Best of My Archives
Ah, almost perfect. I wish I'd moved over a bit to the right. But then the light would have been different. Maybe if I'd backed up . . .
Rappahannock River Train Bridge, Fredericksburg, Virginia
photographed during the September 2013 Clickinmoms Clickinwalk
Lafayette Boulevard, Fredericksburg, Virginia and Motorcycle
photographed during the September 2013 Clickinmoms Clickinwalk
William Rollow Residence 1826, Historic Fredericksburg Foundation, Virginia
photographed during the September 2013 Clickinmoms Clickinwalk
A House for Sale in Fredericksburg, Virginia
photographed during the Clickinmoms 2013 Clickinwalk
Thanks Ian for putting the Netflix DVD into the mailbox!
Tiny Tower on the iPod
Day 008 I don't mean to take gaming photos every Sunday, but coincidentally more gaming is going on here this afternoon.
Day 036 It was late again when I remembered to take a picture. Worse, I decided to use Automatic. It was a good reminder how awful it is to leave the decisions up to the camera. This is the best of the two dozen photos I took quickly while the rest of my family danced to a music video. Unlike in many of the other shots, the camera managed to get their faces in focus. Red eye was easily dealt with in Lightroom. Tomorrow is a new week full of new days and more opportunities to practice good photography. This last week was just a lull, a step back before two steps forward.
Day 039 Today was a rainy day that did not inspire pictures. However, as the daylight faded I came up with the idea of shooting bedtime and including myself in the photo, something I want to do every week or two. We read together every night. Usually Ian chooses a book or three for me to read first. Or, lately Rhiannon has been reading to Ian while I sit beside Caroline and listen to her reading Sorcerer's Stone. Then I shut off the lamp and read a chapter book by handheld book light, a routine I established way way back when there was only Rhiannon, to more quickly induce sleep! ;) She no longer falls asleep while I'm reading, but it still works on Ian every night. It probably helps that the chapter book is usually a bit over his head. Much of last year we were reading the Harry Potter series. Then we read My Side of the Mountain and Caddie Woodlawn. Then we decided to reread the City of Ember series, but instead of reading them in the order they were published, we're reading them in chronological order, so we're half way through Prophet of Yonwood now. We're usually a bit more spread out when we read, but I was using my 50mm lens. :D This is one of 50 shots I took using continuous mode and the camera timer. Manual f/2.8 1/5sec ISO800 Used my tripod. In Lightroom I cropped a little excess, cluttered space on the left, lightened and increased contrast a bit, and changed it to black & white, playing with the temperature slider but not knowing what I was doing. And guess what! I got a notice from Gotta Pixel today advertising a Basics of Lightroom class coming up in March -- perhaps Fate heard my discouragement with the complexities of post-processing -- and I decided to sign up. I think it will be a good start.
She Fell in Love With Ribs in 2012
Day 067 Thursday March 8 Look at how this girl can polish off ribs. See her rib smile? manual 50mm f/1.8 1/40sec ISO800 In Lightroom I did a custom white balance by clicking on the fork handle, and increased the temp, exposure, blacks, and luminance smoothing a little. How does the lighting and exposure look to you? What about the crop? It was a bit of a tight space, but I think I could have moved over to the right a little. I'm always open to critique -- it helps me learn -- so please comment, thanks!
Day 072 Tuesday March 13 friends splashing in the creek on a very warm almost-Spring afternoon Av f/4 1/800s ISO100
Day 095 While my kids and I were playing Apples to Apples we decided to have a snack of apples. :) 50mm f/4.5 1/25sec ISO800
Playing with Friends at the Playground
Day 102 The plastic "tire" swing at one of our local parks is very popular. I used the Continuous mode to capture this speedy action. 50mm Manual f/3.5 1/500sec ISO400
Day 110 After dropping off my girls at the venue where they are performing in Annie with their homeschool drama club, I didn't want to drive all the way home, at least a half hour away, only to have to return almost immediately to watch the play. Ian did, though, so I had to find something interesting for him to do for a little while before showtime. We drove 3 miles back to downtown and visited the toy store on Caroline Street. Ian chose these packets with single Playmobile characters. It's a surprise what you get; the picture on the package only shows ALL of the possible characters you could get. He was pleased with the football player and alien he got. I'm very pleased with how I framed this shot and how well the lens captured the light despite the dimness of the van. The sun is getting low behind those buildings straight ahead. I was all the way across the sidewalk, leaning against the building in a crouch, using my 50mm lens. I wanted to capture some of the buildings to record where we were.
