Playdate and Photos

I hosted a play date yesterday with some Chelsea moms and a couple stragglers from Barrhaven (hehehe just kidding girls). It was a fun filled morning of babies and goodies and fun was had by all! Including Madison who basically slept through the entire thing! I prepared some yummy Chocolate Coconut Bars, which didn't exactly turn out like they were supposed to, but were delicious none the less. Here is the recipe for those who asked for it - it is super easy!:

Chocolate-Coconut Bars
Makes 20

* 3 cups finely ground cookies (12 ounces), such as graham crackers or chocolate wafers, or a combination
* 1/4 cup sugar
* 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
* 1 cup pecan pieces
* 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips or chunks
* 1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
* 1 1/2 cups sweetened shredded coconut

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly splash a 15-by-10-inch rimmed baking sheet evenly with water, then line with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, stir together cookie crumbs, sugar, and butter until combined. Evenly press onto bottom and up sides of prepared baking sheet. Bake, rotating halfway through, until firm, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack; cool, about 20 minutes.
3. Sprinkle cooled crust evenly with pecans and chocolate. Pour condensed milk over the top, spreading to cover completely (do not let it drip over the edges). Sprinkle with coconut.
4. Bake until coconut is toasted, 10 to 15 minutes. Transfer to rack; cool completely. Trim edges, if desired, and cut into equal-size bars.

Tip: Before you pour the condensed milk over the top, place can in hot/boiling water for a few minutes to warm it up and it will pour better. I didn't do this so it didn't exactly "pour", so it came out clumpy.

The most relaxed mom of twins I've ever seen!

Cute little Selina

Loved Ava's onsie!

Andrew and his little dimple.

Cohen gives me the cutest smile!

Quinn tries to get Andrew to wake up. Trouble maker :)

The gang of babies! (I love how Meaghan is the only one looking
straight at the camera smiling - what a star!)

Once everyone left, I set up for my afternoon photo shoot with Jemelee, Lee and baby Hogan. Hogan was 15 days old and super cooperative! Here are a couple random sneek peaks, visit my blog later on for more shots from the session:

First Photo Shoot!

I set up the studio yesterday, and set out today to do Madison's first photo shoot! She was a little difficult to get to sleep, took a good couple of hours to get her asleep enough to pose her, and still she resisted in her slumber. Still I got some really cute shots and hope to get a few more tomorrow, if I have the energy! It's tough work being the Mom and the photographer all at once!

Here are the highlights so far:

Thought I'd try a little texture on these two and loved how they turned out!

I just love little feet!!

A Refresing Update!!

I decided to update my blog. Considering I'm still pregnant, now 2 days overdue (if you consider my due date as Aug 12th) awaiting baby to start her journey, I needed something to do. Well, I'm not exactly short of things to do, I have quite an extensive list, that would probably take weeks to get through, but this was one on that list, so I did it!! I found photography centric blog templates from: Our Blogger Templates and decided to upgrade. The advantage of this template is that it's much wider and allows you to post much larger photos. I can also put an image background, which I happen to like and in general I find it looks so much more polished. I also upgraded my photography blog: http://christinedenisphotography.blogspot.com/ (Please comment and tell me what you think!!)

Don't you just love the huge photos!! Probably too big for some screen resolutions, but works on mine!

The story behind the photos: I went for a walk with Bender, trying to induce labour by walking in the 35 degree heat... but instead was just eaten alive by mosquitoes! Each time I'd stop to take a photo, they would find me and attack! So needless to say, I didn't take too many and had to change my route.

Maybe I'll hit the road again...off to walk the dog!

More on Textures

Funny how I post yesterday's post with a couple textures applied to a photo and then look what is featured on Digital Photography School's blog? None other than this: How to Use Textures to Enhance Your Photographs

I find that the technique is quite easy to do, technically speaking, but creatively speaking it's tough (for me anyway...) to get it right. I've taken photos of textures (rocks, bricks, bark, grass) but find them hard to apply well. After reading this, I'm going to try and take photos of softer textures and see what happens. I'll also search for free ones on-line. Of course, there is always the option to purchase, I happened to find this cool site yesterday: Florabella which has some beautiful photos that can be printed and used as artwork, and you can purchase the textures the artist used.

I'd love to see what you can come up with using textures...

