A Quickie

I'm sitting in my class right now and wanted to let everyone know that we're having issues at home on the computer.  I should hopefully have it up and running later this week... who knew I would feel so LOST without the internet.  It really has become a part of my every day routine!  

Anyway, I had a blast playing photographer yesterday!  K & J were AWESOME sports about everything.  We went down to Del Mar Beach and raced against the incoming tide trying to get a couple shots off before heading into an alley to finish.  I ended up with sand in places I'm honestly wondering how it got there!  Hopefully they weren't as sandy as I was!!  I had some issues with fading light and as my luck would have it we had slightly overcast situations.  We worked fast and furiously but I know I got some great shots and I'm excited to share them...

Again, as my luck would have it, I get home and my personal IT guy comes over to take my computer away just as I finished downloading the pictures.  I quickly transferred them to the external and off he whisked my PC to have it's memory erased.  I didn't even get to to check them to see if I focused correctly!! 

I should be up and running later this week so watch this space.

Pregnant + friends = bellies = babies!

A good friend of ours is almost ready to have her baby! They are a super cute couple who are going to be great parents, this is really going to be one lucky kid! Well, I had tossed the idea around about doing a maternity shoot for her and I think I finally talked her into it (or the heat wave we went through last week broke her). Her beau may of had a little to do with it because he has been wanting her to get some done too! Great minds really do think a like! He said they might as well take advantage of it now, because once that baby boy pops out of her there goes her chance for a maternity shoot until the next go around... and then you're paying for it later in therapy when kid #1 is like "why didn't they love meeee enough to take maternity pictures??"!

The great thing about doing a maternity shoot is that there is also the potential for another shoot a couple months down the road when baby P joins us! Woo hoo for pregnant friends!

If all goes well I'll have my first shoot on Sunday evening! I am truly honored that she has agreed to this. I'm thankful that they trust me enough to share these precious moments. So thanks Mr and Mrs P for being rock stars!

Wish me luck and you know you'll be the first to get a sneak peek right here...

Does anyone have a case of the "Mondays"?

You would think with one less person in the house this past week it would be easier with J being gone, but the stinks have worn me out. I've been up early with them and staying up late to ... to what? To stay up late! No other reason, I guess but be a slacker and have nothing else to do. I am usually trolling through other photographer sites and checking out stuff.

Well, today I had my second day of class. Prof K had mentioned it was going to be front loaded with theory but we literally spent 5 hours going through power point presentations of jargon. Exhausting! I did manage to pull out my camera and adjust some settings, so we'll see if it helps eliminate my "grey" area shooting. I feel slightly out of my league because so many other students are up to speed with what they are doing. I do feel old and out dated but I'm hanging in there. When I say I feel old I mean I feel old. Seriously, the kid to my left was going to be a senior in HIGH SCHOOL this fall! His mom drove him to school, bless his heart! He's a good kid, with a really nice camera.

Prof K went over our project a little. He said to start scoping areas to shoot where we can use light as our paint. I understood, or thought I had a better understanding of using light to paint texture from our last class. Hopefully I'll get it next class. Here I am shooting objects I feel have lots of texture like bark and avocados and he's talking about buildings and how light is reflecting! I don't know, I'll figure it out I'm sure - I always do!

I did however find a great little building downtown at lunch that I do want to go shoot. This building could very well be the one I'm looking for that will use the magical light paint brush. It's a very vivid blue with little shades over the windows, white trim and a great little tree that hangs over a chain linked fence. It is beautiful. I'll take some shots later this week fo'sho!

It's getting late and I must get some beauty sleep, I'm looking forward to sharing the bed tonight. It's been too long that it's been empty! And for those who care, J made it home safely after landing a jet on an air craft carrier (after he called to tell me he was finished my headache went away... I wonder why??). The stinks were super happy to see him and my heart smiles just remembering how BJ hugged J so tight! If we could just bottle those moments up, they would be the most powerful drugs ever!

Good night and sweet dreams.

First day and an outting

Well I made it through my first day! I wasn't the oldest person in the class, just the second oldest... thank you quasi scary guy who wears camo pants, checked shirt and boony hat (never mind the interesting style of facial hair).

The first day was more of an introductory class. Prof K went over the materials we'll need and what to expect and what he expects out of us. It should give me a good over view of my camera and how to use it so I'm still stoked about it! Monday we'll get our first official class and project which I've already started planning for. The project is about light and texture. I have several avenues I'd like to explore with this ranging from golf balls to tree trunks and towels!

