I love this picture.

It turned out so clean and crisp and with such little work. That is the best part. It turned out looking this good with only a unsharp filter and some boosts in selective color to bring out some details that were slightly blown out. I think I tend to get carried away with photoshop. I am working on NATURAL.

Life in RED

go out and see what you can find.

I wanted to try something new so I went out in search to find things that are red to photograph. It was fun and exciting, and you start to notice things in a new way.

Have you seen this Trailer? So cute! I just love it! It makes me happy. I love my babies! I am happy that I am a mom.

HAPPY MOTHER's DAY

This is a summary of tutorials I have read and I want to remember. So just like in school I did an outline on the things that I need to study better and understand more.

All are found at Iheartface.blogspot.com

What does that mean? on your camera...

L: This tells you how your files are being saved. This particular person is shooting in large JPEG mode. I usually keep it in L+RAW. L means large files (lots of pixels).

Diamond shaped dots: These dots represent places to focus. You can choose one of these places to focus on, let the camera auto focus, or manually focus.

-2...0...+2: This is the exposure when in Av and Tv modes. The closer you are to -2, the darker your picture will be and vice verse. You can choose to set the picture to have more or less light depending on the setting. You won't be able to control this in manual mode because you'll adjust the exposure in the viewfinder.

AWB: This is the white balance setting. AWB means auto white balance. Choosing the right white balance is important, but if you shoot in RAW, it can be changed later.

Eye-type symbol: This is the metering mode. You can choose how you want your camera to read the available light. Your options are evaluative (the camera gives all parts of the photo equal importance when working out the exposure), partial/spot (the camera makes sure your picture is properly exposed at your focal point), and center-weighted (your camera makes sure the center of the frame is properly exposed.

Av: Aperture priority mode. On this setting, you choose your aperture and the camera works out your shutter speed for you. When I first started shooting, I used to always shoot in Av mode. It's a baby step away from fully automatic. You have some control, but you don't have to worry about knowing all the settings.

Tv: Shutter speed priority mode. You choose your shutter speed, and the camera works out the rest for you.

A-Dep: Auto depth of field. A more automatic form of Av.

Shutter

When you take a picture, you generally want it the shutter to stay open just long enough to capture a crisp image. Too long, and the image is blurry. You need the right shutter speed. The faster the shutter speed, the less blurry the picture, in a sense.

Apertures

Now, the smaller the aperture, say f/22, the greater the depth of field will be. That means that more things are going to be in focus. You'd use these kind of apertures for landscapes. If you have a very wide aperture, say f/1.4, only the focal point will be in focus. The rest will appear blurry. You'd use these kind of apertures for portraits to help the subject stand out.

ISO

Ideally, use the lowest ISO setting you can get away with without getting camera shake. Your pictures will be better quality.

-I heart Faces Tutorial

Dinosaur Park

We are just lovin the park. It is so fun every time we go!

continuing on with the challenge of using only my camera, these were only enhanced with a unsharp mask. I love the coloring in the pictures. The lighting looked so good. I tried something new using the f stop to something like 3.5 and then the shutter to like 1/1300 so I could have more in focus. It was tricky getting the right lighting but I liked the ones that looked good.

These ones I broke the rules and used some actions. I thought they needed to be a little more fun.

(lux hard from TRA and just bw then used curves to make it harder)


These girls are so cute together! Can't you just imagine what they are talking about as they walked together holding hands in this picture.

KD always tells me after she plays with Gracie, "Mom, Gracie is my best friend." It just melts my heart. We met up at our favorite park. The girls were loving finding the baby turtles and we even saw a baby duck. It was so cute!

Getting to Know my Camera

Everything I have read from photographers that have taught themselves have said you go through phases. The you just really suck at using your camera so your pictures just aren't good. CHECK! You try to compensate by over editing your pictures to fix them. CHECK! So the next step according to her is... to actually get to know your camera and actually start taking good pictures. So it was really funny reading this because while I went through my pictures I could see the differences in the pictures. So yesterday at sun set around 6, my family went for a drive to help me practice. Most of these pictures are only enhanced with an unsharp mask and curves adjustment. NO ACTIONS were run on any of them. That was the challenge from this photographer. As much as I love them, it is true, I need to get the basic knowledge of my camera before I can start using actions. Every photographer says they can tell in a picture whether or not a person knows how to use their camera or not. So on that note here are the pictures I took.

I could not help but smile while I edited these pictures. Hope you have fun at the wedding in disneyland. I am so jealous.

Are you Ready....

BEFORE

AFTER

We have black furniture so this is what it will look like when we move in.

I need help

What color should I do the back room. That is going to be Shaun's office area. We got him some dark brown bookshelves. Ideas?

these are not my pictures!
With the excitement of moving I have been blog surfing a lot for ideas. Here are some pictures I have found that I love. I am wishing we had a backyard, but the pool is worth it, I think!

G man Loves his Daddy

I took this picture yesterday and thought it was so cool that I could see the rain falling on the mountains in one direction and see the sun shining in the other direction. I think this can totally apply to life in every cliche way.

woke up this morning to find this...
it might rain but it is so pretty!