Tonights prayer

We each have a night to say family prayer. (that's what we did growing up and it worked well). Since it's Thursday, it was Gabe's night.

Our cat, Domino, has a bit of a scratching problem.

So Gabe is praying and he says "please bless Domino to...*silence*...uh...not have legs."

And we all cracked up.

Photo Talk - lesson 4 - Lighting, part 2

Sidelighting is really nice on portraits because it adds depth and drama to the image. It helps give the appearance of 3D on a flat surface.

When you're using natural light, you need to consider your surroundings. Think of light as a living thing that moves in different ways depending on where it is. We all know that we should wear white shirts in summer because white reflects the heat and black absorbs it, right? Well, heat comes from light and the same rule applies. White reflects, black absorbs. This will affect what's happening to your image! It's especially important with sidelight and backlight.

In this picture, you see the main light source is coming from the left. But that's not where the sun was. She was standing in an alley that appeared to be shaded. The sun was off to our right. There was a building directly behind her and directly behind me. Off to the left is the street and across the street is a tall building with a very reflective surface. The sun was hitting that surface and bouncing back to us, making the main light source come from the left instead of the right.



With sidelight, you want to expose for the brightest part of the image. If you expose for the dark side, then the brighter side will be totally blown (meaning very white, little detail...overexposed).

To do this with a point and shoot or on auto with a SLR, you need to point the camera at the bright part of the picture, then hold the button down halfway. This will lock the exposure. Do not release the button, move to wherever you're shooting from and push the button the rest of the way to shoot.

If you're shooting in manual on a SLR, you don't have to hold the button down. Point the camera at the brighter part of the image to set your exposure (line up the exposure bar by adjusting ISO, Shutter speed and f-stop) then back up, don't change the exposure and shoot. If you don't know how to shoot in manual, don't worry about it yet. I'll get there.

Now consider your location. I did these with a window to the right and a reflective surface to the left. I changed the reflective surface with each shot so you can see the difference.

First, this is with no reflective surface to the left. Only the wall, which is too far away to be useful at all in bouncing natural light.


Now a white surface to the left.


This is black.


Silver. On portraits this will give a slightly cool, but bright reflection.


and Gold. This is very reflective and gives a warm cast to the portrait.


A couple other sidelight examples. The first one is using a video light held up and to the right.


And this is a streetlight shining off on the left.


Go play! Have fun! And remember to post a link to your pictures!

Photo Talk - lesson 4 - Lighting, part 1

Sorry about being a slacker for the last year or so. I had a baby. That's my excuse. lol.

I've also been debating where to go with these lessons because I'm trying to keep them on a level that both SLR users and point and shoot users can put them into practice.

Anyway...I've been thinking about lighting lately and how it is one of those things that can make or break a picture. It's also something that anybody can work with, regardless of your camera.

Let's work with natural light for this lesson. I'm pretty sure everybody (except maybe Kandace up there in Barrows) has access to the sun.

So...step 1. TURN OFF YOUR FLASH.

Thank you.

Now, we're going to discuss 3 basic lighting situations and things that affect them.

Frontlighting, sidelighting and backlighting. For demonstration purposes, I got the crappiest camera in my house to do these pictures...it's Nathan's cheapo point and shoot with ZERO features. This is to prove that anybody can do this with any camera.

Frontlight


Sidelight


Backlight


We're going to do these 1 at a time. We'll start with frontlight. It's pretty straightforward. The light is in front of the subject. If you were outside on a bright day, this sort of lighting would make the subject very squinty. However, if you're inside with a window it's not so bad. North facing windows are the best light, followed by South. I put plastic over my window to diffuse or soften the light coming in.

So go find a subject. Turn off your flash and turn off all the lights in the room. Face them towards a window, sit with your back towards the same window and shoot.

Ta-da! Frontlight.



Isn't it pretty?

Now go try it! I'll post sidelighting in the next few days, followed by backlighting. If you try it, comment and leave a link to your blog or wherever you put it online so I can see it!

