View from the Top

Day 3 - View from the Top.

{My Little Guy}

My youngest little monster has the two craziest cowlicks ever, each going a different way. It's like two hurricanes crashing into each other.

Love it!

Home Is...

Day 2 - Home Is.

{Chaos of Boys}

On any given day, you'll find toys, shoes, and crumbs strewn about the house.  Before kids, things were more orderly and quiet, but my boys, with their chaos and noise,  make this "home" to me!

A Photo Challenge...

So... I'm late posting again.  I got a new photo organizing/editing program (Lightroom 3) recently and have been trying to figure it out so I haven't been shooting as much lately and I haven't been editing as fast.  It's kind of sad.

To get back into shooting regularly without adding too much more to my unedited photo backlog, I decided to participate in the Expose Yourself Project.  It's one photo a day for 14 days.  Each day there is a new theme.  And the surprise twist was that they all have to be black and white.  Love it...

Day 1: My Style

{Under Construction}

Right now I feel like my photography style is a work in progress. My style has been evolving as I've been working on the technical aspects. I'm still trying to figure it all out, but I'm loving the journey!

Caldwell Couples Shootout

The models for the Caldwell couples shootout were the winners of the Simply Yours Giveaway put on by the local photographers group.  Both couples were so great!

Enjoy!

Photos Taken 9/30/11

My First Boise Shootout

I was very lucky to find an amazing group of local photographers!  One of the best things about the group is that they hold photographer shootouts, where a location and models are arranged and the photographers just jump right in and shoot.  Everyone is shooting the same thing at the same time, but everyone's photos look so different! 

Different angles, different processing, different styles.  So fun!

The first shootout I went to was in September.  A few of the photographers brought their kids as our models and we all pitched in on huge balloons and brought props.  It was really fun, but... 

It was also when I was first trying to get the hang of back button focus.  (Back button focus is where you set one of the back buttons to focus your shots rather than pressing the shutter button halfway down to focus.)  I'd read about it on a photography forum and several photographers swear that it's the best.  It worked fine when I was practicing on stationary objects in the house, but the first time I tried it on actual people I about died at how many images were out of focus.  Not just "soft" - all out blurry!  I'd gotten a little better by the time I went to the shootout, but as the photo below shows, I certainly hadn't mastered it!



Photo by Ali Smith,  http://www.alismithphotography.com/



There I am, right in the middle, looking at my camera, trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong to get so many out of focus shots.

  Thank you to sweet Ali for sharing this photo and making me laugh! 

(Without her help a few weeks later I may never have gotten the hang of it!)

Here are 12 of my favorites from that evening...

  

Photos taken 9/16/2011

Hunting Eastern Idaho

I was able to spend a bit of quality one on one time with the hubby on a trip to eastern Idaho a few weeks ago.  He wanted to go hunting and I wanted to take photos, so we compromised and did both.  It was really nice being outdoors together and it was a beautiful day with one of the most amazing sunsets I've ever seen.  I ended up just sitting on the hill watching the clouds move across the horizon.

Enjoy!

This may be my favorite photo of our dog ever...

 

The clouds didn't really want to cooperate for silhouette shots, but I managed to get one that I liked.

 

 



The first time I've ever seen a moose in a potato field!  I have to give the credit to my hubby though, he called him in close enough that I could get a few shots with my camera!