Friday, January 27, 2012

Week 3 / 52 of Maraea

Maraea discovered how to use my camera.

It's quite impressive, actually.  She gets in my face and instead of letting me take a picture OF her, she reaches for the lens and says, "My do?  My do?  MY do?  MY DO!"  Then she will start to pitch a fit if I don't give her the camera in a reasonable amount of time.

That's what this week's picture represents.


That's her, screaming at me, because I won't give her my camera.  I reckon I might have a little budding photographer on my hands.

When I finally handed the camera to her, this is the picture she took.  It's pretty cute.


Runner up for this week:


Week 4 is up next!  I have been working on my black & white photography this week.  I think week 4's image will be representative of that.

Week 2 / 52 of Maraea

Keeping with my resolution to better my photography this year, I invested in some good film (aka, not any film that you can buy at your corner CVS) and took it to a good developer (aka, not any developer that you would find at your corner CVS), and the results were pretty pleasing.  The problem I continue to encounter with photographing my child is that she just moves.so.gosh.darn.much.  Like, HOLD STILL FOR ONE SECOND PLEASE SO MY SHUTTER CAN GO OFF.  I was really pleased with the color saturation and cripsness of the pictures that came from my roll of Provia 400x, noting of course that the pictures would be even crisper had I had a still subject.

Anyway.

It was a contest for week 2.  I couldn't decide between 3 pictures.  Despite input from those whose taste I trust the most, I decided to go with the one that kept calling to me.  That's this one:


I know that in the world of photography, technically, this picture is not all that great.  But sometimes I really like the way an overexposed background makes a foreground subject look.  Maraea looks kind of misty here.  I'm not justifying a bad photograph, but I do like the look of this.  It kind of makes me think of other video and photographic images I've seen.

Stay tuned for Week 3!

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Week 1 / 52 of Maraea

Maraea loves tubby time.  But she hates having her picture taken.  This should be an interesting project.  I wonder how many pictures I'll have this year of her screaming "NO!" at me when I have my camera in her face? 

(She's exactly like me.  I recently asked my mom if her and my dad, who had also been into photography when I was a baby, totally overdid it with pictures of me, and they said absolutely they did, since I was the first.  I used to do the same thing, and for as long as I can remember, I've hated having my picture taken.  I had thought that if Maraea grew up in front of the camera, she would love being in front of it.  Wrong.  I'm creating a monster.  I know, because I am one.)

But regardless.  I sometimes manage to catch her when she's happy.  Like here.  She loves bath time, except for the part where I have to rinse her hair.  Then she hates me again.  But mostly she's happy in the bath.


In addition, I took this photo of us.  She looks beautiful in it, doesn't she?  Unfortunately, I'm in it, and that is NOT part of the project.  Otherwise I'd use this.  Maybe this can be the cover.  hah.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

New year, new goals

A new year is here, and I've gone another several weeks without posting here.  Not that anybody reads this, but, I apologize!  It's now 2012, and since this is my photography / family / food blog, I have a very relevant subject to talk about today.

At the end of every year I start to think about doing a photography project for the next year.  Most common is 365 days of X and / or 52 weeks of X.  A few years back I decided I wanted to work on my food photography so I did a 365 project.  It was everything I'd eaten for dinner for a whole year.  It was a fun project, though cumbersome at times.  I had a smaller point-and-shoot digital camera then, so it was easier to snap a real quick picture, but I had less creative flexibility with that camera than I do with my DSLR.  So, I think that year taught me a lot about food photography -- angles, lighting, positioning, even plating.  But this year, I've decided that a 365 project is a little bit of a bear to take on, what with everything else I've got going on.  So I'm going to do a 52 project.  52 weeks of Maraea.  Fitting, right?  I mean, who doesn't want to see my kid's face every day?  At the end of the year I'm going to put all 52 photos into a book in order so we can see how she's changed over the year.  That should be kind of cool.

Going hand-in-hand with that project is my New Year's resolution to improve my photography.  I was reading a photography blog over the weekend and picked up a lot of good information and tricks that I'm really excited to put to use.  I haven't been on a photo shoot in ages and really need to get out there with my camera.  I'm also resolving to fall back in love with my film camera this year.  I just ordered a bunch of film and equipment from Adorama Camera that I am hoping will bring my old 35mm Rebel back to life.  I'm really excited to get it and put it to use.  I also have some existing equipment at home collecting dust that I need an excuse to use.  So, with all of this motivation, I should have no problems completing a 52 project for 2012.  :)

Over the holiday weekend, my husband and I went to Annapolis overnight for a little weekend getaway.  It's a gorgeous little town.  I took the opportunity to try out some new techniques and settings that I read about online.  I'm particularly happy with the way my fireworks pictures turned out.  Some of the colors might look off in these photos but that's just because I was messing around with settings.  But here you go, some eye candy for the day:












I shall be back later this week with Maraea's first of 52 photographs of the year.  :)