With tree bark on the brains a friend went with me and the kids to feed the creative juices. We had a great picnic under a beautiful tree. I was so wrapped up in the project that I forgot to do what I consider most important, capture the moment. Regardless of the project I vow to never do this again, I missed some wonderful opportunities with the kids and Miss A. I did however take lots of pictures of tree bark, up close and personal! It's amazing how easy it is to get wrapped up and lost in the moment. After bark we strolled through the rest of the park and museum buildings in search of some cool shade. It was a blazing hot day with temps as high as 95*F!

Through out the day I noticed something was off with my camera. Every shot was dark and filmy looking. I had read an article previously about how this is caused by the wrong exposure. For the life of me I could not remember what I had to do to correct it! When we got home I pulled up the article by a wonderful photographer Ree aka Pioneer Woman and was able to quickly fix the error of my ways.

This is the same picture before and after I corrected for the error in exposure here at home. I didn't break out photoshop or anything so the picture has not been altered drastically, just upped the brightness and contrast and played with the hue and saturation until it looked better.

Today was far too hot to drag the kids back out so here I am finally able to share my past couple days. I'm going to post the pictures, I figure they are alright for a beginner. I've made mild adjustments to clear the grey film but this is what I got.

Here's a little gem I managed to get this morning of BC and myself - nose kisses!

If you have photography related articles or sites you'd like to share just include them in the comments and I'll check them out.

Hope you enjoyed!

Tomorrow is the day

Well, I sit here in my PJs going over my checklists... I have several going on right now: one for the kids, one for the first day of school, one for things not to forget to do before I leave the house and one for things to finish before bed tonight. I know I'm going to miss something or forget to do something... did I turn off the oven, feed the cats, pack an extra change of cloths for the kids? I think tomorrow is bring your favorite stuffed animal to school day... hmm... do you think my professor would think I was nuts if I brought my old teddy to class with me?



On top of tomorrow being a big day for me it's also the day before J has his big day! He's going to the carrier off the coast of CA to qualify for his carrier landing! I know he's been practicing and he's going to do great but he's still nervous. If you have a little extra prayer in you please say one for him! I don't know if I'll get a chance to see him before he takes off on Thur just because our schedules are so crazy right now, somewhere a long the way I know we'll make time, we have to!



You know one of my biggest fears which I know is just silly? I'm going to be the oldest person in the class! I know there has to be at least one person older than me, I'm not that old after all! Everyone else will be young and hip and I'm going to be wearing my mommy jeans and faded tee that most likely will have oatmeal stuck to it.



Well, I must get back to the lists... lunches, pens, paper, camera, Bryan's dog, diapers, school ID... it just keeps going... I'll make sure I raise my hand and use "please" and "thank you"s...

Nightmares

I always dream about something big coming up in my life whether it's starting a new job, things with the kids, or going back to school. I was expecting the dreams to start but didn't think they would be this scary!

I dreamt that the class room was a huge auditorium style class and I was late arriving, then there were no seats and I had to stand up front. Everyone had their cameras out and ready and I look in my backpack and it's EMPTY (no books let alone a camera), then my cell phone starts ringing and it's the preschool about the kids... I woke up at that point. I still have 8 days until class starts, I hope the dreams get better.

On a preschool note, the kids did better today. BJ only cried for 1 hr after I left and BC was just fine and wanted to stay longer... wait for it... to NAP! HA! This punk hasn't napped for almost 2 years!

In regards to my last post, I'm well mended and on the road to recovery. What ever bug I picked up only lasted about 12 hours, I was thankful to be feeling better that night.

Life is on hold

Well life as I know it is on hold again, at least for a couple of days. I have a bout of a terrible tummy bug (AGAIN). My computer has been acting up and I've lost several pictures in the process. This week isn't starting off very good.

On a positive note the kids both went to their first day of preschool! BC did great and BJ hung in there. I snuck out of the room before he noticed I was gone but when I passed his door to get to the car I could hear him crying. It broke my heart! I had to call a good friend to give me support, thanks woman! I called a couple hours later and didn't hear him crying anymore (thank goodness!) and they reassured me he was doing fine and playing. When I went to pick the kids up they both ignored the fact that I returned! I literally had to drag them out of the place! Next time I will do better emotionally, I just have to work on the timing and speed of the process now.

