{ Teacher Gifts }

I have such fond memories of helping my mom make gingerbread houses at Christmas time to give as gifts to our teachers at school. She would spend all day baking the dough, then we would help her roll it out to cut into the different shaped parts of the house. We would careful help lay out the candy (and sneak a few pieces to eat) and then help place them on with frosting. She would write our teacher’s name above the little door with frosting, and we would proudly help carry it to their classroom the next day. It was something special that we had helped with, and it was homemade-the best kind of gift.

  I love all the great ideas I always see for teacher gifts in magazines and around the internet. I make mental notes of the ones I would love to try someday. I saw this idea a couple years ago and have wanted to do it ever since. It seems that whenever Teacher Appreciation week rolls around though in the spring I am overly busy, or it just sneaks up on us and a quick card is about all we can come up with. I decided that Christmas this year would be a great time to finally make this gift for my kids teachers.

It was so simple and inexpensive to make, and I LOVE how they turned out. I think I may end up making a few with my own kids names on them to display around the house. I started with some frames that I had laying around the house. I took out the glass in them-but a shadowbox type frame could be used as well.

I typed up their teachers names and printed them on regular cardstock, with the name at the bottom and the initial lightly printed on the middle of the page as a sort of guide for the crayon placement.

At the beginning of the school year, I had picked up a ton of extra school supplies to use throughout the year. I used one pack of crayons for each letter I did. At 25 cents a box, it was perfect. You could also use old crayons you had  that had become broken, since you end up cutting them anyways-it would lend a more sort of old vintage look I suppose. Since I was giving it for a gift I wanted to use new ones.

I had the kids help me lay out the crayons in the order that they wanted over the letter on a scratch piece of paper I had printed out. I put it in the frame so as to make sure that the placement was right with the frame in place. (A lesson I learned after doing the first one a bit too close to the top)

  I used a scratch piece for our layout so as not to mark on the final one. We alternated the direction of the crayons and which part of the crayon we had showing. Once we had the placement set, we cut away. I just used as old kitchen knife and cutting board. It made a big, but very colorful mess by the time we were done.

After everything was cut, we put it on for one last check, then glued everything down on the final cardstock sheet. I used a glue gun. On the examples I found online, most had used regular glue because the glue gun was too hot and would melt the crayons, but I didn’t have a problem with that. I really am just too impatient to wait for regular glue to dry. That and all the extra glue that I had bought at the beginning of the year mysteriously disappeared from the school supply box. Note to self, but lots of glue next year!

After I had finished the first two, I realized that I didn’t have anymore white cardstock left. I had to improvise a bit, but I love how the other two turned out. The next two I made were for Erika’s kindergarten teacher and teacher’s helper so it was fun to use the school lined paper design for the background. It made them look fun and playful, prefect for a kindergarten classroom. I was glad that I had kept around all my old scrapbook paper to use for projects like this.

I did these two the same way as the first two. One was super easy and quick, the other, the “S” was a bit more tricky with all the curves. I framed these two in white frames with the glass taken out as well.

After we were done, we printed out a cute tag that reads- “Great teachers start with the letter…” for the front. Add some fun polka dot paper, a big ribbon, and you have the perfect teacher gift.

{Ryan 14 days old}

Here are a few pictures of our sweet little Ryan. These were all taken in natural light. The first two had a big set of windows to the camera left, and the last one I repositioned him so the window was camera right.

ISO 400 f 2.5 ss 1/100 shot with 35mm

 

ISO 320 f 2.5 ss 1/100 shot with 50mm

 

ISO 100 f 2.2 ss 1/100 shot with 50mm

I took this series with the full intent of making them black and white, so I focused more on placement of the baby to get greater shadows and depth and keeping things simple. My big black backdrop is packed in a box, so I used a dark brown blanket instead. I was able to easily darker any areas I wanted to in post processing through the use of levels and the burn tool.

The first photo was originally shot as a vertical, but seemed to lack something. I opened a blank file, filled it with a solid color, then cut and pasted the original to it for a horizontal composition. An easy little trick, and a much more striking presentation.

I love how they turned out. I am thinking some new pictures for the boys room may be in order.

