2013 Photo-a-day: April Week 3

Day 15 – Star hands

This is another image I saw on the web and wanted to try. I think ideally you would use 5 different people with similar sized hands, but I did it with my husband and 2 older kids. I laid on the ground and shot straight up while they held their hands above me so I could get the blue sky in the background. It’s not a perfect star, but I love how it came out.

Day 16 – Dancing with Daddy feet

My daughter trying to dance standing on Daddy’s feet. What more can I say? :)

Day 17 – Sibling hands

This is one of my favorite shots of the month so far. We did it outside to get nice light. The two older kids put their hands down first, then my husband held the baby over them and lowered his hand onto the top. I had to get to shot quickly as he almost immediately took his hand off again! A quick conversion to black and white gave it a lovely finish.

Day 18 – Mommy and me feet

This is another one of those pictures that started with me trying to get something completely different. I wanted a shot of Evan’s feet sticking out in front of him, so that his feet were in focus but the rest of him was slightly blurred, so that he feet were the main focus of the picture. I discovered though that his legs aren’t long enough to give enough distance between his feet and his body to get the effect I wanted. So I’ll save that shot for one of the other kids. Instead I just started trying to get a cute shot of his feet, and I put one of mine in to show the difference in size. Result? Cute shot :)

Day 19 – Wet feet

My son’s preschool class went on a nature hike to a local creek, and I knew that would be a good opportunity to get some nice shots. They had a lot of fun wading in the shallow water, throwing stones and trying to catch something with their nets.

Day 20 – Holding hands

This is another shot from the nature hike. The kids had to hold an adult’s hand while we walked on the street, and my son chose to hold his teacher’s hand. He adores his teacher, and she was been wonderful with him this year, very patient and adapting to his needs. The original shot had their whole bodies in, and when I cropped in on their hands I lost some quality in the image. I still like it though.

Day 21 – Soccer feet

My son again! He just started a 12 week soccer class, and he loves it! I’m not sure if he’s any good yet, but as this shot shows, at least he can kick the ball! I used my 50mm-200mm lens on full zoom to get in as close as I could on his feet from the sidelines.

 

 

 

 

 

2013 Photo-a-day: February Week 4

Day 53

Love hearts, a traditional Valentine’s treat. I went outside so I could shoot these in natural light, and tried to arrange them so they looked like they had been casually dropped.

Day 54

We’ve had some beautiful weather lately, so I decided to take advantage of it to get this shot. I love the heart shape of these leaves, and the shadow looks great too. To get the shot I had to hold the leaf in such a way that you could clearly see the heart shape of it and the shadow, as well as keeping my hand and the stalk out of the frame as much as possible. I actually tried cropping my fingers out completely, but that made it look like the leaf was floating, and looked a little weird.

Day 55

My littlest love is ready for solid food! We’re taking it slowly, and on the advice of a friend we are letting him try things for himself rather than trying to force-spoonfeed him. I offered him some tomato flavored corn chip puff thingies, and he loved them! Although so far he prefers to suck them and then spit out the rest. It’s exciting to wonder what foods he will come to love though :)

Day 56

This was an interesting shot, and not what I originally planned this day. I wanted to get a shot of the Chinese symbol for love, but in an interesting way. I also wanted to get a shot of the beautiful cherry blossom which had just started blooming, but couldn’t think of a way that it represented ‘love.’ So I decided to use the blossom to create the Chinese symbol for love. I printed out a large copy of it, then gathered some blossom and stuck it to the paper. My kids helped. It was fun, but we got a little ‘blossom happy,’ and by the end it was very hard to see the symbol at all, it just looked like a mass of blossom on white paper! So I came up with a plan B – I got a nice shot of the blossom and superimposed the symbol over the top. Although it was not what I originally wanted, I like the effect I ended up with.

Day 57

My three little loves, also known as the Triple-E ;)  I wanted to get a shot of them together during my love-theme month, because the love between siblings is like no other. Edward looks up to his big sister, and Elizabeth is very protective of her brothers. Edward and Elizabeth both adore their baby brother, and Evan lights up whenever they’re around. I know the three of them will be best friends for life. I originally planned to shoot them sitting up together, as I have done before. I put them all in their ‘sibling shirts’ and got a couple of good shots of them sitting on the tiger blanket out in the backyard. Then I decided to to lay them down and try and get their heads close together. It was unplanned, but I loved those shots so much more that the sitting up ones! They just look so much more relaxed and happy, and I like that their heads are close together. You can’t see their shirts as well, but I don’t mind that. I love this picture so much I’m going to print it and frame it :)

Day 58

Showing my body some love by getting out and walking more. I try and walk every day after I drop my daughter off at school, and I also just signed up to walk a 5K in a couple of weeks. I hope to run it next year. Right now I don’t have enough time to train, but as Evan gets older and Edward moves into Kindergarten my schedule will open up a little.

Day 59

I started the month with my wedding rings, and I end it with my wedding dress. Every bride knows how important it is to find the perfect dress for the day she promises to love her husband for all eternity. I had mine custom made, and I loved it. My husband said he did too. It’s been hanging in my closet wrapped in plastic for the last 8 years, so it was fun to get it out again. I took it outside so I could get some nice soft natural light for the shot.

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And that’s February done! I had a lot of fun with this month’s theme of ‘love,’ and next month should be even funner…the theme for March is ‘Famous Movies Recreated with Tiny Action Figures!’ A bit of a mouthful, but I’m so looking forward to this one! I have my team assembled (see below) and we are taking suggestions. Just leave a comment if there is a movie you’d like to see recreated with tiny action figures :)