I read a great article about exposure... it's a great site actually, full of loads of great info and tips. When I'm feeling better I'll link to my favorite sites. It might be a while before I post some pictures because I do want them to be of some quality and to reflect what I'm learning, so hang in there.

The beginning

Well here I go, stepping into the world of blogging. There is a purpose to this, there should be a purpose to this, right? Well this is specifically for the photography side of my life. That sounds weird, "the photography side". I guess it is a real side of me though!

I've decided to start blogging my crazy journey through motherhood, wife-hood and now college! It's going to be hard balancing everything but I feel like I can do it. Heck, I have to! If I want to get where I want to be in the next few years I'm going to have to work hard. I'm not ready to share those thought publicly just yet, I have to start school and see if this shoe truly fits before I get ahead of myself.

So, what prompted me to head this direction? I have been searching for something I can do that I really love. I've always been passionate about arts and crafts. For the longest time I always thought I would end up teaching elementary school art class. I even ventured to think about art therapy. I love people, I love art, I love helping people so that seemed an obvious fit for me but something just didn't feel right with it. Over the past couple years I've worked office jobs and that is all find and dandy but again not just "me". When we started our family we decided it would be best for me to stay home, and it's been wonderful! I have enjoyed watching my two kiddos grow and cherish each and every momentous step they have taken. I am so blessed that I was able to witness first hand their firsts for everything! This last step brought me to document every one of these moments with pictures. I wanted our families and friends to share in the brilliance that life has brought us. I have photo documented every day (literally) of the kids. Even while taking thousands of pictures over the past 4 years I still didn't see the big picture!

I started looking for career options over the past several months - nursing, psychology, therapist, teacher. Nothing sounded good (kind of like when you're 6 months pregnant and hungry but you're not sure what you want, everything your husband mentions doesn't sound good). Well that went on for a while. I have always been interested in how people got those great shots and one night started talking with a friend who was into photography. She is amazing! She knew so much! She talked ab out wonderful words I'd never knew before (seriously, I got off the phone and started looking words up - I don't do that very often!). The more I read the more interested I became... we talked some more and this time I felt like I kind of participated in the conversation instead of just listening in awe. Maybe one day I'll be able to tell her something she doesn't know! Something clicked along the way. The bigger picture presented itself to me, do something you're interested in, not something that interests you. Pictures, memories, photography - it's perfect!!

I did a lot of soul searching about this. Is there a facility that can teach me more? Yes. Do I have the ability to do this? I don't know. Do I have the support to start this? Yes. I figured a strong 2/3 worked for me! I researched schools, day care (yes, I am putting the kids in a pre-school/day care setting, something I never thought I would do) and finances. Armed I sat down with the man, J. I laid everything on the table. As I sat back and watched he surprised me, he said "do it". Plain and simple, "DO. IT." Wow. I fell in love all over again! I have never felt more support and full of possibilities as I did that night. The next morning I enrolled and started the process.

J purchased my first DSLR for me, my new "baby". A canon rebel XTi. It's basic but that's all I need to start. There is so much to learn and I want to master it all! I'm doing it, I'm going the distance. I may not be going the speed but I know I'm not all alone! Does anyone else hear CAKE's The Distance? There is one thing holding me back. With as supportive as J is I'm scared to death that the kids might suffer. I don't want to look back and have any regrets leaving the kids.

BJ is almost 2 years and BC is 3 and a half. I've been home with them 99.9% of their lives. The only time BC has been away from me is when I was in the hospital having BJ and two days she stayed with Nana and Papa. BJ has never spent a night away from me and it shows! We have been going to the school and introducing the kids to their teachers. BC loves playing with everyone and is having no issues, she's ready for this step. BJ is good while he can see me. Several times I stepped away to just see what happens and it's not pretty. My heart breaks into a million pieces as his eyes fill with tears, he glances once more around before opening his mouth into a square and yelling "Mooooooommmmmmaaaa"! Reluctantly I hold myself back from running in and scooping him into my arms and holding him so tight. Separately, we stand there with our hearts breaking. I've watched from afar for minutes until I can't take it anymore then go in for the rescue! Our first day is going to hurt so bad. With this all said I know it's good for him to get out there, he's going to be in a safe environment and well taken care of. Hopefully we won't have too many sessions later in life where I'm blamed for everything that goes wrong in his life which starts with this upcoming moment (insert a Brooklyn therapist saying "It's all your mother's fault")!

Well, this is my first blog which has turned into quite the mini novel. I must go and do my household duties!

-Yvonne