Tuesday Musings

Again a big break in blogging for me! I'm now at 38 weeks minus a day!! I have two newborn shoots to proof, but can't muster any energy at night to do them...so I'm falling behind a little. Oh well! I am just trying to survive the 3 weeks at home with the kids at this point in my pregnancy, and so far so good. I find that I'm relatively sane most of the day, but then I get super tired and impatient with the girls and things go downhill! I know it's because I'm tired, but it's so tough sometimes, especially when they like to take off on me when we go out shopping. But it's life and it's temporary, in a couple of weeks I'll be even more sleep deprived but cuddling my new baby girl each night!

Nothing like some pictures to pick up the energy and spirits:

Another one taken with my 100 mm Macro - I'm loving this lens!
Settings, just for fun!: f 5.0, 125, ISO 200

And these that I've added textures to... I want to print these for wall art, I'm so happy with how they turned out!

Same image from above, with texture added.

I also found a fun creative blog to follow (my list is getting so long - 70 subscriptions on my Google Reader, I think it's time to review it and remove blogs I don't really read!!). It's called The Creative Mama And as per usual when you find a new blog, it tends to lead to other blogs, one that caught my particular attention was 503 Photography, she has some great shots and does a "Photography Friday" piece that features some kind of photography tip.

And finally as I close off this post, this is what happens when you finally have a hot sunny day, and your mom is 38 weeks pregnant - can't go to the beach so the next best thing:

Wow.. had to share this...

I just saw this amazing set of photos!! I see a challenge here... I'll have to try this. Well I'll have to try taking sharp photos of bubbles first.. then the popping part!

http://stacyclaireboyd.blogspot.com/2009/07/popping-bubbles.html

Photo Shoot Setup - Sharing trade secrets!

I promised my friend Jen that I'd post some pictures of my photo studio set up next time I did it. I set it up in my living room, by moving all the furniture out of the way... yes, a real pain, but it's the best space to do it! Put the floor down and set up the backdrop. I took these photos at a bad time of day, lighting wise, but by the time people show up the sun has moved a little, or I can just close the curtains to cut out that harsh sunlight that you see.





I would like it if the portable floor could be propped up about 3 ft, so I wouldn't have to crouch down so far to shoot (which is a real pain right now, considering I'm 8 months pregnant!!), the lighting in the room is amazing because of all the windows we have, but a more confined space would be nice for keeping the heat around for newborn shoots (hot = sleepy). And I would love not to have to set it up and take it down each time (but dedicated studio = $$$$). Other than that it's great, and I'm really lucky to have this resource so close at hand!

These are the resulting images:

What does your studio look like?? I'd love to know! :)

Raw Addiction

I think I'm addicted to photographing in RAW. I didn't exactly switch right away when I got my camera. I had to upgrade Photoshop because the version I had didn't recognize my version of RAW and when I finally did upgrade, I still shot .JPG and RAW at the same time, so I would have both versions of the same photo. I thought about why I would bother doing that, and couldn't figure out why anymore so I switched to RAW. I then shot exclusively in RAW for a while, but then I started to think about the huge amount of memory it consumes, so I decided that I would strickly shoot RAW for any photo shoots I do, but keep it to .jpg for my own family spontaneous shoots I do, and if the lighting conditions were tricky I would switch. Today, was such a day where all the photos I took were the usualy weekend fun, but I felt the whole time like I really should be switching to RAW. The conditions weren't terribly difficult, full sun, but nice shade to work with. But I still felt this nagging feeling like I should switch to RAW. So at the end the day when the sun was setting I switched, I just couldn't help it! So there we go another GIG of memory gone! But now I have some nice beautiful RAW to play with... ahhh I feel better already!! (Photos to follow... got to go to bed!!)

Sneak Peak...

I've been working on this for a few days now... still far from finished, but going along really well. I'll need a few proof readers when done!!

The missing photos from last night...

I wanted to post a photo last night, but was ready for bed before I had time to process it.These were taken on Saturday. I had left my setup there to specifically take photos of the girls. Gillian wouldn't sit for me, but Abby did:



My watermark is on there, because it's for my gallery and my other blog. Do you like them??

Photoshoot, sleepover and bunk beds

I did a really fun photoshoot on Friday. An old colleague and friend, Yana, came over with her little boy - 8 months, and also brought along a friend, her husband and their brand new baby girl - 14 days!

I was a little nervous about shooting two different babies at the same time, but it worked out really well, while Dina tried to get her baby to fall asleep, I would shoot Yana's boy. He was great, didn't cry, didn't pee on anything and had lots of smiles for us!