First 5

So I got this from a friend's blog, I think it's such a great idea and can't wait to do it.

{Lucky you!

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you.This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
2- What I create will be just for you.
3- It'll be done this year.
4- You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a story. It may be photography or an article on properly cleaning your face before a masque. I may sew or paint something. I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
5- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must repost this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog. The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me! Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!}

9 months

Clara is 9 months old now. Something about my babies turning 9 months old is significant to me. It has something to do with the fact that she's been out of me for as long as she was inside of me. Or something. I don't really know. Maybe I just like the number 9.

Anyway...she's the cutest thing ever. She can pull herself to a standing position, she does the army crawl all over the place, she claps and she points at things. She even gets it right if you ask her "Where's mommy?" or "Where's daddy?" She melts everyone's heart instantly and she's just as easy going as she always has been.

This is her flat smile. It makes me laugh.

When you live in a snowglobe...

...it means you have to get to tolerate enjoy the snow for months on end.

Nathan and Aria were thrilled to realize that the snow berm (I just learned that word this year, btw) along the neighbors driveway made a great sledding hill in their very own front yard. And since the snow is basically ice nowadays, they were flying down quite nicely!







They also played a game with Dave. I don't know what it was, but they all had fun.

Business Changes

So last year I got really busy with photography. Too busy. My family is growing and something has to give so that I can give my kids the time they need. I considered taking some time off, but it made me sad to think about not doing shoots. I really love it.

So...I debated. I considered several options and ended up combining a bunch of them.

1. I raised my prices.
2. I am only going to take 3 shoots a month. That's it. So plan ahead!
3. I am no longer offering the photo journal package.

This is the one I'm really excited about.
4. One of those 3 shoots each month will be free. Anybody can nominate a family/child/couple for a photo shoot. It must be a family who otherwise would not be able to afford pictures. To nominate someone just email me at mistydawnphotos@gmail.com. Please include a paragraph explaining to me why you're nominating them. The chosen family will be spotlighted here unless you ask me not to. :)

This is what my website says about it....

It's 2009 and I now have four kids! Four! I've found that to be the Mom I want to be, and spend all sorts of quality time with my sweet kids before they grow up and don't want to hang out with me anymore, I need to make some changes to my business.

I am now limiting my shoots to 3 per month.

2 of those monthly shoots are available to anybody to schedule. The third is a pay it forward type thing I want to try this year. I will accept nominations each month for a family/child/couple who otherwise would not be able to afford pictures. I really believe everybody deserves beautiful pictures and would love the opportunity to take them. If you'd like to nominate somebody, email me at mistydawnphotos@gmail.com.

Playing by ear

If you've heard the story of how Dave and I met, then you know that him and his roommate had a bet going to see who could kiss me first. (I know, I know). So after institute choir (I was the pianist) his roommate came up and started talking to me. Dave, however, sat down and started playing "Waterfall" on the piano in an attempt to impress me. I was duly impressed and turned my attention to him.

It wasn't until quite a bit later that I found out it was one of maybe 5 songs that he could play. He plays the piano entirely by ear. Can't read music at all. He just listens to what he wants to learn over and over until he can play it.

It's actually pretty amazing to watch him learn a song that way.

Anyway...apparently, my kids have picked up that little talent. All of them (well, not Clara yet) can pick out little songs (Doe A Deer, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Row, Row, Row Your Boat). Nathan especially likes to figure out video game songs. He can play the little tune from Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Mario. Gabe heard him play Mario often enough that he picked it out on the little toy piano. With a little help from Dave, he managed to learn it on the regular piano and it's so dang cute!

See?

Time flies when you're having fun!

9 years ago this morning I was sitting in the Seattle temple waiting for Dave to show up so we could get hitched. It was such a beautiful day, not like this icky, freezing cold winter we're having this year. The sun was even shining, and if you know Seattle winters, you know that's not normal!

