Aperture 1.4 {focused blur}

Hi!

Wow, I've had a few good brithday's ( A couple of crazy fun ones due to my best friend in highschool Anna who was an amazing all day brithday party planner), but this was my best yet. My parents surprised Mark and I with a room up at Sundance where we were already planning to go to dinner and on the moonlight sky ride. It was so nice to get away!  But, today is really hard as Mark is leaving tonight.  It's going to be difficult to say goodbye when we know that it is for so long again.  But more on all that later...

  Right now I wanted to post a quick link to a fun online article that I was able to take part in. It's called "Start to Finish" , Erin Lincoln asks someone each month to talk about thier scrapbooking process so if you want to hear more about mine here is the link:

http://www.creatingkeepsakes.com/mag/article.ihtml?index_field=2025

It's one of my new favorite layouts and it was really fun to think about how and why I create things the way I do.

Starting today I'm 29...wow...

Remember this post from last year?

September 25, 2006

It goes so fast...

Doesn't it?  Tomorrow is my birthday.  Tonight I am sitting here thinking about it.  Funny how as a child you wait and wait for that special day to come and then as an adult you drag your feet hoping to stall a new year of life and just stay comfortably where you are.  I guess that, that is what I'm thinking about tonight.  Where I am.  Where I thought I'd be.  Where I hope to be soon verses where I see things going in reality.   The truth is, I am a worrier and I am a planner.  As unorganized as I am, I like to make lists and pretend that I am going to stick to them but they usually change.  A lot.  I'm not where I thought that I would be at all at this age.

  But the truth is things are good.  I like it here so far.  Mark is doing very well in his apprenticeship.  The boy's are thriving.  Grant was just given an award at school, kind of a student of the month award.  I'm so stinking proud of him! So we aren't where I thought that we would be but I'm realizing more and more that we are where we were meant to be.  Here in this life, in this city and I am happy.  Happy and scared.  Because well that's the worrier in me and although I try to be a glass half full girl I'm more like a "what are we going to do when the glass is empty and there is nothing for us to drink and we can't find water sort of a girl"  Like I said...a worrier.  What will the next year bring?  Where will we end up after school ends? All those fun, we aren't settled yet questions. But I know, I know things will be alright as long as I have Mark and my boys. 

  So come on over year twenty eight. I think I'm ready for you.  Just please be nice and treat me well.  Let me turn to Mark when we are 80 and say, "remember my twenty eighth year of life...that was a good one."  And he'll smile and say, "Yeah, it was wasn't it"

Ha!  Well I could pretty much repeat it word for word. It's now the night before my birthday again.  I'm still worrying about what this year will bring.  I'm still not where I thought I would be only it get's worse because I'm turning 29.  29?  It's not that I'm afraid of getting older it's just the age 29 feels so fake to me.  I mean it's the age everyone jokingly gives when they turn 30 right?  It's like a year that doesn't really exist except for in aging peoples minds. And I mean people must have really awesome years at age 29 if they really want to keep living it over and over so that's a lot of pressure to make sure your 29th year is really good.  Yes, I know these are crazy ramblings of a, wow, now 29 year old but bear with me I'm almost 30.  I must know something about life right? (I wish).

  To be honest the older I get the less I feel like I know. I read that last paragraph from my birthday post last year to Mark and he laughed. So did I.  Ummm....it wasn't our best year. But...it wasn't so bad.  We made it through. I think I'm now going to set the bar much lower for this year. "29- the year of making it through"  Hopefully this year will work out at least that well and then I can be pleasantly surprised if it get's any better. 

  We do have great plans for dinner tomorrow night so that's a good way to start things off!

 

Doesn't it?  Tomorrow is my birthday.  Tonight I am sitting here thinking about it.  Funny how as a child you wait and wait for that special day to come and then as an adult you drag your feet hoping to stall a new year of life and just stay comfortably where you are.  I guess that, that is what I'm thinking about tonight.  Where I am.  Where I thought I'd be.  Where I hope to be soon verses where I see things going in reality.   The truth is, I am a worrier and I am a planner.  As unorganized as I am, I like to make lists and pretend that I am going to stick to them but they usually change.  A lot.  I'm not where I thought that I would be at all at this age.

  But the truth is things are good.  I like it here so far.  Mark is doing very well in his apprenticeship.  The boy's are thriving.  Grant was just given an award at school, kind of a student of the month award.  I'm so stinking proud of him! So we aren't where I thought that we would be but I'm realizing more and more that we are where we were meant to be.  Here in this life, in this city and I am happy.  Happy and scared.  Because well that's the worrier in me and although I try to be a glass half full girl I'm more like a "what are we going to do when the glass is empty and there is nothing for us to drink and we can't find water sort of a girl"  Like I said...a worrier.  What will the next year bring?  Where will we end up after school ends? All those fun, we aren't settled yet questions. But I know, I know things will be alright as long as I have Mark and my boys. 

