So, here are my boys.

Go Big or Go home

2011-12-05T08:52:00.001-05:00

Well, maybe the title is a little dramatic but to really make a statement with your pictures going big is the way to go!

It used to be that all we ever had on our walls were 8x10's and 5x7's. Over the past few years I have been having fun with huge prints on the wall. I'm finally replacing them with better quality pictures and these larger than life prints make me smile every time I look at them.

Our new family picture is a big ole 20x24. I like this large framed picture leaning on a table. We have really high ceilings in this old craftsman house so I like how this large print takes up some of that wall space.

{Photo taken by Julie}

There is a 16x20 of each of my kids in the play room.

If you do want to go with the smaller sizes consider framing them with a large mat. This 5x7 and 8x10 feel much larger when surrounded by a wide mat.

Happy Framing!

The 3 week old

2011-12-01T09:02:00.001-05:00

I was so excited to have an opportunity to do a newborn session a few days ago. I have only done newborns a few times but I have loved every single one.

This little lady was 3 weeks old but still sleepy enough to let us move her around a bit. I like getting them in the 7-10 day mark because they are still really sleepy.

How adorable is she!!?

The 6 month old

2011-11-29T08:19:00.001-05:00

I spent some time with this little sweetie last week. I have decided that I love baby sessions! I hope to get a chance to do more newborns and babies in the future.

This little guy had his newborn pictures taken in this tub and now 6 months later he's grown just a bit ;)

Marc + Shawn { Wedding as a second shooter }

2011-11-27T21:24:00.001-05:00

This wedding was such a fun one to shoot. Here is the super condensed version of my take on it.

I shot this wedding with Lea from Vienna Glenn Photography. You can see her post here.

10 months, 20,000+ pics, 2 cameras later { Part 3 }

2011-11-23T09:00:00.001-05:00

I credit this shoot and these pictures for getting me to where I am today with this photography stuff. This was the first time I had the opportunity to do a shoot with someone other than toddlers and the first time working with a group. And it was FUN!!

This shoot gave me the confidence to take on some senior sessions. This shoot also led me to wedding photography! I contacted Vienna Glenn Photography because I was interested in taking one of her photography courses and it turns out that she had seen these pictures and invited me to second shoot some weddings with her.

I was floored! And nervous! And excited! And a little skeptical... I had only had this camera in my hands for 2 months. I was afraid I was jumping in too soon.

I didn't want to be the girl that got a camera and called herself a photographer. That is pretty much what happened (although I still can't really call myself a photographer) but it didn't just happen. I put in a ton of time and effort to learn as much as I could possibly learn. <-------- That's me trying to justify and explain myself....lol

I think I had 3 weeks before the first wedding so that gave me some time to really practice and do some research about wedding photography. I'll pick up my story in the next blog post.

These girls were so fun to work with! I couldn't believe my luck to have such gorgeous models to practice my skills on ;)

Photos all taken May 6, 2011. I used my Nikon D90, 50 1.8 lens and edited them all in PSE8 with this action. (I still use this action on pretty much all of my portraits.)

Thank you!!! to all of my young prom friends for stopping by and letting me see what I was capable of. :)

10 months, 20,000+ pics, 2 cameras later { Part 2 }

2011-11-18T13:07:00.001-05:00

Every day I would pick up my camera and shoot. Everyday I would learn something new. I quickly got bored of shooting objects and scenery. People became my favorite subjects. Unfortunately my kids got tired of being my subjects very fast.

April 23, 2011

By the end of March I upgraded my Photoshop Elements 2 to Photoshop Elements 8 and put it on Matt's Macbookpro. Every night when he got home from school I would grab his computer and learn how to edit pictures in Photoshop. I mostly learned from online forums and by doing google searches. I downloaded a bunch of actions* and went nuts with them.

April 24, 2011

I switched over to RAW files when I started using Matt's computer. At this point I was just using Bridge to process them. It was a lot of trial and error because I didn't really know what exactly RAW was all about.

