Abstract and update

I have to say that this week's 365 challenge was really tested! I think it's because I had 4 days of training (Business Analysis: how to gather and document user requirements... ugh) which sucked the creative life force from me, big time!! It was an intense 4 day course (which was relevant to my job, but too intense for right now). So after fighting traffic to get home, trying to make dinner, putting the kids to sleep, I was so dead tired, that taking a photo was the last thing I wanted to do! But, on the bright side I did manage to get a couple photos for the challenge this week: Abstract. Here it is:

I took this of the backs of the computers
in my photography class.

A close up of a fleece blanket.
(It's ironic, Jen has a similar photo! Her's is a fleece sweater though)

And unfortunately that is all I have for abstract. And my photos for the other days during the week were all pretty lame, so it will be hard to scrap them, but I will...

Yesterday was a jammed packed day of fun. It started with Abby's ballet class. My Mom came to watch this time, so we stayed in the room and I took some photos. (note to self: must learn how to take photos under florescent and low light when action is involved!)




After Ballet, we met Shawna and Paige for lunch at Chelsea's Pub. She came up to Chelsea to be my first subject for a photo shoot. She is 7 months pregnant, so she wanted some maternity shots of her, to scrapbook later. Here are just few shots.




It was really fun, because Shawna is a good model, she isn't shy and loves to laugh, so you can say whatever you want and you'll get a laugh out of her :) I also found it to be a great experience for me as the photographer. I learned a lot in this short 1 1/2 hour session:

1. Black on Black doesn't work (duh), however, I like the effect in some photos.
2. I need a wider angle lens which has the speed (like they always say - you need good glass!!), next time I'll rent a wider angle lens, because while I loved what my 50 mm 1.4 gave it didn't have enough play in the wide-angleness!
3. Wait until the subject is bigger in the belly! I'm sure Shawna feels big enough, but she wasn't big enough to really get the money pregnancy shots.
4. Need a better backdrop system, this curtain thing just doesn't work for me!!
5. Print out a book of sample poses, and ideas so that when the ideas start to wain, and we are both getting tired, we can take a peek at it and get some inspiration.

Otherwise, it being my first time doing this, I was extremely happy with how they turned out. I got about 16 printable shots for a 1 1/2 hour session. With practice and experience, I'd like to get that up to at least 20-30 for a 2 hour session. Another positives were:

1. I loved it and can't wait to do it again, and again! And learn more each time.
2. The light in this room was perfect - I'm really lucky to have this resource at hand and that I don't need to worry about setting up lighting as well as a studio;
3. I think the shots of Shawna are beautiful and she'll have some great memories to keep;
4. She is willing to do it again when she is closer to her due date, so clearly it wasn't a total disaster for her;
5. Learned a lot, and have a lot of lessons learned to build from.

Anyone want to be my next guinea pig?? :)

Off to get ready for Vegas, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to blog for the next week. Can't wait to see what I can take photos of!

Friday Photo Challenge

This weeks challenge was Black and White. Jen choose it mainly because there isn't much colour outside these days, let alone any sunshine! Here are three that I came up with:

Gillian jumping on the couch

A house peeking over a ridge
during a walk along the railway tracks.

Fake flowers for sale at Loblaws.
I just converted to B&W and liked the dark look.

Here is the original:

I really do love B&W photos, sometimes photos are meant to be B&W, it's just trying to figure out when that is the challenge sometimes.

Here are my two pages for this weeks POTD Layout:



That picture of Eric was "edited" as he was doing something rather rude when I took the photo, but I just had to include it into the page because it was a funny memory. Here is the original and I'll just let my readers figure it out!

Not only can he make me laugh,
he can make fires too!

This week's challenge will be to take an abstract photo, so you don't quite know what you are looking at, but it looks pretty cool anyway!

Freezing in Chelsea....

Ugh! What can I say. This says it all:

I've now, officially, had enough of winter...

Going Strong on 365

I've managed to take a photo a day for 13 days now. Today I was lacking ideas and creativity, having been a gray dreary day at the office (there are only so many photos I can take of my cubicle!). Then I stumbled upon this tutorial: Playing With Fire - How to Photograph Fire so I thought I'd give it a go when I got home. This is what I got:


Not bad considering the alternative of a cubicle shot!

I'll have my completed page for Sunday to Wednesday up tomorrow. I get to work from home, so my photography options will be better!

Friday Photo Challenge

Posting on Sunday, but that's ok! This week's challenge was to take a photo on three different days, at the same time. May not sound like too much of a challenge depending on what your life it like, but with kids it can be! I chose a couple of time, to cover my bases. I chose 5:15 pm because I know my girls are home, and usually watching Dora or Diego, so I was rather confident that I'd have the time to do this. Here are my photos from 5:15 pm:

January 6th 5:15

January 7th 5:15

January 8th 5:15

And then I chose 6:40 because the kids are most likely to be in their bath, getting ready for bed.

January 6th, 6:40

January 6th, 6:40

January 6th, 6:40

Then for my Project 365 Album I did this page to finish off the week:


Abby started her Ballet lessons on Saturday and looked to be loving it! It was so cute to see all the little 3 year old girls dancing around the room. She was so brave, going in there, not knowing anyone and participating without me in the room. I think gymnastics helped her in that respect. Now I need to get her a tou-tou and leotards as she was the only girl in the class with pants and a t-shirt. After the class we went to Ellie's 4th birthday party at Cosmic Adventure, then to their house for pizza and cake. It's hard to believe that she is 4 already!

