Still in Mourning

So, I am still trying to get over the death of a dear friend of mine, and it has been a little hard to pick myself up and get photographing again. Who is this dear friend, you ask? It is my beloved Laptop, more specifically my beloved laptop's hard drive. It suffered a nasty accident and my hard drive was pronounced dead, after getting two separate opinions. The horrible part of all of this is I had not backed up my photos in a really long time, so I have lost most of the pictures since I started taking photo's more seriously. Really really stupid of me not to back them up, lesson learned the hard way. Luckily most of the photos I either put on this blog or my family blog, so all is not lost. I won't be able to print anything bigger than a 5x7 but at least they are not gone forever. The moral of this story: go back up your photos now!!!!

We had a fun weekend in Zion National Park and Bryce National Park. I was able to take some amazing photos. Unfortunately most were casualties of my dead hard drive. I was only able to post a few to my portfolio on DPChallenge before my computer died. Here are two of the survivors:

The Watchman in Zion National Park

Bryce Canyon

Despite crying most of the day Monday, I was able to pick myself up and get photographing again later that week. There was a huge flock of Pelicans, around 200, all grouped together a little way of the main road where I live. I decided to walk out there to see how close I could get. I was knee deep in swampy marsh land and never could get close enough to take a decent shot. Here is the best I could do:

On Friday my neighbors thought I was crazy laying on the grass, trying to get some shots of these tulips for a challenge entry. I didn't even end up using them, I got something better today. But I still like them so I decided to post them here.

Today I took pictures of my girls in their Easter dresses. I ended up liking this one of Sydnie so much, that I decided to use it instead of the tulips for my challenge entry. The challenge is called "bokeh". Bokeh is a photographic term that means, blurred background. Really good bokeh has those circular or octaganal patterns.

Title:

Waiting

I also took photos of my other two girls. I like them as well but the focus is a bit off and they would get hammered in a challenge. Since I wasn't entering it in a challenge I took the liberty of playing around with the editing style a bit

Kaylee

Brianne

I had a lot of fun with this next challenge entry. It was an "expert editing" challenge so you have the freedom of combining multiple photos into one photo. Most of the time only one photo is allowed. For the photo below I combined 5 different photos to make this one shot. The challenge theme was "Visual Puns" a photographic play on words.

Title:

Haywire

This next one I was trying to decide whether to enter it in the "Empty Room" challenge or "Sadness" challenge. My intent was to show a girl in an empty corner in time out. It ended up looking more like a little girl who is left out of something and had a very sad feel to it. So I considered entering it in the "Sadness" challenge. I should have, it's doing okay in the Empty Room" challenge. But in hind site it is much more suited to the Sadness one.

Title:

Always Picked Last

Keeping Busy

I have started doing a little side work with my photography lately. I decided it was about time I put a price list together. If you look at the top of my blog you will see a new header entitled "Schedule a Session" in it you will see my prices and how to get in touch with me to schedule a session.

This photography stuff has been keeping me pretty busy lately. My friend Holly had me take some photo's of her cute kids. I had them edited awhile ago but wanted to try a re shoot of her littlest one. I'm glad we did he was in a much better mood the second time around and we were able to get this cute shot of him:

The rest of her cute kids:

I have also been really busy entering challenges. We have had a couple extra ones in the last couple weeks so I have been extra busy getting ready for them, shooting for them, and editing them.

This first one was my free study entry, it really is one of my favorite photos. I thought it turned out just about how I pictured it in my head. I did pretty well with it but the voters didn't seem to love it as much as I did.

title:

Alice: Through the Looking Glass

This one is sort of different. It was for a challenge called "between the neck and the knees" All I kept thinking when I was editing these is I wish I didn't have to cut off the head. I tried to figure out ways to show emotion or tell a story without seeing a face so I attempted to do it with her hands.

Title:

Just a Little Stage Fright

This last one was for a challenge called Black and White so it could be anything in Black and White. I ended up going with this one. I really liked it. I guess no one else does because it is not scoring well. Oh well you can't guess them all.

Title:

Grazing Peacefully

This was my other choice for the B&W challenge. In hind sight I should have gone with this.

For a lack of better models...