Shy Girl

 

ISO 640 f 2.2 ss 1/200 with 50mm

Natural light from 2 windows to her right

True to my goals I managed to get some shots in color this week and of a different child of mine, though it wasn’t too much of a stretch because Abby is home with me all day too.=)

I don’t know how much feeling there is going on here, but it’s definitely true to her personality. 

Things I liked:

• That I nailed the exposure SOOC (straight out of camera) so it required very little post processing. Love that!
• Eye contact. Not always essential, but with little else going on in the picture, it’s what  makes this picture work at all.
• Cute representation of just who she is-braided hair, belt of some sort she is chewing on, semi-shy disposition at times mixed with a little mischievousness.

Things to work on:

• Engaging her in conversation so her hand would be down.
• More creativity!!!!
• Saving my money to get a different camera that handles noise at higher ISO’s! Just kidding-kind of =)
• Playing with a little more dramatic lighting. I am still caught in a very flat type of lighting. Not bad, I would just love to experiment with a little different set up.

Discovery

ISO 400 f 2.8 ss 1/160

Shot with 35mm and bounced flash

Just a  fun picture from this last week. Scott discovered that he could see himself in the bathtub drain, and was so excited. He would point and laugh, and then realize he could see himself laughing and then he would laugh some more. So fun to see the little things that bring so much joy.

I shot this bouncing my flash behind me. In hindsight I would have lowered the ISO down a lot. I was trying to grab every bit of natural light I could, but ended up just adding a ton of noise to the picture. I had to run it through a noiseware program, and that seemed to help a little. Unfortunately, one of the downfalls of the D80 is it doesn’t handle digital noise very well at all.

Things I liked:

• I liked that even though his head is not in focus because of the small depth of field (f 2.8), that you could still tell that he was smiling at himself.
• I don’t know if it’s a like or not, but kind of cool that you could see him in the faucet as well. I was really going for just the circle drain and the faucet kind of just happened to happen as well.
• His finger is pointing to himself in the drain. It still would have been cute with just his face reflected in the drain, but I love the playful feeling I get seeing him interact with his own reflection.
• I liked that I saw him doing this and went to get my camera! I am really trying not to let any opportunity pass me buy to practice and more importantly to capture those little moments that I know I will forget. It really only took a second because I only took about five shots in all and was done, yet how cute is this! Such a great memory. I think getting outside my comfort zone no matter where I am is becoming a very important part of my journey, and I am really loving it.

Things I could have done different:

• Technically-try a different ISO combination for sure!
• Shoot with his face closer to the drain for a fun kind of distorted  big face look. Even though I love his finger in the shot, I think if I had one with just his face and closer up, I could have gotten the same perspective but without catching the faucet in the picture. This one just doesn’t crop well to crop the faucet out and leave his head in.
• Tried one with the faucet slowly dripping water and seeing his reflection of utter concentration as he tries to catch the water. I may try this one some time, if I can keep him from splashing me and the camera too much.

My goal for next week is to actually take pictures of my other kids! I tend to practice more when they are in school, so unfortunately this don’t get much camera time. I also would like to work on some more color photos as well, we’ll see how that goes!

Cropping Carefully

ISO 400 f/2.2 ss 1/100 with my 50mm

Natural light from window behind camera left

I love a good color photograph, but today’s like the last couple just seems to speak better to me in black and white. The colors were a bit too distracting (the colors in the blanket and walls), and it had a good tonal range   ( a large spectrum from black to white) to be able to convert to a black and white. There is just something about a black and white photograph that just seems so pure. There’s no colors to confuse your mind-just the raw image.

My main lesson with this picture is about cropping. I experimented with a few different crops just to see how that can change the mood and message of the picture.

#1

This version with a very close crop shows a cute baby. Nice picture. Nice baby. I like that dads lips and chin can be seen. The rough whiskers against the soft baby skin offers a nice contrast. Other than that though, I wasn’t feeling too much. The binkie was a bit distracting, and there just wasn’t a lot there.

#2

For this next one, I zoomed out a bit to capture a little more of the picture. More of dad means that now there is a connection in the picture. Emotions can be implied- A sweet father’s love for his son, sweet sleeping baby, dad’s eyes are closed maybe thinking about baby? All offer another depth to the picture. In the first picture the main subject was the baby. Now the main subject is more of dad.