So, yesterday, I was looking for something (anything!) to get for Dave for our anniversary. We're not huge on gifts, but I wanted to find something. I finally stumbled across the perfect gift. On sale for $5 no less. (don't mock! He always steals my nail clippers off my key ring. And these are manly! There's a knife!) So I wrote him a note on his iphone and gave him the knife/clipper/flashlight thingy. Romantic, eh?

I also bought myself a lovely new coat from him to wear to dinner tonight. :)

Anyway, I got to thinking about anniversary gifts and remembered the first 2 he ever gave me. Since we got married only 7 weeks after we met, we didn't have a lot of anniversaries to celebrate til after we got married.

So Dave decided he'd buy me a gift for each month-iversary after we were married. His plan was to buy the number of things of which month it was.

Dave loooves surprises (I hate them, but he didn't know that yet) and so month 1 he was all "I got you something, but you have to find it." So, I start looking. We lived in this little apartment, with very little to fill it with, so there weren't that many places to look, but I was having serious issues finding whatever the gift was. He was just following me around smirking. Finally he was all, let's go out to eat (or something...I don't remember why we were leaving) and we went out to the car. He proceeded to walk around it slowly with this goofy expression and I, being clueless, and having entirely given up on finding the mysterious month-iversary gift, was just getting in the car and wondering why he was acting weird (remember...we hadn't known each other long...for all I knew, this was normal.)

He then started dropping some heavy clues to get me to realize I was still supposed to be looking for my gift.

And there it was...on the back of the car. 9 years and 2 cars later...I still have it. (please excuse the dirt. I don't believe in washing cars)



Month 2 he took pity on me and made my 2 silver candlesticks easy to find.



Month 3, he hid 3 brightly colored pillows in the bathtub and month 4 was another search all over month only to finally have him inform me that he put 4 new hubcaps on the car. (I don't notice things about cars apparently).

And that was the end of month-iversary gift giving.

I'm often accused of being not fun to buy things for because I don't show the appropriate amount of enthusiasm. Perhaps if I was a little more...cheerleadery...those month-iversaries would have lasted longer. Alas...I'll never know.

But happy 9 years to us! I love you, Dave!

Overheard

Aria: Gabe, what's your favorite vegetable?
Gabe: mmmm....COOKIES!

Uh...Gabe can read and write and he's 3.

So, I knew he knew his letters and sounds and I knew he knew how to spell some things (his favorite game is "Mom, how do you spell ______?") but the other day he brought me this picture.



See the Mom at the bottom?

Then he brought this book to me that I just bought for him



(.99 at The Gap) and said "Hey Mom! Will you read 'How...Do...Dinosaurs...Play...Will...Teeth...Friends' to me?"

So apparently, he's looking at the first letters and the pictures and figuring it out.

Oh, and as long as I'm bragging about him...he can count to 29. (after that it becomes twenty-ten, twenty-eleven...and there's no persuading him otherwise)

Had some fun today

I had this idea to try to use shoes and create each letter of the alphabet.

It was an amusing way to kill 3 hours. My sister has enough shoes to open her own shoe store, so I went to her house and used her shoes. (after browsing through Rachel's shoes, Aria was all, Mom...my shoes are not good. lol) Wanna see?

They're in order...you might have to use your imagination on some. lol. They're randomly upper/lower case.

In case you get confused, there are....

2 A's
2 B's
1 C
1 D
2 E's
2 F's
1 G
2 H's
2 I's
2 J's
1 K
1 L
2 M's
2 N's
2 O's
2 P's
1 Q
2 R's
2 S's
1 T
2 U's
1 V
1 W
2 X's
3 Y's
1 Z

And some of them can be used for other letters...like E/M/W depending on it's orientation.

Here's the link!

I'll probably randomly do other themes.

Hi

I'm still here. In case you were wondering. :)

I painted my kitchen.

Wanna see?

It's been 3 shades of yellow for a very long time. I liked one shade. Dave liked another. We were thinking about compromising with the third. Then we gave up and put it back to boring old white. But at least it's all one color now.