March 31, 2011

The above picture was my first attempt at backlighting. I would find something specific like that to learn and practice it until I got it.

I took pictures of the kids every chance they would let me.

April 24, 2011

When they wouldn't let me I borrowed other people's kids. I loved shooting other kids because it really challenged me to try my best. I would pick these shoots apart and learn from them. The more photo sessions I did the more hooked on them I got. I loved it! It was at this point that I began to start thinking about where this photography thing was going to lead me. I didn't have any plans or goals but was beginning to wonder if someday it might become more than just a hobby.

April 28, 2011

May 3, 2011

May 9, 2011

By mid April Matt must have gotten tired of sharing his laptop with me because he surprised me with my very own imac! It was a little scary though because it meant he thought I could potentially do something with this photography stuff.

I loved editing pictures just as much as I loved taking them early on. It was fun to learn more and more about Photoshop. I started learning as much as I could about colors, color castes and the color channels in Photoshop. I learned how to read histograms. I learned about clipped pixels and how to prevent them on the skin.

I took notes as I learned. I memorized the color wheel so I would know how to fix color issues. As nerdy as it may be I was having so much fun learning something new!

The weather was finally nice enough in May to take Kirsten out for an official shoot.

May 6, 2011

Also in May, I took my twin sisters out for a shoot. I would come home from these shoots and analyze everything I did wrong and then research how I could improve. Editing was a slow process because I was still learning Photoshop and trying so many different things. I was developing a style and trying to figure out what I liked. Turns out I like a clean pure edit so editing doesn't take me nearly as long today as it used to.

May 10, 2011

In May a friend suggested I take some pictures of her daughter and friends before prom for some practice. I almost said no because I lacked confidence. But then I figured I had nothing to lose and even though I couldn't promise anything would turn out I did the pictures anyways.

The pictures I did for these kids was the turning point. I was thrilled with how they turned out and this shoot alone gave me the confidence to pursue photography as more than a hobby.

To be continued.... Part 3 will be the prom shoot :)

*A favorite site for free actions that I found early on was The Coffeeshop Blog. I downloaded her perfect portait action and it's the one and only action I still use today.

10 months, 20,000+ pics, 2 cameras later { Part 1 }

2011-11-18T09:34:00.001-05:00

I was wanting to do this post at the 6 month mark but here we are at 10 months in the blink of an eye.

It's always fun to see other photographers post their story and progress.

So here is mine..................

I didn't grow up with a camera in my hands destined to be a photographer. Well, I guess I always had one but it wasn't a passion or anything like that. As a young mom I always wished I had a better camera to capture my kids. I never made the purchase though.

I turned 30 this summer. My baby was 3. I was bored. I began looking for a new hobby and the camera I always wished I had came up again. I started talking to Matt about it and he understood my need for a new challenge so he was the one actually pushed the buy button on this expensive toy.

This showed up at my door on March 8th 2011:

My very first SLR!!

I opted for the body only and 2 additional lenses instead of the kit lens. I already knew how I wanted to shoot and knew I wanted a lens with a large apeture to get those beautiful fuzzed out backgrounds and the 50mm (1.8) was mentioned several times during my search for the right lens. The larger lens is a 70-300 4.5 and because it was such a deal to buy it with the body I couldn't resist. I had no idea if I would use this lens much.

I read the 2 inch manual the first day. I had already been playing around in semi-manual mode on my point and shoot so when this camera came I put it in manual mode because I figured it was learn how to shoot that way now or never. I knew if I got too used to shooting in auto I may never take the time to learn manual mode. It was a challenge to be sure!

I read and read and then read some more. Most of the information I found was online. When I got stuck I googled any and everything. The book Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson kept popping up in my online learning so I bought it.

This book taught me how to shoot manual.

I learned how ISO, apeture and the shutter speed all worked together. This book is more aimed at landscape photography but covers all the basics of exposure.