#3

The last crop is the one I choose for a few different reasons.

First, it tells the story that I was meaning to tell. If I did just want a sweet picture of my husband with my son, then I think that #2 crop may actually be my choice. But with this photograph, I wanted to convey something  more.

Second, by zooming out more, you catch more of what was going on. You can now see all of baby and dad. It becomes more clear that baby may be sick-there is a bandage on his hand (information that wasn’t before available). With baby being sick it offers more than dad just holding his little one-he is comforting his little one. Holding (more of a job) versus comforting (more of a feeling). This is also true of the binkie. Before, more of a distraction in the picture, now it tells, “Baby needed comfort. Real comfort”

Third, you can see clearly now that baby is not dressed-possibly implying that baby has more than just a cold at home and climbed up on dad’s lap when he was playing, and dad held him for a minute. In the first crop it could easily be passed off as a cute naked baby picture-dad holding baby. Now, the reason behind naked baby somehow has more meaning. You can see all of baby’s head and hair too. He is a mess! This is much more than regular bed head-it’s been a long night. Struggle. Relief that baby is asleep can be felt from dad.

Fourth, you can see more of the room. Now this one is tough because I do know the context of it, so I know that it was in a hospital room. You can see the metal crib and mattress in the background (though it could be confused with just a regular home bed) This was not a simple sickness at home. There was a hospital involved-again more of the story being told. Hospital babies are sick babies-dad’s concern can now be seen as maybe a little more intense and a little more focused. In crop #2 it may show just the regular fatherly concerns-thoughts of what baby will be like when he grows up, can I provide for him, will I be a good dad.. Now in #3, the concern is very real and specific-will my baby get better.

I loved this little exercise and it taught me to back up and don’t always be quick to shove out of frame all of the background. Background can be an important part of the whole story being told and feelings being portrayed. As I was working on this, Scott had climbed up on my lap. I was flipping between pictures and was on crop#1. I was trying to get his attention and say look there’s Scott, there’s a baby! Though he loves to see babies, he wasn’t too impressed and was trying to wiggle out of my lap. Then I scrolled to the next picture (crop #2) and he saw daddy. His eyes froze as he locked right in on him. Suddenly even to my one year old, he could tell there was more in that picture. He would look at the picture and then at me with almost a concerned look on his face. It was a testament to me that indeed in this case  more of the picture=more feeling. Try scrolling down through the last three picture and see how the emotion changes as more of the picture is revealed.

A New Perspective…On Life

ISO 250 f/2.2 ss 1/125 shot with 50mm

Feeling.

Yes, lots of feeling right now.

This picture is the last shot I took a couple days ago. I loved it the minute I took it. I could feel it when I snapped the shutter. A fresh new perspective. Down on the floor, rolling around, laughing and playing with Scott. Seeing what  life from his view is like.

New discoveries. Uncluttered. Unencumbered with deadlines and busyness. No calendar to check. No where to be, but here. The simple life. Just being you. Dirty feet from hard play and the gentle ease of being free to roam wherever these little feet could take you.

Now, the feelings I get when I look at this picture are far more intense than I had expected when I took it. My goal was to feel more…and that I am. Four hours after these sweet little feet landed upon this picture, Scott had a seizure. The first of many that would continue for the next two hours. These feet that once were strong and playful, totting happily across my kitchen floor, squirming with each tickle….These same feet now struggle to find their footing. Struggle to relax. Struggle to have the strength enough to move where he wants them to. Struggle to be free.

With all the unanswered questions, the disbelief, the hope that I will just wake up from this nightmare- feeling is about all I can do. Feeling like I wish he would just be better, feeling that I wish I could make his pain go away, feeling like I want him to just run and play again, feeling like I need to be strong.

Yes, feeling.

And knowing that there is One that has felt. He felt every pain poor Scott is now having to feel, and He is the one that can give us strength when we need it.

My journey to feel has begun. Though different than I had planned, I am feeling these pictures with new eyes, and a new perspective on life.