Before


After


Also, I took Aria on a date to go Ice Skating. She had a lot of fun and after an hour and 5 laps around the rink could sort-of stay up for a second. She wore her sparkly black leggings so she would look like a real ice skater.

Overheard at FHE

Me: How can we exercise faith?
Aria: Shake our head back and forth really fast. (exercise face....)

Me: If you steal something from the store, how can you make it better?
Gabe: A BANDAID! (this answer was repeated, loudly, several times to similar questions)

ahhh...glad to know I'm getting through to them.

Funnies

Aria: Mo-om, when is it my turn to play the Wii? (Nathan is on it)
Me: I don't know.
Aria: (in a worried tone) But you're the Mom! If you can't make a choice, we're going to have to get a different Mom!

--------------------------------------------------------

Nathan: Hey Aria, I think farts smell better than pee.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Gabe: (looking at a soda can) Dad, I know how to spell root beer!
Dave: You do?
Gabe: Yup, A and W.

----------------------------------------------------------

Nathan: Mom, I want a grilled cheese sandwhich.
Gabe: *giggles* NO! Nathan needs a boy cheese sandwhich!

Good news!

Regarding National Bankruptcy Day.

http://www.kval.com/news/37241774.html

and...

http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09086.html

Basically saying ""sellers of used children’s products, such as thrift stores and consignment stores, are not required to certify that those products meet the new lead limits, phthalates standard or new toy standards." And also, "retailers are not required to test children’s products in inventory for compliance with the lead limit before they are sold, though they are advised to avoid products that might contain lead."

YAY!

Celebrating "soft" images

I follow the Shutter Sisters blog and they're always posting these little photo challenges that we respond to by linking to an image we have or take for the challenge.

Today it's about out of focus images that work that way. Normally, I toss out of focus (photographers call them soft) images, but recently I had a couple that were completely out of focus and I loved them.

So here ya go. Celebrating a couple of technically bad photographs because they work just the way they are.

Back to school! Yay!

Christmas break and all the snow days are all done! Yippee! I have one child shuttled off to school (amidst all sorts of whining) and another that's anxiously awaiting afternoon Kindergarten.

Since we had two snow days before break, I had lots of extra time to procrastinate teacher Christmas Gifts.

Last night, I stayed up late to finish them. I think they turned out pretty neat!



When I finally headed to bed, I found this on the stairs.



Closer investigation revealed that he was apparently looking for me, but was just too tired to make it all the way down the stairs.



Don't you just want to pick him up and squeeze all his cuteness?

National Bankruptcy Day is on Feb 10th

A law was passed requiring extensive, retroactive lead and phthalate testing on all products, including clothing, that are sold for children ages 12 and under.

On the surface, it sounds like a good idea, but if you dig in just a little you find the problem. This testing has to be done on each and every item that is sold, resold or GIVEN to consumers. The law covers consignment, thrift stores, garage sales, ebay, etsy and hand me downs. EVERYTHING.

Technically, I could be prosecuted for giving old, untested baby clothes or toys to a friend.

What does this mean for us? Small business are looking at $500-$900 per article of clothing to be tested. That is unreal and so high that it's not even possible to pass the cost onto consumers. Small businesses, boutiques and thrift stores are going to be forces to declare bankruptcy and close their doors.

The places that can afford the testing are going to raise their prices to offset the costs.

To see more about National Bankruptcy Day SEE HERE

To see how it will effect the prices of your children's clothing, SEE HERE

An article to see how this will effect thrift stores SEE HERE

How it will effect small business like Etsy SEE HERE

For a Facebook group that helps you to see how you may be able to change the law SEE HERE

Write your congressman!

Snow pictures from today

There is one thing I like about the snow. When the sun hits it, it sparkles.

These were both taken from inside my house looking out the front window 'cause it's like 3 degrees outside. brr.





And this is what I've been living on lately. I love me some hot cocoa.