Of course when I started using this camera I thought it was amazing! I was so impressed by the pictures it was taking. Here are a few of my firsts with dates.

March 8, 2011

March 9, 2011

I bundled up this cold March day and went out to see what my new toy was capable of. Of course I had no idea what I was doing but it was fun trying. (I ended up over editing every single one of them)

March 9, 2011

I found a sleeping baby to capture ;)

March 9, 2011

And of course my own kids had to endure countless pictures. I think they zoned out after a bit.

March 9, 2011

The first shoot I did with Kirsten. I knew nothing about light at this point. Later I realized I kind of got lucky by placing her where I did. This room has the most beautiful light in the entire house and has lots of white surfaces that bounce that light around.

March 10, 2011

Ventured outside to get some shots of the kids. I envisioned these pictures to be much better than they actually turned out.

As I was learning how to shoot with an SLR I began teaching my self Photoshop also. I had played around in Photoshop (PSE2..lol) for many many years but never actually figured it out. So I started googling. And reading. And experimenting. I felt like I was in school all over again. I absolutely LOVED having a new hobby to figure out. It was very fulfilling for me and I sucked up as much knowledge about photography as I could. Slowly but steadily Photoshop began making sense.

March 11, 2011

Found some more poor ~~victims~~ children to catch with my camera.

March 12, 2011

At this point I still had no idea how to properly expose a picture. I was shooting in manual mode but didn't know what a light meter was or how to read it. It was basically trial and error with my settings and going off the LCD screen.

March 12, 2011

Discovered the beautiful light in my front porch!

March 15, 2011

Rookie mistake: Over editing!

March 22, 2011

March 23, 2011

I was learning steadily but not fast enough. I wanted to be good and I wanted to be good instantly. I could envision what I wanted but I just couldn't produce it yet.

You can see my beginning editing skills were a little lacking.

March 23, 2011

I started paying more attention to light and figuring out ways to light up the eyes.

March 29, 2011

The more I shot people the more I loved it. My new hobby was starting to become a little more than that in my mind.

Too be continued.....

The 9 week old and the 3 year old

2011-11-14T12:50:00.001-05:00

I spent my morning with this cute little 3 year old and his 9 week old baby sister. :) Since my blog is over due for updating I thought I would post these sneak peaks here.

Gunner {Baby shoot}

2011-11-09T10:39:00.000-05:00

I was excited to do a session with this little guy about a month ago. It had been awhile since I've photographed a baby and they are one of my favorite subjects :)

This session was a special one to me because this little guys daddy is away serving our country right now. I was more than happy to have some pictures to send off to him of his beautiful little guy.

I don't usually do much prep or bring any props to shoots so I was excited when his Mom pulled out Daddy's dog tags. :)

The Iphone version of Seattle

2011-11-07T09:49:00.004-05:00

Since I still have not had time to go through our vacation pictures from August I thought I would throw up my iphone pics instead. A quick summary of our cross country trip that took us from Minneapolis to Seattle by train.

Mall of America:

Rainforest Cafe in the Mall of America:

Doing projects in the observation car on the train:

Going through the Cascade Mountains:

Eating in the dining car:

Cascade Mountains:

The 7 mile mountain we went through!

The first trip up the space needle:

Top of the needle:

Downtown Shopping!

One of the many baseball games:

He took a nap everyday in the stroller:

The second trip up the space needle - this time at night:

A boat tour of Seattle:

Mount Ranier:

One of the many trips on the Monorail:

Kids Science Museum: (one of the only times Brady got to play with toys and he loved every second of it)

City bus ride to the zoo:

A delicious breakfast at Specialty's Cafe and Bakery every morning:

One of our gorgeous lunch views:

Back on the train:

Breakfast on the train:

First Family Photo

2011-11-03T09:21:00.000-04:00

It only took 9 yearsbut we finally got a family picture. Well technically 8 because the oldest child is 8. Sometimes I laugh that I've chosen to do this photography thing when I don't even make it a priority for my own family. How do I convince others to do it when I don't even do it!?