Little Boy

 

ISO 100 f/4 ss 1/320 shot with 35mm

This is a shot a took months ago of my best friend’s little boy. To help myself grow, here are a few things I have been thinking as I have evaluated this picture. Remember, I am trying to work on the feeling. Even though I may mention some technical stuff, I am trying to see how that effects the overall feeling of the picture. Any things you see, I would love to hear. Maybe it’s creating a  feeling that I hadn’t thought of.

Things I liked:

• The deeper contrast. A much darker black and white conversion than I normally do, and I like it.
• The angle I shot it at
• Burned edges to draw focus on where he was walking. (Editing can very much help create the feeling you are going for)
• It captured his independence
• Rule of thirds. Placing him in the top third gives room for all the stairs. The long journey up the stairs for him is just as important as finally getting there. So true for us all.

Things I could have done different:

• Let him walk up these stairs at the very beginning. It could have saved us a lots of tears later=)Part of finding my style has to do with finding my shooting style. I think comfort level (mine and those I photograph) is key to getting the good shots, that’s why I even mentioned this one.
• Shot from the top of the stairs looking down at him accentuating his smallness
• Shot from the angle of the wall, following the top of the wall, having it lead to him

The feeling I was going for:

I hope by the end f the year I won’t have to list this one, but for now I am going to. I want to see if what I was going for was working. If I write it down I will be able to process better.

I was going for the feeling of his growing independence. At two he is still so little-still learning how to be really steady when walking up stairs, but wanting so bad to just be free. He is still learning about life with the loving help of his parents and big sister, but just has to try things on his own. I think I captured it okay. By being at the bottom of the stairs it makes him seem bigger than he is-that’s good. If I would have shot from the top, it would have accentuated his tiny little boyness in sharp contrast to the large stairs-that would have been good too. If I would have shot from the angle of the arm rail it would have caught his hand in sharp focus, showing his little still–chubby-hands; proof that as independent as he wants to be, he still hasn’t lost that baby look yet.

A Year of Finding the Feeling

Years ago, I was happy snapping away with my trusty point and shoot camera capturing all those little milestones of my young kids. After my third child was born, I was determined to take better pictures. I wanted more, I just didn’t know what. Before my fourth entered the world I obtained my first SLR camera. I didn’t take it off of auto much, but I was sure it was the key to my success. I had one goal, to take pictures with a blurry background. I didn’t know what they called that, but it looked cool. It was what set professional looking pictures from just snapshots in my mind. With that goal in mind, I shot away. I read my manual, got online to read, and slowly..very slowly my pictures started to get better.

I finally switched my camera off of auto and ventured into the world of manual. I felt like I had taken two steps backwards for every step forward. I was frustrated, but slowly getting it. My pictures got that blurry background I had started out to have, but still there was something missing. I had these great pictures in my mind that I just couldn’t seem to execute.

One night while reading on one of my favorite photography websites, I came across a photographer that I had long sense admired. I went to her personal website, and was in awe. I sat looking at picture after picture crying. This was what I wanted to capture. This was what I could see in my mind, but couldn’t seem to express through my lens. There was feeling.

I can remember the exact picture that was the kicker. It was a shot of a young boy about Austin’s age, with a cape proudly tied around his neck, sword in hand, trudging off through a field determined to live life. He wasn’t looking straight at the camera, he didn’t have a perfect smile on, in fact you couldn’t even see most of his face…but there was feeling. I sat looking at that picture feeling like that was my boy. That was how I wanted to remember him. With his shorts and cowboy boots on, being a little boy, playing with all the little boy vigor he had in him. That was what I wanted. To capture those moments that I never wanted to forget.

And so, my journey continued. I realized that to get that I was going to have to work hard. Very hard. I couldn’t expect to get those results with luck alone. I needed to really know how to use my camera. After almost 4 years of doing just that, I can finally say that I know my camera. I know the basics. I am confident to say, I know more than the basics, but lately I feel like I am back at square one.

I feel like I have hit a plateau of sorts. My pictures seem to all look the same to me. They lack something, I just can’t seem to put my finger on what it is. After months of pondering, it occurred to me that for a while I have been so concerned with making sure that each picture was technical right, (was the focus where I wanted it to be, was the lighting how I wanted it, was the shot framed right) that I haven’t given myself the room to grow outside of that.

