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Today’s assignment from The Daily Shoot (a photo of a photo) worked perfectly into my photo plans for the day – taking a 5-year portrait of Caleb. Unfortunately, my plans didn’t work perfectly into Caleb’s plans – he wasn’t very cooperative. I did get this one shot though, and it’s pretty close to what I was envisioning. I wanted a 5-year portrait of him with a baby picture. This is my very favorite baby picture of him. I took the baby photo before I knew much about lighting and composition, but I’m reasonably pleased with it. The light was diffused window light from two huge windows, and at the time all I understood was that I loved how the light came out in the shot. Now I know I should give him more head room, and maybe reflect a bit of light back toward the right side of his face…but this was pretty decent for a novice! The new shot was done outside on our new grass, and was all natural light in the shade of a maple tree.
For some reason Caleb didn’t want anyone to see the baby photo, so don’t tell him I showed it to you!

This Sunday is this little man’s 5th birthday. I asked him how he got from that little 6-month-old baby to this big, 5-year-old boy. He answered, “I waited.”

Duh, Mom.

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Late, late post this busy Friday. The Daily Shoot assignment was “Double your art today. Make a photo of something you've created or crafted.” Well, I haven’t been too creative or crafty lately, so here’s a quick shot of my two greatest creations…

I didn't actually create them, but my husband and I were instrumental in the process, so I'm claiming them! Doesn’t God do nice work? How do you like the fudgesicle faces?

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Thankful Thursday! Here are two of my precious blessings – the two who were willing to come out for pictures. :-) The Daily Shoot challenge today is “Shoot wide open today. Make a creative photo that uses a shallow depth of field to good effect.” For those who aren’t familiar with these terms, that means that the subject will be in focus and the rest of the photo will be blurred. For this photo I used my 50mm lens at 1.8 (as wide open as it will go) to keep Nathan sharply focused and throw the “stuff” in the background (trees, tires, etc.) out of focus.

Here’s another one. Is Caleb growing up too fast, or is that just my imagination?

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Here are a few shots of people I am thankful for.

1.) A nap overtook Caleb. 2.) Andrew is silly, but adorable! 3.) Nathan is a cool bean. 4.) Mr. Fixit. 5.) Nathan loves me! Or something.

It’s not that I’m not thankful for the other 4 – they’ll just have to show up in another post.

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Caleb and I walked to the little park today. It was beautiful outside, so we really had a Walkabout Wednesday! Here are a couple shots I took during our ramble…

I loved how this chokecherry looked against the blue sky. It looks almost lacy with all those blossoms about to pop. I didn’t see the mayfly coming in until I got the photo on the computer.

Caleb had so much fun with the sunshine flowers! He loves blowing the poofyheads and watching them dance on their way.

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Monochrome Monday again! These Mondays are coming around very fast! I was browsing through Flickr this afternoon and saw this photo. I used it as inspiration for my Monochrome Monday photo…

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I’m veering off the theme for today – again. The theme is supposed to be food, but I haven’t shot any food today, so I’m going to share my Friday Challenge photo. The challenge in our 365 group this week is “Shadows.” Here is my shadow photo with the DRI processing.

Monday Meanderings

Monochrome Monday! As Caleb and I were taking our photo walk today we passed by these air conditioning units (I assume – they’re sticking out of windows in a building). Caleb pointed at the filter portion and said, “That’s black and white!” He was absolutely correct, so I shot it for my monochrome Monday photo. I like the pattern.

Word of the day – Catkin.  We also discovered these wonderful treasures on our walk. I knew they were the cottonwood flowers but I could not remember what they were called. Caleb and I talked about it for most of our walk, and when we got home the first thing we did was Google it. Catkins! That was it!

Amanda Hill shared this nice, simple storyboard on her blog recently– thanks Amanda! I put a few photos from the weekend in it just to test it out. I’m sure you’ll be seeing this layout often!

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Well, it’s Monochrome Monday, so I will share a black and white photo…

I used Totally Rad Action’s Bitchin Black & White action to do this (I tried several other methods and didn’t like any of them – I kinda like this one). I only did this because is Monochrome Monday. I’m much happier with the color version…

Spring is coming, and I can tell because the tulips are coming up! So are the crocuses, but they weren’t as interesting yet.

I also have to share this funny little storyboard. This is Caleb’s current favorite lunch…

He was really ready for me to be done taking pictures of his lunch. That’s why he was hanging on the counter staring at it – he kept asking if I was done taking pictures yet. lol.

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My Monochrome Monday shot is an outdoor shot of my poor, sick baby. He was out enjoying the sunshine for a bit in this shot, but he came in and conked out on the couch while the rest of us ate dinner. Poor guy. It seems the stomach bug that’s been running around has caught up to him. I’m hoping that we can keep the other kids away from that bug! Notice the bags under his sunken eyes…

f/2.2
1/500
iso 100
Converted using CoffeeShop Regular Cup of Joe preset for ACR

(He’s been drinking well, including Pedialyte and eating a bit – for those who will want to know.)