And on a side note, my baby turns 4 today. I'm kind of having a hard time with that and when I told him he was growing too fast and it was making me sad he leaned in and gave me a kiss. Always knows how to make me feel better.

My talented photog friend Julie took this picture for us this summer. Edited by me so you can blame me for any wonky colors ;)

A loving party

2011-11-02T08:59:00.002-04:00

They are having a loving party he tells me.

And then a fighting party...

Wedding previews

2011-10-31T09:24:00.001-04:00

I still have two weddings to blog. Here is a sneak from each to buy me some more time...lol.

I shot both of these with my dear photographer friend Lea:

Mr. Me

2011-10-26T11:00:00.003-04:00

He came down stairs dressed like his "Mr. Me". But then 2 minutes later he took off his hat and tie because he wasn't a coach anymore.

The wedding party that should have been part of Baywatch

2011-10-24T10:38:00.001-04:00

While Lea was busy taking portraits of the bride and groom I had a little fun with the wedding party. Actually, they were already having fun and I just turned my camera on them.

Molly {Senior Session}

2011-10-20T08:40:00.000-04:00

I had the privelage of taking my beautiful sister Molly's senior pictures this year. We did a quick quick session early in the summer but thankfully she made it back so we could do a longer more planned out one. It was a gorgeous evening and we were able to hit up a few locations. I've actually really lucked out this summer by having gorgeous weather for all of my sessions.

Here are few of my favorites:

Bentley {6 months}

2011-10-13T09:01:00.000-04:00

I took these earlier this summer of this little guy. Love, Love big baby blues!!

Just one of the little dude today

2011-10-10T09:02:00.002-04:00

Photographer Super hero

2011-10-06T10:29:00.002-04:00

My little photographer super hero. Not sure what the two have to do with each other. But that's what he was. (Came from a Backyardigans episode)

Mike + Kate {wedding as a second shooter}

2011-10-03T09:42:00.001-04:00

I shot this wedding with Lea (Vienna Glenn Photography) a few weeks ago.

It was a gorgeous day, a gorgeous wedding and a gorgeous couple. This was one of my favorite weddings I shot with Lea. When I was editing these pictures I kept finding myself smiling. This was such a great group of people to spend the day with. :)

You can see Lea's take on it here.

And here is mine:

The Music Room

2011-09-27T21:53:00.000-04:00

I thought he was a little big to be digging in my cupboards but apparently he didn't think so. This was his music room. At least it kept him busy while I made us some cookies. :)

Brady's 5 minute photo shoot

2011-09-26T08:08:00.001-04:00

I was really hoping to have a wedding ready to blog this morning but it's just quite done enough to post. This will be a super busy week but I'm hoping to have one blogged sometime soon. So, instead I will leave you with the little dude who spends most of his days with his mama. I've really had the urge to photograph my kids lately. And that's a good thing :)

I may or may not have bribed him with netflix for this quick shoot....

Friday Randomness

2011-09-23T08:08:00.000-04:00

This might be kind of fun to do once a week. Random around my house. It's the little things that tell a lot about our life right now.

Give him paper, give him tape....

2011-09-22T07:53:00.000-04:00

...and he is bound to create something cool. The kids in this house use more paper and more tape than I care to admit. Cale is constantly creating things out of paper. Tape is his fix for everything. They have never liked using glue (or maybe it was me who didn't like them using glue) so they tape EVERYThING!! And it's not always things they should be taping.

I had to take pictures of these little sea creatures around Cale's room today.

His squid:

More squids:

A stingray:

A fish:

And another squid:

He had them all lined up on his bed the other day trying to sell them. He couldn't figure out why he didn't have any buyers.