I can now see that the technical part of my journey is ending, though there is always more to learn-that journey will never really end, and that the journey to find my creativity needs to begin. I need to find me. I feel like I need to go back to why I wanted to make beautiful  photographs  in the first place. In hopes of finding that, I have been asking myself these questions:

Who or what do I enjoy taking pictures of?

What do I like about my personal style right now?

What do I wish my pictures had that they lack?

Are there technical areas that are holding me back?

What are consistent mistake I see with my pictures?

Is there something my pictures have that make them “mine”? Could someone look at one of my pictures and say, “That’s a Monae.”

What are things I consistently do when planning a shot?

Do I hesitate to capture a moment because the lighting (or setting, or angle,etc.) is not “right” ?

Do I shoot enough?

When is the last time I was excited to download my pictures and see what was there? Why was I so excited?

Are my pictures predictable? Am I okay with that?

Do I lack the equipment to achieve my goals?

If I were to go blind today, what would I long to see a picture of? Do I know how to capture that?

The biggest question that I already knew the answer to was, “Do my pictures lack feeling?”  Yes.

That’s what I want. Feeling. I want to look at a photograph that I have created and not have to say a word. The picture will speak for itself. It will tell the story. It will make those who see it….  feel it. That is my goal this year. It is my year of finding the feeling. It’s my year to find myself as a photographer.

I am planning on taking pictures more often. I would like to say everyday..and I will for my own family snap shot pictures that document the traditions, and vacations, and events that make up our life. For this journey though, I will just say more often, ..and then I will post them here. I will critique them in hopes of nailing down what I need to work on. My hope is that by the end of the year I will have been able to see my pictures, my style, evolve. At first I think that I might get frustrated that the change isn’t there, but this is a journey. My journey. My year to find the feeling.

Brooke at Callaway

It is becoming a tradition it seems for me to have a black and white picture of Brooke at Callaway at the end of each summer. Here is this summer’s  shot with my 35mm

ISO 100 f 2.8 ss 1/500

To even out last years more moodier picture of Brooke, this one shows the sweet side of my Brooke. She has become a great swimmer this year, and I love the story this picture tells. To me it shows her more tender side, yet her confidence in her new found skills. It’s a perfect picture to end out the summer.

My ss were high enough that I definitely could have closed down my aperture (smaller hole, larger number), but I kept it open to make sure that the sand behind her would be blurry. I have lots of pictures from that day with her playing in the sand, but this one I wanted focused just on her face. For the most part this picture has a lot of light and midtone colors, not many darks. The darks it has though are in the right spots that it makes the picture work.

They are in her dark hair drawing focus to her goggles (again telling the story), her eyes (leading your eye down the picture), and then the end strands of her hair that perfectly frame her face and create a border between her face and the background sand which are very similar in tone. If I would have tried this picture with Erika, my lighter hair daughter it probably wouldn’t have worked as well. For her I tend to do the opposite and have her against darker backgrounds (the grass, tree leaves, darker building, etc.)

The other thing I love about this picture is the angle of her head. Having it tilted in towards the center of the picture draws your eye into the picture, and having the negative space on the opposite side of her keeps your eyes in the picture. If there would have been something to her left (camera right) your eye would have followed that and left the picture. It also gives her a sense of being a little bit coy. Having her head straight up and down in this setting would have been too serious, and less playful. 

My Little Baby Bird

A great photo shoot with Scott and my new basket. I think they turned out cute, but the fact that he was a bit too mobile posed a few problems. I could only get him to sit still if I put him in with his legs sticking up. The one with his little toes peaking out cracks me up. He was content for a while and then decided he would rather venture outside the basket to play in our barefoot grass. ISO 100 f/2.8 ss 1/500

ISO 100 f/2.8 ss 1/500

     ISO 100 f/2.8 ss 1/500

ISO 100 f/2.8 ss 1/500

ISO 100 f/2.8 ss 1/500

ISO 100 f/2.8 ss 1/500

These were all taken on an overcast day between 12noon and 1pm. I was behind our trampoline, so I was having a difficult time getting a lot of light in his eyes. I tried a bit different post processing than I normally do, and I loved how it turned out. I used a soft light layer, and I love how it brought all the rich colors out of hiding. It appears now more like it really was in real life. These were all shot with my 35mm f 2.0 I am beginning to like that lens the more I use it.