Here is the link to my blog to check out some of my favourites from the shoot:

http://christinedenisphotography.blogspot.com/

Saturday we had a treat, in that Eric's parents offered to take the girls overnight, giving us a date night/sleepover combo. We went out for supper to Suisha Gardens, yummy sushi, followed by a martini at Zoe's at the Chateau Laurier. We went with another couple, since we never get the change to hang out with them without our little ones running around. It was a lot of fun, but needless to say I fell alseep on the couch at 10:00 pm, about 20 min after we got home! It was very strange to wake up and not have the girls around, I sure did miss them, but I did enjoy the quiet morning also!

Before going to pick them up, we drove out to Ikea to finally buy a bunk bed. We've been looking for a while on-line, second hand, and in stores, but decided on the Ikea one that matched the furniture we already have in Abby's room. We still haven't put it together, but Abby is already excited to see it, and start sharing her room with her sister.

I only have 3 more weeks of work! And non of them will be a full week. The next two are 4 days long, followed by a 3 day week, then I'm done! I'm at 32 weeks, and today I started to swell up. I never experienced that with the other two, and I must say - I don't like it! My lower legs fell really tight, and even my wrists are feeling "full"! I just hope it's normal and as a result of lots of soya sauce last night and not enough water... just hope it goes away!!

I love back lighting...

I just wanted to post this. I do love the look of back lighting, it's so fun to play with when the sun is shining brightly and it's hard to take any other photos in the full sun!

Happy Birthday Gillian

My baby girl turned 2 today! Of course at two she didn't really have a clue what was going on, but I think by the end of the day with all the singing and ice cream at daycare and then singing and cake at home, she knew something was up! Abby had fun to, eating all the goodies and helping blow out the candles, and she is now, even more so, looking forward to her birthday in August. I'll have to plan something a little better for her as, she is now getting to the age where she will remember and know what it's all about!


Now to recap what I've been up to! Well, lots of sleeping! I try to watch the hockey games, I try to stay up "late" but I'm usually crashed out and sleeping on the couch at 8:00 pm, so it doesn't leave much time for blogging! I miss it. I miss having the energy to scrapbook (sorry Beth - I've fallen horribly behind on the scrapping challenge). I miss having the energy to take photos (mind you it's been pretty cold and rainy here... sorry Jen for not keeping up with the photo challenge!). But after the baby comes, I'll have lots of photos to take and lots to scrap!

Last weekend I attended a Baby photography workshop with Amber Shereen. She held it at her place, and there were only two of us there, so it was great to get such personal time. We had 3 baby models, each around 7 months old. Two we shot in her natural light studio and one in her basement studio with strobes. It was fun to see how she set every thing up and how she goes about getting the fabulous photos that she does. Here is a link to my other blog that I decided to set up for posting these photos: http://christinedenisphotography.blogspot.com/ I was really happy with the way my photos turned out and couldn't wait to do it again! I just have to work on the set up of the "Studio" to be able to do it successfully!

I'm not missing... really I'm not...

Jen and Beth have been wondering where I went this week. I explained to Beth today that I, unfortunately, am completely running out of steam these days. After working all day, making dinner, and putting the kids to bed, I have just enough energy to download any photos I took that day and then, basically, I'm burnt. I don't have the energy, and as a result the brain power to muster any kind of creativity or thought to think through something. So scrapping and Photo-shopping have been put on the back-burner. At least until I'm done work, on July 10th and have a couple of minutes a day to rest. It's not to say I'm doing nothing, I have been working on some images this week, it's just taken me a week to figure out what I'm doing!!

Here are some favourites:

There is just something so cute
about kids reading books, and I
love to take pictures of them when reading.

The concentration, wonderment and amazement
that each page brings. It's so cool!
(I also love kids feet!)

I love her in this funky 60's dress! Perfect on her!

more reading...not even noticing mommy
making funny noises and acting like a goof
to get her to look at the camera!

Off for a short after supper jog. This one
is a runner!

Abby laying in the grass... love this one!

I really like these two, however I'm not sure
who this child is or where she learned to pose
like that - it's kind of freaky really.

Singing "Head & Shoulders"...

Bender looking regal.

And that is it for now... off to bed!

Ode to the 24-70....

Beth and I have been sharing our camera wish lists with each other for some time now, and while they do have their differences, they are quite similar. We have been both coveting the 24-70 2.8L mm lens for a while and as of today, I am a proud owner of one. Beth may be jealous, but Beth should remind herself that she is way more smart, disciplined and responsible than me, and now she could just borrow it from me... :) And me on the other hand is not so smart, impatient and impulsive... but enough about that... I've only had it on my camera for a few hours and I already love it. It's focusing speed is SO fast. I really notice the speed of it, it's amazing. I've taken a few shots and here are a few samples...







It's a heavy lens, but nice and solid. I think it will be the one that I put on my camera and never take off!