Cuteness overload

 

Wook at him suck his wittle thumby on his zebwa pillow pet!  Awww!
^_^

Picture of the day

Action shots

Being able to freeze someone or something mid-motion is one of the funnest things about photography.  And it's so easy when you have a good camera and natural light!

Happy St. Valentine's Day!!

We hope you spend it with the ones you love!

Picture of the day

Tommy on the snow pile in front of our house. I just LOVE the sun shining behind him!

*EDIT*

(I edited out the lines in the sky from the original picture... much better!)

Bright white snow

Outside with the sun and the bright white snow, there is a lot of light.  Which means, I have a lot of options with my camera when I'm shooting out there.  I can make the shutter speed super fast or I can make the aperture super small (which is a higher number... aperture is confusing.)
It was beautiful outside yesterday (and today, for that matter.  I'm talking temps in the high THIRTIES!  YES!), so me and Weazy wandered around the yard, taking pictures, throwing snowballs, and watching melting icicles.
 Here are two pictures from yesterday where exposure is involved, and I just thought I'd share my thoughts on these pictures (both SOOC).

In the first picture, my aperture was lower, and I set it higher in the second picture. (there's depth of field involved here, but that's another topic for another time)

The technical part of me (EVERYTHING MUST BE PERFECTLY EXPOSED!) likes the second picture much better.  But the creative part of my kind of prefers the first one.
Now why would I like such an overexposed picture?  It's way too bright!
With snow pictures, I actually really like them to be a little overexposed for some reason.  The contrast is higher, and the snow is incredibly bright which I think looks kind of cool. 

What are your thoughts?

Picture of the day

Mari, the little artist.

Eyes

Keeping with the close-ups theme, here are some pictures of my baby siblings' eyes.
The first ones are Evangeline's.  She was extremely tired (but resisting a nap) when I took these, so she looks a little dazed.

 This next pair of peepers belongs to my little Tommyboy.  I told him to sit very still so I could take a picture of him.  He did this obediently for about twenty seconds before running off to do whatever it is two year olds do, but luckily, my camera caught a good picture of his gorgeous baby blues.

(*Pictures edited with picnik.com... I highly recommend the "eye bright" tool... it really sharpens them up and makes them stand out!)

Snowflakes

It started snowing today (shock, surprise :P), and the first thought that came to mind was "I wonder if I could get a picture of a snowflake...?".  I don't have a macro lens, but I knew if I could get close enough I'd at least be able to get most of the details of a snowflake.  Since our front porch is white, and pretty much everything else outside is white as well, I set a piece of black construction paper outside to catch some snowflakes, then pulled out my camera and got to work!  I set it to the macro setting, no flash, and used manual focus.

I probably could have gotten much better pictures with a better lens, or even if I had just played around with the settings a bit more, but for a first attempt, they aren't bad. 
I also found that sharpening the pictures and bumping up the contrast really helps make the snowflakes a little more dramatic! 

~More close-ups coming soon!~

Bokeh

Bokeh pictures are so fun, probably because they're so easy.  You can take some really elegant portraits with bokeh in the background, but I didn't have any subjects when I took these pictures, so it's just straight-up bokeh! (for the definition of bokeh, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh)

Bokeh is basically any part of a picture that is blurred because it is out of focus, but the best bokeh is when you get those big, lovely, ethereal dots in the background.   In my limited experience, I've found that the best way to get that is using Christmas tree lights.  Luckily, I have a string of white tree lights hanging on my walls, and a string of colorful lights around my mirror that you'll see in some of my pictures.  To get bokeh, all you have to do is make your camera focus on something close to the lens and use a shallow depth of field.  Here are some examples.

Here, I was focusing on one single light from the string.  See how the bokeh makes what would normally be a boring picture of a Christmas tree light into a pretty cool picture?

  I love it when the bokeh dots overlap...

This is what I believe was called "radial blur" which I learned in photography class.  You focus on a point, and using a fairly slow shutter speed (I believe mine here was 1/10 second) as you take the picture you quickly twist your lens to make everything in the picture go whoosh!

Tommy

To start things off here on SC Photography, I'll show off some pictures I recently took of my little bother brother, Thomas.
Before I post them, though, I have a few things to say about these pictures:

1. They aren't very good.
2. In these pictures, I'd like to pretend composition doesn't exist.
3. Two year old boys aren't very cooperative subjects.
4. I have no idea what's all over his face.
5. These are all SOOC (straight-out-of-the-camera; no editing).

You've been warned...

Oh, he seems cute and innocent...

This is the infamous spike.  After a bath, his hair somehow wound up with a spike in the back and it stayed for days.

Here comes the crazy...

I think these pictures capture his spirit pretty well. ;)