Day 138 A big cookie at Panera | I think a slightly smaller aperture would have been better so I'd have had a bit wider focal plane. Nice catchlights though! And his expression in this shot is my favorite of the four I took. He preferred a shot that did not include his hands though. 50mm Manual f/2.5 1/100sec ISO400
Day 144 First, I want to say Happy 11th Mom birthday to me. My oldest turned 11 today. This is a picture of my third child though. Now 5 1/2, he has recently been opening the doors on his own and heading outside to play. Today he told me, "I'm going out to climb the tree, Mom." He had climbed it a little before, but this is pretty new. So I stood out there watching for a while. After he proved he was a pretty good climber I decided to grab my camera and take some pictures. This is a big bushy sunset maple tree in our yard. We planted it when it was 6 feet tall and looked hardly more than a stick, just after I got pregnant with my oldest almost 12 years ago. We haven't pruned it so it has a lot of branches sticking out all around, all the way down to the bottom. I love that he happened to be wearing a red shirt for this picture. Unfortunately, for the first three pictures I took, I had neglected to check my white balance, and it was still set at incandescent from the previous day. Lightroom helped me fix it a little, and I increased the saturation and lowered the exposure a little too. 55mm Manual ISO800 f/5.6 1/320sec
Day 157 Today is the actual 157th day of this year. If you've been following me all year you know I purposely skipped Leap Day so my Project 365 would really only have 365 pictures. I tediously handwrote the numbers on every page of my desk calendar. Now I've got a new desk calendar that came with the numbers already on it, and it is counting accurately. I've decided to go with the actual number of the day from today on. It's kind of a fresh beginning too, because I've missed a couple of days recently. (Yes, I neglected to take a picture again yeterday! Yikes! I won't let it happen again!) I'm starting Shooting 101 class over again this week. I didn't get much participation in my study group last month so I joined this month's group. It has already had about twice as much activity in the pre-first week than my group had all last month! Even better, I'm really feeling things coming together a little more every time I pick up my camera. It was especially pronounced going back to Shooting 101 Lesson 1. It actually felt strange to "rewind" and not do some of the things I learned since last month. I kept using back button focusing though. That's working well and takes more effort to change. I metered to zero on the blue wall, evaluative metering and AI Focus. 50mm ISO 1600 f/3.2 1/125sec
Day 159 Bowling We're taking advantage of the kids bowl free deal at AMF this summer. Here's everyone watching Ian's ball zoom down the alley. I'm amazed with how well I was able to expose all 23 photos I took in the low light of the bowling alley. I must be getting the hang of it! Yay!!! As for the composition of this one, I like the angle. 27mm Manual ISO1600 f/4 1/80
My Old Copy of To Kill A Mockingbird
Day 167 Yesterday I began reading To Kill A Mockingbird again. The last time I read it was in high school about 25 years ago. This is the very copy of the book I read then. You can see page number notes written in my high school handwriting on the first page. Page 94 is where the words of the title appear. "Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." I've only just read 43 pages so far. We've had a couple of busy days and when I have been home I've been watching The Ultimate Lightroom Workflow by Jared Platt at CreativeLIVE. I took 8 shots before I was satisfied and I still played around with the contrast, lighting, etc in Lightroom. ISO3200 f/3.5 1/20sec
Day 172 Playing at the Lake Shutter Priority 1/250sec f/7.1 ISO100
Day 174 Dinner at Wegman's before going to see Brave 50mm ISO1600 f/4 1/60sec The movie was better than I expected, but also scarier than I expected. I reassured my son before it began that it probably wouldn't be scary. At least we knew it would have a happy ending since it was Disney. But I felt exhausted after watching it. As for this photo, I'm content. I metered off a grey tile on the floor and just took two quick shots.
Day 208 Caroline wants me to open her gluten-free dairy-free donuts at Krispy Kreme, where we're celebrating a friend's birthday. I'm pleased with myself for metering so quickly and getting several well exposed photos here. :) 50mm Manual ISO400 f/2 1/200sec