  So come on over year twenty eight. I think I'm ready for you.  Just please be nice and treat me well.  Let me turn to Mark when we are 80 and say, "remember my twenty eighth year of life...that was a good one."  And he'll smile and say, "Yeah, it was wasn't it"

Ha!  Well I could pretty much repeat it word for word. It's now the night before my birthday again.  I'm still worrying about what this year will bring.  I'm still not where I thought I would be only it get's worse because I'm turning 29.  29?  It's not that I'm afraid of getting older it's just the age 29 feels so fake to me.  I mean it's the age everyone jokingly gives when they turn 30 right?  It's like a year that doesn't really exist except for in aging peoples minds. And I mean people must have really awesome years at age 29 if they really want to keep living it over and over so that's a lot of pressure to make sure your 29th year is really good.  Yes, I know these are crazy ramblings of a, wow, now 29 year old but bear with me I'm almost 30.  I must know something about life right? (I wish).

  To be honest the older I get the less I feel like I know. I read that last paragraph from my birthday post last year to Mark and he laughed. So did I.  Ummm....it wasn't our best year. But...it wasn't so bad.  We made it through. I think I'm now going to set the bar much lower for this year. "29- the year of making it through"  Hopefully this year will work out at least that well and then I can be pleasantly surprised if it get's any better. 

  We do have great plans for dinner tomorrow night so that's a good way to start things off!

It goes so fast...

Doesn't it?  Tomorrow is my birthday.  Tonight I am sitting here thinking about it.  Funny how as a child you wait and wait for that special day to come and then as an adult you drag your feet hoping to stall a new year of life and just stay comfortably where you are.  I guess that, that is what I'm thinking about tonight.  Where I am.  Where I thought I'd be.  Where I hope to be soon verses where I see things going in reality.   The truth is, I am a worrier and I am a planner.  As unorganized as I am, I like to make lists and pretend that I am going to stick to them but they usually change.  A lot.  I'm not where I thought that I would be at all at this age.

  But the truth is things are good.  I like it here so far.  Mark is doing very well in his apprenticeship.  The boy's are thriving.  Grant was just given an award at school, kind of a student of the month award.  I'm so stinking proud of him! So we aren't where I thought that we would be but I'm realizing more and more that we are where we were meant to be.  Here in this life, in this city and I am happy.  Happy and scared.  Because well that's the worrier in me and although I try to be a glass half full girl I'm more like a "what are we going to do when the glass is empty and there is nothing for us to drink and we can't find water sort of a girl"  Like I said...a worrier.  What will the next year bring?  Where will we end up after school ends? All those fun, we aren't settled yet questions. But I know, I know things will be alright as long as I have Mark and my boys. 

  So come on over year twenty eight. I think I'm ready for you.  Just please be nice and treat me well.  Let me turn to Mark when we are 80 and say, "remember my twenty eighth year of life...that was a good one."  And he'll smile and say, "Yeah, it was wasn't it"

Ha!  Well I could pretty much repeat it word for word. It's now the night before my birthday again.  I'm still worrying about what this year will bring.  I'm still not where I thought I would be only it get's worse because I'm turning 29.  29?  It's not that I'm afraid of getting older it's just the age 29 feels so fake to me.  I mean it's the age everyone jokingly gives when they turn 30 right?  It's like a year that doesn't really exist except for in aging peoples minds. And I mean people must have really awesome years at age 29 if they really want to keep living it over and over so that's a lot of pressure to make sure your 29th year is really good.  Yes, I know these are crazy ramblings of a, wow, now 29 year old but bear with me I'm almost 30.  I must know something about life right? (I wish).

  To be honest the older I get the less I feel like I know. I read that last paragraph from my birthday post last year to Mark and he laughed. So did I.  Ummm....it wasn't our best year. But...it wasn't so bad.  We made it through. I think I'm now going to set the bar much lower for this year. "29- the year of making it through"  Hopefully this year will work out at least that well and then I can be pleasantly surprised if it get's any better. 

  We do have great plans for dinner tomorrow night so that's a good way to start things off!

Thank you!