Autumn { Senior Session }

2011-09-21T07:27:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted many of my senior sessions because I'm actually not quite sure how my seniors feel about that..lol. Back when i was a senior 12 years ago (yikes!!!!) we didn't have things like facebook and the internet. Ok maybe we did have the internet. But heck, photographers were still using film. So we didn't have the option of showing all our friends all of our pictures. Usually the first time they saw them was when we handed them a wallet to keep. So like I said, I wasn't sure how seniors felt about me posting all of my favorites of them. But so far they have all assured me that they like to share online. It's a new concept to me ;)

So onto the pics. This is Autumn. I loved this shoot and some of the pictures have become some new favorites of mine. She was a natural for the camera and so gorgeous! I met Autumn back when she was just a little middle schooler and now here she is graduating from high school.

Fresh Baked Bread

2011-09-20T07:32:00.000-04:00

We are finally enjoying the smell of fresh baked bread in this house again. I used to make everything from scratch. We used to eat healthy. I used to not buy boxed snacks. But then I bought a camera. I started buying junk food out of convenience. I stopped baking bread. I stopped using coupons and planning our meals.

But yesterday I made bread! It's a step back in the right direction :)

Plus now my picky pants 8 year old might actually eat her sandwich at lunch. She refuses to eat sandwiches unless they are made with homemade bread.

Avery + Hannah {wedding as a second shooter}

2011-09-19T07:28:00.000-04:00

This is the fourth wedding I shot with Lea (Vienna Glen Photography). I have enjoyed working with her and figuring out what wedding photography is all about.

The details of this outdoor wedding were amazing! You could tell a lot of time and effort went into making this day magical.

You can see Lea's take on this wedding here.

And here is my super condensed version :)

I have two more weddings to blog still so hopefully the next two Monday's blog posts will be weddings :)

Moo and Business cards

2011-09-15T15:10:00.001-04:00

I ordered my business cards a while ago and have been meaning to do a blog post about them. I wanted something fun and a little different so when I heard about Moo (from my sister Jennifer) and the option to include as many different photos as you wanted I knew I had to check it out. A fitting option for a photographer ;)

I was pleasantly surprised by how thick and sturdy they are. Not to mention fun and colorful!

If you need business cards you can check MOO out here. (This is my referral link and I earn points of some kind from it.) But mostly I did this post because the cards are too cute not to share with everyone ;)

Dan the Man

2011-09-13T08:06:00.000-04:00

I figured I would make this guys day and put him on my blog. I have lots of summer pictures I never posted. The sad thing is I'm realizing I don't have many real life pictures in August and September. Got to be better about that....

I learned a tough lesson about photography with this kid. I took him out on a shoot because he loves having his picture taken. I took over 100 pictures of him all posed up and looking like his oh-so-cool self. I didn't take them right off of my card and accidentally formatted the card without realizing I had pictures I hadn't taken off. Lesson learned - always double check before you format. Thankfully I still got quite a few shots of this guy while he was here but I'm so bummed I lost the actual photo shoot we did.

Danny, if you are reading this - I love you and I miss you!

Why Photography, Why now?

2011-09-11T22:58:00.003-04:00

Sometimes I think it's crazy how quickly I became immersed into photography. I picked it up 6 months ago to cure my boredom. I haven't been bored since ;) It's not altogether surprising though because I tend to go full steam ahead on new ideas and hobbies. I think most things happen for a reason and I don't think it's any mistake that I chose to do this at this point in my life. I have met some amazing new people and have gotten to do some pretty amazing things through photography at a time in my life when I needed these things the most.

All my shoots lately have been seniors which is awesome because I love this age. So much fun to capture them at this stage in their life.

Here's a few I've been working on:

My sister Molly :)

(Blogger is making my pictures crunchy but I can't figure out what size and resolution I should be using. On my list of things to do.....)

and a few more :)

What to blog about...

2011-09-08T08:37:00.000-04:00

It's been a busy week getting back into a routine (which I love by the way!) and blogging just hasn't happened much.

