LoCo Rain

I love storms...perhaps it's the photographer in me. I love the big, ominous clouds. I love the sound of the rain. Today was especially magical because you could see (and hear!) the storm coming, but it was still bright and sunny out.

 

The sun was still shining when it started raining.  Oskar made me chuckle when he said, "The plants must be very happy because they're getting everything they need right now - sunshine and water."

I tried to get a picture that would convey that it was actually a pretty heavy rain.

 

Kardynn's umbrella has seen better days.

I spotted lightning so told the kids it was time to come in.  The accompanying thunder made them happy to comply.

Kiersten was away for a play date so I grabbed my camera on our way to pick her up.

Check out the Loudoun County flood waters!

Metaphors for Life

This past week's Focus52 prompt was nurture. I noticed it earlier this week and had the stereotypical inspiration to get a photo of me snuggling with one of my kids.  I'm rarely in photos so it seemed like a good opportunity to put myself in front of the camera. But I never got around to it. And then something else happened. Yesterday my son walked into the kitchen and said, "Mom, you should come take a picture."







My baby girl learned to ride her bike.  Not only was she riding her bike, she was effortlessly riding her bike. I watched my husband helping her and once again, I marveled at how easily he does this. He knows the right things to say and just how much support he needs to give.  He teaches them how to keep themselves balanced but what to do when they do start to fall. As I sat there watching him work his magic, I realized that *this* is nurture.







I think if we can somehow prepare them for life, as well as he prepared them to ride those bikes, we'll be in good shape.

National Zoo

In my last post, I mentioned that I went to the Zoo last week.  I thought I'd share the obligatory animal photos. :)

I wasn't actually selected as a chaperone, but some friends were planning to drive down and meet up with their kids. It looked like the weather was going to be nice and I knew Kardynn would probably enjoy it so we joined them.  We arrived about an hour before the buses did so we had some time to wander around and see some animals before the kids arrived.

 

Visiting the zoo is always special for me because I get to see the animals of my childhood.  We could see this elephant was visible from the Asia Trail Overlook.

I wish there was some exciting background for a good elephant silhouette, but no such luck.

 

 

I was hoping to see orangutangs on their wire but I guess I'll have to keep going back.

We saw this gorilla pee into it's hand and then drink it. Lovely.

I was glad that we got to see the pandas earlier in the morning, while they were playing.

The zookeepers have given this lemur a stuffed animal to keep him company, until they can get a real live friend.  Apparently he loves to groom his little friend.  So cute!

We were delighted to take a shuttle from Lot E to Lot A!  The kids were definitely done so we were happy to save that mile of walking!

White Balance

I'm late with my post this week.  Sorry!  Instead of sitting here at my computer, giving you lots of helpful photography suggestions I was

• supervising playdates (three of them, to be exact)
• enjoying a mother's day festivities at Kardynn's preschool
• reading books to Annika's first grade class
• babysitting Autumn
• traipsing around the National Zoo with Kiersten, Kardynn and a bunch of Kindergarteners 
• learning how to do flip turns in the pool

This week will be spent recovering from last week!

A few weeks ago, my friend Julie asked me about white balance.  I meant to write about it in my last post but when I started to delve into 18% gray and gray cards, I got all caught up with metering and never wandered back to explain white balance.  Sadly this is how my brain works these days - there's a lot of wandering.  *sigh*

So back to white balance.  It's not difficult to understand how I got sidetracked by metering because there is a connection.  The sensors on your camera expect a scene to be a certain amount gray for metering purposes AND for white balance purposes...and they do a pretty good job.  But you can certainly improve the results in one of several ways.  First of all, your camera has some presets: daylight, shade, cloudy, fluorescent, flash, et cetera.  Typically there's also an option to create a custom setting. This is where the gray card comes in  handy.  You can take a picture of the gray card (make sure the card fills the viewfinder) in the lighting situation where you're about to take pictures, and then the white balance will be correct.  If you don't have a gray card, filling the frame with something white, to get a custom reading will also work. You can also take a picture of the gray card and use it to adjust white balance on your computer after the fact, but that's a lot more work.  Having said that, it might be preferable to accidentally leaving your camera with the wrong settings, which I've done a time or two.

If you want to get really fancy with color correction, here are some tips for correct skin tones. I have a little cheat sheet that I use for adjusting the magenta, yellow and cyan.  Caucasian's are 5-20% more yellow than magenta.  A fair-skinned caucasian might be 20% magenta and 25% yellow, whereas a bronzed person could be 45% magenta and 62% yellow.  Asians and Hispanics have 10-20% more yellow than magenta.  On black skin, the yellow and magenta are close. And what about cyan?  Cyan is 30-50% of magenta.  (I got this very useful information from this Smugmug help page.) I also got the free OnOne presets for Lightroom, which work great.  Unfortunately I don't typically use Lightroom but when I do, those presets are lifesavers.

Mornings

I intend to start actively participating in Focus52.  Last year I did it for a couple of weeks and then fell behind in my uploads...and that was that.  There was a two-day window for uploading your weekly efforts.  Unfortunately that time frame just *didn't* fit into my schedule.  At the start of this year, once again I had great intentions...but as per usual, my follow-through was not so hot.  But I recently discovered that Jan has now opened it up so that you can upload your projects whenever you want.  I think that will work much better for me. So I'm back on board, baby!

I'm also planning to make a Project Life book this year.  A few months ago I bought the supplies but I could never get momentum to start with that either.  I'm great about taking the pictures but I'm terrible about the rest of the process.  They sit on my camera and then when I finally download them, I barely have time to look at them - and frequently don't.  Which means I never get around to selecting the photo of the day and I certainly don't get prints ordered.

But yesterday I sat down and got myself caught up for 2012. I've got prints ordered and I can't wait to assemble my book.  I know this would be much more enjoyable if I could stay on top of it a little better.  So I'm resolving to do a better job from here on it.  It's not that I feel a burden to "keep up" or to not miss a day, but this is something I really want to do. So I'm choosing to make it a priority. (Of course I'm realistic enough to know that this will still be a work in progress. ha!)

This morning I went back over to Jan's page to look at the prompt.  Morning. I sat here thinking about what morning means to me.  I pictured a steamy mug of tea...with a piece of toast...and my Kindle.  But then I had to quickly admit to myself that that's how I wish my mornings were.  Instead they tend to be an exercise in frustration.  I am much more of a night owl than an early bird. So getting my two oldest kids out the door and on to the bus by 7:19 am is the worst part of my day. Every morning it's a battle to get them ready and out that door on time. UGH.

And suddenly I realized that I already have my Focus52 photos for this week. I took these on Thursday morning. It was a little drizzly so I drove the kids to the bus.  But it wasn't wet enough to keep them in the car. I, on the other hand, felt no desire to get out of my comfortable place. So I played around my my phone and took pictures of them through my windshield...trying to capture the feel of the morning. About a week ago I downloaded Instagram for my droid so I've been a little obsessed ever since.