Best part of a party: eating cake!

2 Pictures

It's Thursday, the drive into work was crazy. Not much happened at work or during the day really so I thought I would post a couple cute photos of Gillian I took recently:

Sneaking Abby's puzzle pieces into her shirt.

Acting surprised when she puts her plate
down on the glass table and it makes noise!

Off to watch a new Gray's Anatomy... post more later!

A day at home

A completely sleepless night, and I mean completely sleepless (Gillian cried off and on from 10-2 approx., then I was too hungry to sleep so I ate from 2- 2:30, then Abby came into our room at 3:30) coupled with a huge snowstorm (20 cm) and bus strike (chaos on a sunny day) meant: I was staying home today. The kids went to daycare at 8:00 and I slept from 8-12 and I had to force myself out of bed at noon. I could have stayed in bed all day, but it would have meant not sleeping tonight.

In the afternoon I decided to scrap. Something I haven't done in a while, so it was fun. I did these 4 pages:

Project 365 is to take a photo a day for 365 days. My friend Jen is doing it, many girls at DD are doing it, completing a layout a week, so I thought I would give it a go. I figured with taking the photography class, what better way to learn my camera than lugging it around with me everywhere and taking a photo a day. I give myself a couple weeks until I start falling off! :)

And this one was just for fun:

TFL!!

I am here, really I am..

So, I failed miserably at last weeks Friday photo challenge. Jen's challenge was to use a long exposure in a nigh time or dark place. I just didn't get it done. Partially because I'm a perfectionist and I wanted the best, coolest photo - like parliament hill at night, or cars passing by to make a streak in the photo, or even more cool, I wanted to catch skaters at night at the local pond in the evening when the lights were on and they were playing hockey... well anyway, I'm hoping you can visualize my photos because you won't see them posted. I never took them! But also it was because I had to be out and night, in the dark and cold... blah blah.. anyway we're going out on Friday night so I'd like to try and take those pics that night. Anyway, just because I didn't get them done, doesn't mean I can't come up with a new challenge. I decided that for this week we needed to take at least 3 photos, on 3 different days at the exact same time. This will definitely be a challenge because of our unpredictable life with kids!

Anyway, a recap of what happened on the weekend, as it was out last weekend of vacation and now we are back at work... highlights were spending a final two days with the family. I find it amazing how Gillian has grown up, and changed even over the two weeks of Christmas. She is trying so hard to speak, and can say a few things that I understand: done, banana, num-nums (the universal terminology for "give me food, I'm hungry"), Hi!, Bye! and of course she sings and loves to sing! Her hair grew an inch, I swear! She can run and climb like a 3 year old, very agile that way like Abby is.

We took Abigail out skating for the first time on Sunday afternoon. We dug out the skates and helmet and put them on her in the basement in the morning to get her all psyched up. It worked, she was walking around the basement with no support from us, so that was a good sign, but even better that she thought it was so funny when she fell down! We went out to the local pond in the afternoon when the weather was a little warmer and went skating for the first time. Now I know I'm her Mom, and yes biased because of that, but I was truly shocked at how well she did. We were out there for about an hour and didn't cry. She figured out how to get up from a fall all on her own to a standing position within 30 min, and by 45 min was screaming at me not to hold her. Mind you she couldn't actually move without my help, but it was pretty cool that she didn't want me to hold her up by the end of it! We took periodic breaks by putting her into the sled with Gillian, and Eric flung then around the rink and they loved that! Gillian was giggling her pants off when they would turn a corner and almost fly out of the sled (I on the other hand was mildly freaking out because I could just envision then both tumbling out and hitting their heads on the ice!) I can't wait to take them out again, and even go to the Canal!
Here are some shots:

This is a picture of the pond by out house
It's a wonderful community supported rink on a huge picturesque
pond about 5 min from home. Typical Canadian scene.

She could stand on her own really well right off the bat.

Practicing to stand after a fall.

Taking a break with Daddy pulling them around.

Then yesterday was back to work, and the start of my photography class. It's makes for a super long day Monday's, but I think it will be quite fun to learn a few things and try to use my camera like it should be used! I'll keep you posted on what I learn!

Finally a parting shot:

There is nothing like the exciting bubbles bring in the bathtub!

Happy 2009!

Last night we had a great dinner with neighbours to celebrate New Years eve. We didn't exactly ring in the new year, because they had all gone home and we were asleep by midnight, but, none the less it was a fun and relaxing time. We had a potluck dinner and all pitched in to make it an easy get together, then spent the night watching the Canada beat the US in the World Juniors, which was exciting to watch.

The kids woke up at the usual 6:15 am, and had us celebrating the New Year early today, which is ok once we are up, but it's hard to wake ourselves up that early on days off. It was a very cold day again here, -15 so going outside wasn't much of an option for the girls. They get so cold so quickly that it's not too much fun doing anything for long outside. As a result we are feeling quite house bound! But it also means a beautiful sunny day and good photo ops.



As it is new years, I guess it's resolution time. Normally I don't make resolutions because I know I feel they are just to be forgotten, but this year I thought I would make one. Nothing too exciting - simply don't spend much money this year. My friend Beth suggested a budget (what does that word mean???) for personal money. Which is what I'll try and do. I'll get myself organized when I get back to work and figure out how to do set it up. The main driving force behind this is really to pay off our new septic and well soon!

What are your resolutions?