I have had a few challenges lately that require a more grown up model than what Kaylee can pull off. I feel kind of funny asking other people to pose for my challenge photos, so I have to pose for them myself. I don't like doing it, mostly because I suddenly become a lot more critical of the photo when I am in it. I have a hard time being objective. I won't like a photo simply because of the way I look in it.

This first one is me very glamorized. It was for a challenge called "What DPC love the Most" Meaning: take a picture of what people on the website tend to score really high. I must have figured it out, because I am did really well with this one. I got 4th out of 95 entries.

I posed for this one in a huge wind storm, Brianne was a trooper and climbed the hill with me and pushed the shutter button. My girls are going to learn photography by default Brianne is already off to a good start.

Title:

DPC Loves: Flowing Robes and Brooding Skies

Now for a much less glamorous shot. I wore absolutely no make-up for this one. We are studying a photographer from the 1930's Named Edward Weston. He did quite a few portraits most of them are complete side views and almost all are in black and white. This is what I came up with. I did my hair in a 1930ish sort of hairdo and did my best to pose looking to the side and pushing my remote for my camera at the same time. The feedback has been extremely positive on this photo, and I think I should do quite well with it. Scoring doesn't start until Tuesday so I won't know until then if I hit the target or not.

Title:

A Weston Style Self Portrait

Here is another view, I actually liked it better but it wasn't a side view so I decided against it.

Kaylee did get to model for one shot this week, this one was for a challenge called "Focus Point" a focus point is something that draws the eye into the photo and keeps the viewers interest. I had the idea for a bright umbrella against a stormy sky. I really lucked out with this one. We took it just as a hail storm was coming in, I was able to capture some really mean looking storm clouds coming in. This one is doing extremely well, I will get the best score I have ever gotten for an image and complete one of my goals of getting a score of 7 or higher. 7's are really hard to get I have come close so many times, only to see it drop to just below a 7 at a 6.9. This one should make it, I am at a 7.3 and holding steady! I should ribbon with this, you almost never get a 7 without ribboning. The results come in on Tuesday, and I am anxiously awaiting the results on this one.

Title:

A Bright Spot in the Storm

This last one is sort of a ho-hum shot. It was taken for a challenge called "Lucky Thirteen" I had a hard time wrapping my mind around this one and it shows in my shots. I think they are kind of boring. This challenge hasn't started yet, but I doubt I will get a good score. Who knew I had so many clocks!!!

Title:

The Thirteenth Hour

Here is another shot. How do you make thirteen gourds look interesting??? Well I tried, but everyone liked the clocks better so I went with that one. I still sort of like it better than the clocks but if everyone else said the clocks were better so that is what I will go with.

Late Additions

I wasn't going to post so soon, but I purposely left a few photo's out the last time I posted here. I thought I might be winning a ribbon for a recent entry and last night the results came in and I DID! I got first place for this photo:

Title

The Tower

Kind of a strange title I know, it was for a challenge called "Tarot Card" it wasn't a challenge I was planning on entering, but I got these amazing long exposures of our lake and the mountains and I wanted to enter them in something, and friend who was helping me with them suggested they may work for "the tower" tarot card. I really don't even know what tarot cards are, so I just went with the suggestion thinking it probably wouldn't do all that great because it didn't really fit the challenge. Well I was wrong, and happy to be wrong! You can veiw my entry on the front page of this site http://www.dpchallenge.com/

Here are a couple others I got that night, I will most likely enter one of these for my March free study, but I haven't decided which one yet. I'm sure neither will win, as the free studies usually have over 200 entries and really amazing pictures, but I hope I can at least get a good score with one of them.

This next one I just entered, it is doing really well but it won't ribbon or even come close. There are some really amazing entries in this particular challenge. Now before you criticize me for putting make-up on Kaylee let me tell you about the challenge. It has to be in the style of a fairly famous photographer named Manny Librodo. He does amazing portraits mainly of models. So I wanted mine to have a kind of a high fashion feel to it. So poor Kaylee had to have her eyebrows plucked (she earned a $1 for that) and get some pretty heavy eye make-up applied (I don't think she minded that so much) I had her cover the rest of her face so you couldn't tell how old she was. Anyway, I thought they turned out pretty well. Here is my entry:

Title:

Through the Eyes of Innocence

Here is an out take I had a hard time deciding between the two:

And one last challenge entry. This challenge was called "Urban Nature" we had to take a picture of some sort of nature in an Urban setting. So I decided to try and get some shots of the birds that always hang out at the Walmart parking lots. They turned out okay, these are my first "wildlife" shots and I really don't have the lens to pull them off. Despite that I am getting a respectable score, so I am happy with my first attempt.