First off, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who responded to my last post! There were some excellent questions! I'm excited that I can really help people.  There were a few questions that I have already answered in these articles:

Metering:

I think this link will take you to a video of me talking about how to meter in a back light situation. If not this go to creating keepsakes.com and then video- picture perfect photography-metering.

http://www.creatingkeepsakes.com/videos/

Written article: http://www.creatingkeepsakes.com/mag/article.ihtml?index_field=1945

Histograms:

Same link just go to histograms

http://www.creatingkeepsakes.com/videos/

Here is the written article-

http://www.creatingkeepsakes.com/mag/article.ihtml?index_field=2024

There are also videos on soft focus and taking head shots.

Here are all the articles since May on the website, a lot of these will answer questions that were asked:

Leading lines-  http://www.creatingkeepsakes.com/mag/article.ihtml?index_field=1923

Framing- http://www.creatingkeepsakes.com/mag/article.ihtml?index_field=1941

Photographing layouts-  http://www.creatingkeepsakes.com/mag/article.ihtml?index_field=1987

Soft Focus- http://www.creatingkeepsakes.com/mag/article.ihtml?index_field=1981

Rule of Thirds- http://www.creatingkeepsakes.com/mag/article.ihtml?index_field=1960

This answers a lot of movement blur questions. Shutter speeds-

http://www.creatingkeepsakes.com/mag/article.ihtml?index_field=1999

There were a ton of questions on indoor lighting.  Here is a very basic article on that, there will be more to come later.

Indoor light-  http://www.creatingkeepsakes.com/mag/article.ihtml?index_field=1966

How to take pictures in Harsh  outdoor lighting, there were a lot of questions on that too!

Harsh light-  http://www.creatingkeepsakes.com/mag/article.ihtml?index_field=2003

I think that those articles will answer a lot of questions!  I didn't realize I had written that much! Go to CK's website to see answers to more of your questions soon!  I have an article every other week there so it's a great learning resource.  Also if you are interested in photoshop Jessica has articles every other week opposite mine!

There are a few questions that I know I won't be answering anywhere else so here they are now:

"I'll tell you what my BIGGEST problem when taking photos is.... I am scared of people getting mad when I take pictures in public places,OR starring and watching, is that weird?!? I'm not sure if it's just me or not, but I get a little bit of stage fright, how do you get over that, do you worry about that?!??! When you want to take a great shot downtown or in an area where there is a lot of people, what do you do?"

This question was from Sarah and Paolo had a similar one!  Hi guy's!  Here is my theory on taking pictures of people in the street or in public places that I don't know.  If I see someone that is fabulous and I love the moment I'll just take the picture.  Then I ask if it's okay afterwards and take another even though I usually know I'm going to use the first one. Why not ask first?  Because I find that as soon as you tell someone you are taking a picture of them they become stiff.

  My professor in college says that it's always easier to ask forgiveness than permission and it's true.  It really is.  I NEVER use a photo without getting permission but I usually get the shot I want first.  The worst they can say is no and then I erase the photo.

  As for getting audiences in public places.  Yep, happens a lot.  Maybe it's my theater days but I'm not afraid of that. Let them watch.  I just try to keep the model or subjects attention on me so they aren't stressed about it either.

   If you are into street photography you should check out the satorialist, he is deep in the fashion world and has a blog where he post pictures of great fashion ideas on normal people in the streets.  Love his photography.  It's a great blog to visit:

http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/

I also got a lot of questions about how Tara does things.  She is a great photographer and I admire her and her work.  I could probably guess how she does a lot of her post processing but, that's just what it would be, a guess and I'm not the one who should be sharing her secrets so I'll leave that up to her.  I did see that she just posted a link to "what's in her camera bag" so that might be a good place to go to learn about her process.

As far as teaching classes, I teach at CKU and I may have some big news to share about that and a few other ventures that will be happening in the next year soon.  I'm super, SUPER excited about it!

Thank you again for your responses!

Question?

Okay, quick question for anyone who is willing!  If you could ask a photographer anything, what would you want to learn about?  Also what situations are difficult for you to photograph in and you wish you knew more or had help? I'm trying to plan some of my future articles and I really want to be able to help people!  Thanks to anyone who answers!

Warning...if you hate sappiness than this post is so not for you.

   This very handsome boy is going to be here in two days! And without sounding too pathetic or like a bad movie line my heart sings every time I think of him being next to me again.  If it is true that absence makes the heart grow fonder than I don't know that we could possibly love each other more as we have spent so much time apart in the last few years of our marriage.

  Sarah posted this quote on her blog and it reminded me so much of us:

"In finding the right person you need someone with all the right similarities, yet all the right differences. Someone to read your mind instinctively, yet cover your weaknesses."