And because I didn't have enough going on I signed up to consign at a 2 day sale at the end of the month. So yesterday found me tagging and hanging hundreds of items of clothes. The thing about holding onto your baby clothes is that it is painful to let them go. But seeing as the only girl in this house is 8 and the youngest boy in this house is almost 4 I think it's time to clean house.

Some other things on the agenda this fall:

Get back into budgeting and couponing
Meal Planning
Work on the business along with figuring out basic studio lighting
Blogging
Snuggle with the 3 (almost 4) year old
Enjoy my quiet days and hopefully be productive

I'm pretty sure this was about the most random and possibly most boring blog post I've done yet.

The 6 month old

2011-09-05T09:34:00.000-04:00

I'll leave you with this little peach this monday morning.

I have 2 weddings to blog about hopefully in the coming weeks. I send the dad and the kids in this house off to school tomorrow which leaves a lot more time in my day for things like editing, blogging and working.

Kaitlin (my other pretend senior) Part 1

2011-09-02T13:28:00.001-04:00

I took Kaitlin out yesterday afternoon to take my new camera for a spin. It was a bit windy and mid afternoon but I'm impressed with how the new camera handles the bright highlights. I was able to still recover all my highlights so nothing is blown out.

These are the non photoshopped versions. Straight out of Lightroom using a fun new preset I downloaded recently. (Have I mentioned lately how much I love Lightroom..lol)

Thanks Keeks!

Gretch (my pretend senior)

2011-08-30T09:39:00.001-04:00

It was such a beautiful sunny evening the other day that I couldn't resist going out to get some shots.

I was originally planning to take Kirsten and get some new pictures of her but Gretchen called just as I was going out the door so she became my new subject. I've been working with teenagers a lot lately and I'm always looking for ways to improve so I grabbed Gretchen while she was willing ;)

My 8 Year old

2011-08-29T10:05:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I took this little lady out for a shoot. Apparently she's learned a few new tricks since the last time. All I have to do is point the camera at her and she starts posing. After every click she gives me a new pose. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry about that..lol.

Most of these are straight out of Lightroom. I limit my photoshopping on these kind of shots mostly to save time. The Black and White is a new favorite Lightroom preset.

My poor neglected blog

2011-08-26T09:03:00.000-04:00

I have really been slacking on blogging this month. It's been a busy month and we were gone for a lot of it. I'm looking forward to fall when I can get back into a routine which will hopefully include regular blogging. And seeing as Fall is just around the corner, regular blogging should be soon!

I did this session earlier this week. The images from this session are some of my new favorites!

I absolutely love doing senior shoots. I still have room in September for any of you seniors who haven't booked yet ;)

Isn't she beautiful! Thanks Autumn for choosing me to capture this time in your life! :)

I'm back!

2011-08-23T09:36:00.001-04:00

We are back from our cross country vacation! We traveled from Minneapolis to Seattle and back by train. It was quite the adventure especially with three energetic kids but lots of fun. We had tons of new experiences and made some great memories. I'll share pictures as I get a chance.

Dusty + Sam {wedding as a second shooter}

2011-08-15T00:04:00.000-04:00

This was the first outdoor wedding I had the privilege of shooting with Lea (Vienna Glenn Photography). Amazing details! Gorgeous bride! and a fun wedding!

You can see Lea's take on this wedding here.

And here is mine:
I usually go for a clean edit but thought it was fitting to put a bit of a vintage wash on these.

(This gorgeous cake is made by Libbie Petaja)

Senior Session Sneak Peek

2011-08-11T06:00:00.002-04:00

I did a session with these two friends the other night. They both made my job very easy and were naturals in front of my camera.

I was a little worried with how it would work out with two but I actually really liked it and would recommend doing a double session to anyone. Having a friend helps put you at ease plus they usually will know you well enough to tell you when your hair is out of place or whatever.

We had lots of fun and found some really neat places with beautiful light. Here are a few sneak peaks. I put these on facebook already so if you aren't on facebook yet... (Is there anyone still not on facebook?? lol)

That's it for sneak peeks! I'll have a gallery ready within a couple of weeks.