Title:

Walmart Shopping is for the Birds

And here is an out take, I almost entered this one because the quality on the bird is a bit better, but the Walmart sign wasn't obvious enough.

My Girls

I have been working hard on getting ready for an upcoming boutique, and I finally got done and everything set-up last weekend. So this week I got to have some fun and take yearly shots to hang on my wall of my three cute girls. I mostly just wanted head shots in B&W, nothing fancy, to blow up big 16x20 and hang on my wall in some cute frames I got on sale at Hobby Lobby. They turned out really cute. I found some cool brick backgrounds that I added in after to make the background a little less boring.

Kaylee age 10

Brianne age 7

Sydnie age 3

Challenge entries for this week

This first one was for a challenge called "Two Colors" I decided I would do a cool paper curling technique called quilling. It's mostly used to make cards and decorations, but I thought it might look cool to make a larger one and light it from below. I placed the pieces of paper on a white cutting board and put my flash underneath, so it sort of glowed from beneath. It turned out cool and is getting a good score, but not good enough to ribbon.

Title:

"Shades of Purple and Green"

This next one is for a challenge called "Half" you had to take a photo of half of something. I had an idea to take a picture of Sydnie and one of her cute little friends holding hands. They turned out cute. This is the one I entered.

Title:

Best Friends, Two Halves Make a Whole

This is the one I wanted to enter, but got talked out of it since it wasn't "half enough" I wish I would have I like it much better.

This was for a really fun challenge called "Day taken at Night". In this challenge you had to take a photo at night in the complete dark and expose it long enough for it to look like you took it during the day. I had never done anything like this before and it was fun to try. This one I took at 9:00 p.m. and exposed it for 15 min. The results are really surprising, it really does look like day, the only thing that gives it away is the star trails. The big bright globe behind the silo, is the moon although in this photo it looks a bit more like the sun.

Title:

"A Moonlit Silo"

Just so you can understand how very dark it was outside, here is a test shot I took of the exact same spot this one was exposed for just a few seconds.

I'm glad this ended up turning out well because I sat in the dark by myself with only a headlamp for light, for almost and hour and a half. It was pretty cold and kind of in the middle of nowhere. I had to hike about a 1/4 of a mile away from my car to get to this spot, and I usually don't get scared over things like this, but I have to say this was a little spooky. I just kept thinking of the mountain lion Shaun saw by our house a few years ago. I did have an annoyed Raccoon that kept chirping at me, I think he didn't like my headlight and wanted me to turn it off. I was sort of glad to have the Raccoon around because I thought, "if a Raccoon is around making noise it probably means there are no mountain lions in the area." Wow! what I do for a photograph.

One last note, I purposely held back a couple photos because there is a chance I might be getting a ribbon for them! Stay tuned to see if I do.

Portrait Time!!!

So, this weekend was an portrait taking and editing marathon for me. It started out with my friend Amber and her little girl Breelyn. She wanted me to take some indoor studio shots of Breelyn in her Baptism dress. It was fun and she was my very first paying client, it sort of made me nervous, but I think they turned out cute.

Next, my sister Nancy came for the weekend so I could take some pictures of her cute kids. Then I spent most of the rest of the weekend editing, partly because I wanted Nancy to just take her photo's with her instead of me having to e-mail them to her, and partly because I have a busy week ahead of me and I knew I wouldn't have time later.

In addition to the photos below, I also edited some cute photo's my friend took. She did a great job taking some newborn photos of her baby and wanted me to edit them. They turned out really cute, but since they are not my photo's I won't post them here. Between editing all 3 photo shoots I think I will be glad to have a little break from editing.

So enough talk, here are the photo's I took. I had an easy job with such cute kids. I think I will stop writing and let the photo's do the talking.

Chloe

(she was a tough one to get to smile this weekend, but we still managed a few really cute shots)

Hannah

Hayden

All Three

(This was another tough assignment, there was no way I could get them to all smile and look at the camera at the same time, so we had to do a little swap with the heads.)

Breelyn's Baptism photo's