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Once again, I did not do scenery for this Scenic Saturday. It’s gray again. Instead I decided to take some photos of my Snack Taxis. We all love these wonderful little things! They are so much better than plastic sandwich bags. And they’re so cute!

Anyway, I was setting up to take some nice photos of my snack taxis – testing light, arranging the elements just so – when someone sneaked in from the side! Apparently the lure of peanut butter dinos was just too much!

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This is the second Monday in a row that I’ve just quickly snapped a moment. This one’s purpose is to document that Kristi and Caleb can actually play nicely together for a few minutes. They were sharing The Chair and playing a video game. It was sweet! (For a moment. Then Kristi objected to Caleb touching her or something.)

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Snapshot Sunday, and the last day of the first month! This month of photos has been effortless! I remember when I started my first 365 and I thought there was no way I’d remember to post a photo every day. Now it’s just a matter of fact, and I never even have to think about it. It’s a habit, and I love it!

Today’s photo truly is a snapshot. I took a few snaps at church, and I was going to use those – but then this opportunity arose. Every one recognizes Superman, Spiderman, and Batman. Now it’s time for the world to know Pictureman – saving the world one snapshot at a time!

Yes, I realize Pictureman doesn't have a camera. He doesn't see that as a problem. (Please note how he solved the cape problem that was brought to light in The Incredibles. Why didn’t Thunderhead and Dynaguy think to tie their capes around their legs?)

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Just another monochrome Monday! (Did anyone else hear The Bangles when they read that?) This is a church just down the street. I edited with my own normal workflow, then used CoffeeShop Creamy Chocolate on this twice, then put the brand new photo corner template from CoffeeShop on it for a somewhat old-timey look.

Photoshop gurus…what would be your suggested method for removing the car and garbage can from the lower right?

And while I’ve been working on this my mini-geek has been working hard too…

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Today is Snapshot Sunday – so what do I do? I go to the studio to do real portraits. The kids are all watching movies today and we have a few sickies, so I didn’t take a snapshot of the family.

This little man just cracks me up!

These two are just so goofy!

I am amazed at how our Facebook group is growing! It’s awesome! I’m so glad to see so many people on this fun photographic journey!

Fun stuff!

My sweet friend Nancy L. gave me Photoshop CS3!! What a blessing!! I’m so excited. I’ve spent all my “free” time lately learning to use it, and I never realized just how many options I’d have that I’ve never had before! I can’t wait to see how my photos turn out – when I take some shots worth practicing on.

For now, I’ve been playing with some actions that are available. This storyboard was made with a free action from CoffeeShop. What fun stuff! I like to do my own adjustments and tweaks to each photo, but actions can be so fun to mess with! The photos in this storyboard were unedited – just thrown into the collage.

Scouting!

Caleb and I went for a photo location scouting walk this afternoon. We took off walking and didn’t get more than half a block before it started raining. It was just raining lightly, so we persevered, and found a few new places and reshot some old places…

In the lower left shot he’s pointing out nail heads that he thought might not be safe. What a considerate boy!

I’ve actually skipped some days!

Well, I’ve skipped days of blogging, but I haven’t actually skipped days of photographing. I think I have photos from every day since I finished my 365. I did a family photo session last night, but I forgot to get releases so I could share the photos, so those will have to wait. I took this shot while setting up for that session…

And I took this one at church yesterday…

Day 358

Only 1 week left of this project! I remember when I was back around day 40 I said to myself, “I’m never going to make it through 365 days of this!” Well, I think I might make it after all! Actually, I haven’t hated it once this whole year. Some days it’s been my only motivation to pick up a camera.

Here is some practice stuff from today. I was testing out bouncing my bare flash directly off the ceiling, off the walls, off the windows…I decided that in my house with the furniture where it is I prefer the flash bounced off the ceiling. I asked Caleb if I could take his picture, so he posed for me…

Finally!

Day 355

I wanted to see how my new stuff works…I got these two treasures at the auction last night. Andrew is sitting on my new stool (showing off his new Rubik’s cube). It’s shorter than the others I have, so it’s great for these in-between kids.

And my sweet mother-in-law bought this adorable little wheelbarrow for me! (She also bought the stool – but it’s not adorable.) Caleb settled on a place with lots of leaves for his play, but unfortunately the spot didn’t give me much room to back up. I was stuck in a fence corner and my new 50mm lens requires a little more space than I had. Oh well…you can get an idea of what the adorable wheelbarrow looks like.

I hadn’t really noticed it before, but my friend Cassie pointed out recently that all my photos of Caleb have motion blur. Too funny. This one does too, if you look closely at his hands. What a great point! He truly is always in motion. Even when he sleeps. I’ve often said that sleeping with Caleb is like sleeping with an octopus tangled in a windmill. I’ll make sure this photo links to its Flickr page (don’t tell Flickr that I usually forget) so you can see the blur. :-)