I'm not going to say that he completes me or anything like that because I believe we all need to complete ourselves before we can love someone else but I will say this:  He balances me.  He loves me in a way that no one else could. He knows me better than anyone else in this world and he still likes me ( which is saying a lot). He is calm, caring and kind.  He not only accepts my extreme romanticism, he is willing to play into it ( Like writing me love letters everyday, on paper, that you actually put into the mail with a stamp).  He is the person I most want to see at the end of the day, and during the day and in the morning, and well you get my drift. I love him! 

I can't wait to see you soon Mark!

 

 

My Love Elsie Projects for the month!

These are both made from the Riley line at Hobby Lobby.

It's Grant's birthday this week so I made this card and crown for him!  I love how the crown came out!  I think he looks adorable in it.

Sing it: Our State fair is a great state fair.

Okay, not really, but it was fun. Please tell me that I'm not the only person who has seen the musical State Fair?  Really?  I am.  Okay, not so surprising seeing as I was obsessed with old movies as a little girl most of my movie quotes are met with a blank stare.

  But we did go to the state fair and I had to show this very awesome picture that my Dad took of the boys and I.  Not that I look great.  In fact I'm not sure how I left the house wearing that outfit as now that I see it on camera it's not the most flattering.  BUT, remember how I am trying to let myself be a part of the memories now?

  Anyway, how great is that background? Oh how I wish it was not the last weekend for I would surely drag some willing family there for pictures.  It reminds me of the movie "Big Fish".  I love that movie and I love the old circus feel of this backdrop.  All it needs is a couple in vintage clothing and it would be amazing! But as the fair ends tomorrow it's not going to happen. Grrrr...

So back to the state fair.  The boys loved the animals and rides and they had this great section for kids that was a play farm. It was a really nice night.  I'm glad that we went.  It made me sad that we are going to miss the pumpkin show this year.  We have been to the pumpkin show every year for the last three years in Circleville Ohio every October.  It's so fun.  You can pretty much find any food you want made of pumpkin.  Pumpkin Chili (good), Pumpkin pizza( not so good), pie, ice cream, waffles, donuts, fudge (all good), fried pumpkin flowers ( surprisingly good).  All in one place.  It's the greatest and I'm sad I'm missing it.  I love small town fairs.  Does anyone here in Utah know of any great fall/harvest/pumpkin festivals or a good place to pick your own pumpkin? I really want to do that with the boy's this year.

  Hope you all had a good weekend!

He's so cute!

So my reason for not posting in a while is because my sister Steph is here!  We've been busy going to cute boutiques, creating fun Halloween decorations, watching multiple Doris Day movies and taking pictures.  Here is my sweet nephew Creed as a new born just four months ago. Remember these?

And here he is now, adorable huh? He has grown so much.

 

seriously...seriously

How do they do it?  Okay, so I can't afford it but that doesn't stop me from staring at it in adoration.

  Sigh...love you fall line at Anthropologie!

Wow...

So much has been going on over the weekend up until now.  Here's a quick recap:

  Sarah and I had been talking about how we had spent a whole summer without star gazing even once, and how can one call oneself a true romantic if you don't spend some good quality time looking at stars every once in a while?  Answer, you can't.  So thus began the plans for stargazing 2007.  Sarah, Chloe ( and family), Emily and Jacob and my boys and I all met up at South Fork Park for a fire and smores to be followed by the much needed stargazing time.  However as often happens our plans were thwarted by clouds.  Oh well, we had a great time and the stars were replaced with a rousing game of duck, duck, goose.  Thanks everyone for putting up with Cole and his laughing fits.  He LOVES  duck, duck goose and Emily and Sarah were great with him!  He may have two new older women crushes. lol.

Next, on labor day my Dad took the boys to Cabella's the ultimate boy heaven. While my Mom and I went across the street to Thanksgiving point, in search of more Halloween decor.  We found this but I didn't buy it.  I think I'll go out Martha Stewart style and make it myself. 

Then we picked up the boys and went out for ice cream.

I LOVE seeing my parents with my boys.  They are so great with them!

Then late last night during a huge storm my sister arrived!  So excited to see her and baby Creed.  Love that chubby baby.  We of course did what we always do when we are all together.  Shop.  Or at least window shop.  See the danger of being my parents daughter is that half the time we can never buy anything crafty because we learned from watching my Mom and Dad you can usually do it yourself only it will be cheaper and better. My Mom is so great at whipping things up.

We went here today:

Gardner Village. Love these shops.  The atmosphere is so fun.  We had lunch at the bakery and then bought some fabric for aprons that we want to make.

I think it will be cute.

I also saw this lamp at a store.  I didn't get it as I am a mom to two boys and far outnumbered and pretty much banned from anything pink but I thought I'd share it here because I think it's a fun idea.

Well, that is about it for now!  Hope you had a good weekend too!