Thanks girls!

2011-08-09T09:53:00.000-04:00

It's been a busy summer but we found time to relax last week. :)

Just some random

2011-08-08T10:22:00.000-04:00

pictures of the boys. For some reason they seem to think they need goggles. They have gotten several pairs this summer but I'm pretty sure they have rarely been used.

The sport changes daily with this kid. This day was football.

Who the heck

2011-08-05T22:31:00.002-04:00

is Kesha?? And why is my 8 year old copying her!!??

oops...

2011-08-04T10:54:00.000-04:00

I bought a new lens. Somehow the UPS guy keeps dropping stuff off here.

I should have gotten this lens right from the start. Actually, I should have just gotten all my lenses right from the start. It seems that after every wedding I order a new one. I like prime lenses which means that you end up with quite a few of them to cover all your focal lengths. My shortest focal lenth was a 50mm which is actually about 75mm on my crop sensor camera.

So this 28mm was much needed! I think I'm going to really like this one. It will be a great snapshot lens and probably the one that will be on my camera for our upcoming vacation.

I can finally get pull back shots like my (messy) porch:

But.... it is not a great portrait lens...lol. I think I'll stick to my 50mm for that.
(Wider lenses tend to have a lot of distortion towards the edges.)

She turned 8!

2011-08-03T10:14:00.000-04:00

And just like that I have an 8 year old! Hard for me to believe and apparently others too... I've been mistaken for an 18 year old twice lately. Once by someone older than me and once by someone younger than me. It's been a while since that has happened so I take it as a compliment ;)

Her new Mariner's jersey that she will be able to wear when we watch them play in about a week.

Her birthday is close to her Papa's so they usually share a party. :)

The Nerdy Library Shoot

2011-08-01T11:19:00.000-04:00

I walked through this library for the first time a few weeks back and knew I wanted to do a shoot in it. Kaitlin is usually up for any of my ideas plus she is a true library nerd herself so it worked out great!

We laughed during this shoot and wondered if the people watching the security cameras were laughing at us too. Someone may or may not have jumped off a table at one point. Enjoy:

Thanks Kaitlin! You are the best!!

Jeremy + Jana {wedding as a second shooter}

2011-07-25T09:16:00.001-04:00

I had the privilege to work with the talented and creative Lea Peterson from Vienna Glenn Photography again as a second shooter. I could really get used to doing weddings. So fun!!

You can find Lea's amazing take on this wedding here. And here is what I saw through my lens:

New location, New dress :)

The Library Nerd(s)

2011-07-19T23:03:00.000-04:00

I recently discovered MTU's library and now I love it! For taking pictures that is. Kaitlin loves libraries and I had this fun idea brewing in my head so I was pumped that she was up for it. I'm afraid I'll become known as the crazy camera lady there if I keep showing up. I'll post this shoot next week sometime. Lots to do before then.

Paige

2011-07-18T08:15:00.000-04:00

I was itching to get behind my camera last week so I took Paige out to try a few things. It was a beautiful evening and we found lots of fun variety at our locations.

The shot below may be a new favorite! So Gorgeous!

Loved this boat below. I have no idea who it belongs to but it was so cute. ;)

Thanks Paige! You take a beautiful picture!

It's been a while..

2011-07-15T20:43:00.000-04:00

since I have had this little guy on my blog. I tried out my new lens when he was over today. So far lovin the beautiful creamy backgrounds it produces.

2011-07-15T09:23:00.000-04:00

When all else fails... Laugh!

2011-07-13T11:14:00.000-04:00

Cale's Turn

2011-07-12T06:33:00.000-04:00

Cale wanted a turn at some jumping shots after seeing Kirsten's. I didn't feel like setting up my backdrop again so we jumped on his bed instead. I much prefer real settings like this over the backdrop any day. Plus his room gets the most beautiful afternoon light.

And what kid would turn down the chance to jump on their bed!?