Just Playin'

Just couldn't help but putting a couple shots from my NEW camera on the blog.. 

 Aren't my kids the cutest things???!!!

7 months

Here are some quick 7 month pictures of Scarlett.  She's growing fast and she's working on crawling.  I'm sure it will happen as soon as we get to our new place and start unpacking.  Murphy's law.

Things are feeling like a whirlwind around here.  We're a week out of being moved out of our house and in with friends for Christmas and New Years.  Then on the 4th of January, we'll start the long drive (detours included) to our next home at Eglin AFB.  Blogging will be sparse, but updates will come once we get settled.  I hope you all have a really wonderful and blessed Christmas this year!

Family

6 months

Holy Cow have I been BUSY!  Haha.  I always think when I get through one busy season that life will slow down, but I've realized that really it just varies on different degrees of business.  So let me just throw up my sweet Scarlett's 6 month pics (and maybe a little peek at what I've been so busy with).

 

No teeth yet, but I'm certain they'll cut through soon since her nose is a faucet and absolutely nothing is off limits for the gnawing mouth (as noted below).

If you're my FB friend, than this is probably old news...

I've been playing a little more photographer!  Here's a cute family of 5 from our (old and shut down) squadron here at Luke.

I just loved the belly laughs I was getting from the little boy!!  He's such an easy audience!

 Some good friends just got married and asked little ol' me to be their wedding photographer!!  Wow- what an opportunity and how much trust they have in me!!  Definitely a learning experience for me and now I have a very real appreciation for wedding photography (and my bride and MOB were SUPER laid back... can't imagine working with a bridezilla!)

 And a good friend just had her very sweet and adorable little man.  Boy that little guy can put down the milk!!!  What a cutie!  Look at that lil distended belly....  I just love him.

My mom made this hat for just this occasion- isn't it absolutely perfect?!  Thanks Ma.

I just made a "Photography by Cheyenne" facebook page after an urge from a church friend.  This way people who were at the wedding or friends of my friend with the new baby can check out the pictures too.

Phew...  Now into my sewing sweat shop to finish up the last of my Fly-bagz orders.

Just for Fun

Trying out my purchases I bought with the upcoming wedding in mind and just wanted to post some resulting fun pictures.

So there I was...  laying in the grass, camera in hand and big 48" reflector sandwiched between my knees trying to manipulate it to reflect the lighting on my very active little ones.  I might opt to have a little more subtle lighting if I have an assistant to man the reflector, but it's definitely a kinda heavenly light look.

Guess who's teething?!

Alright.  I just got caught.  I gotta get off the computer.

A New Technique

Maybe you have seen a picture on the internet or in ads that just catches your eye because the details look surreal and just too good for a camera to capture.  Chances are that picture is an HDR image.  The Wiki link explains it better than I can but I'll just give you the short and dirty of what I did for my own shot at a High Dynamic Range Image- this new technique in photo editing (for me anyhow).

I took three pictures of the same image within half a second.  I didn't use a tripod but I should have.  Luckily I stayed still enough for a good turn out.  I set up my camera to ulter the three shots exposure by almost 2 stops above and below a "good" exposure.

Here are my 3 shots.  You can see the first one is pretty light and shows more details in the gravel and building, the middle was what my camera told me was a balanced exposure and the third is underexposed and dark, but shows nice color and definition in the sky and clouds.

Then I take these three images into Photoshop.  There's a feature in there where you can merge the three pictures into one, and do minor adjustments for color and contrast.  Here is my collaboration of the 3.

And then, for a little icing on the cake, there is something called tone mapping.  I don't really know what it is or how to describe it but I do know that it kind of effects more of the lighting.  Photoshop alone does not do tone mapping and I ended up downloading a special plug in- I think it was photomatrix.  And this allowed me to get the image that I think it pretty cool!!

You know, I think photography is really cool how it captures moments and memories but many times the picture just doesn't do justice to the real thing.  I think it's because camera's will never be as advanced as our eye sight and so we have to choose what we expose the picture for...  should I expose for the gorgeous sky and loose the forground to over exposure or make sure the foreground is just so but then the sky is blown out.  Well with this technique, I think you can get closer to what our eyes actually see!  It feels much more life-like to me.  There are capabilities that you can go over the top and just get a very surreal and un realistic picture but I tried to rein myself in to keep it close to what I actually saw.

Just for kicks, here's a total "grunged" out edit.

Anyhow, I'm pretty excited about the fact that it actually worked for me.  I have seen HDR imaging for a while and just been so overwhelmed and discouraged when I even thought about trying it.  Just another building block in learning more about photography and broadening my skills as a photography enthusiast!

Lens Lovin'

Oh my, how I DOOOO LOVE photography!!  I'm shooting a friend's wedding in a couple of weeks so I've been on a buying spree with camera stuff the last couple of months.  I started out buying a really good zoom lens (70-200mm f/4) in order to get the great close in and intimate shots of their vows without being all up in their chili.  Then I bought abunch of little things:  extra memory cards, a flash diffuser, reflectors.  But I just splurged with the remainder of my Flybagz money and bought yet another lens.  I got a pretty decent wide angle lens (Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8) which came in the mail today.  I am in love!  It is just what I wanted.  I can be pretty close to something and get the entire scene, instead of having to back up to kingdom come.  It was fun playing with it today before nap time with my two favorite and trusty subjects.  The nature of a wide angle lens gives a little distortion as it captures the scene, which I actually like the look of.  It makes my 2 year old toddler look larger than life!  And I can be within reaching distance and still get their whole bodies!

Example: I was about a foot away from Riley here.

 I was probably 6 inches away from Scarlett's face.

Can't wait to try it out at the wedding!!

How bout this, Ma?

Silhouettes and Sun Flares

What a beautiful time of year- FINALLY.  It's starting to cool off here in the desert and I am taking advantage of the earlier sunsets and just messing around with back lighting.  It's kinda a scary thing and I have far from mastered it but a few turned out ok.  The look I'm going for is just as my post title suggests...  Silhouettes (and trying to get that warm glow around my subject- Riley, and his adorable bed head)

 And Sun Flares.  I kinda like the look of the hazy pictures with the lens flare.  I can almost smell the summer air.  So here's what I have to show for those.

And this next shot is technically far from perfect, but I love it.  It shows how active and playful my little man is and I caught him in the midst of a tickle tackle!   It warms my heart, even with the blurring.