I told you I'd have to get the nerve. After considering it, I decided not to edit out my imperfections, so here I am in all my not so pretty glory.
It's not the exact shot I was going for, but I like how it came out anyway.
I decided to try 365 again, and made Thursday day number one.
We finally made it to see the new polar bear exhibit on Friday, and I got a couple of great shots of the girls. This is one of my favorites because you can see the fine detail of the fur and the rock she's laying on. I did some post processing on this because I really wanted the bear to stand out, and the sunlight was pretty inconsistent throughout. I have an idea for today's shot, if I can get the nerve to take (and post) it. We shall see. I'll need to find my tripod for it though. My children apparently believe it's a toy and it seems to have disappeared.
I think I might give 365 another shot. I'm in a better place now than I was when I started it the first time, and I'm having a great time pulling the camera out most days. The summer months are a little more encouraging for daily shooting than winter. This might be photo 001/365 if I decide to start again. I have some great shots from the zoo today that I want to post as well. We shall see.
This is an older picture. I was looking for the original, then realized that it was probably on the laptop we bought that crashed within a week of purchase. Fortunately, this evening I found my external hard drive and, low and behold, there were pictures of last years vacation, as well as my sons first birthday, nieces second birthday, and daughters third birthday. I have never been so relieved.
This is one of my favorite shots from that vacation. I have several, but something about my one year old son watching the sunset, the colors, the atmosphere... I just love this. There are others on my Flickr if you want to check them out.
I bought a cord to get my flash off camera so I could get a little more creative with my lighting. What a waste of $30. The cord is so tightly wound that I can't get the flash more than six inches from my camera and if I try to face the flash away from me, the tension in the cord pulls the flash back around and faces it directly towards my subject. I was so excited to play with different lighting, and now I'm just pissed because I wasted the money and I'm back where I started from.
This is one of the roses my sweet baby insisted on buying me for Mother's Day. They've pretty much had it, but before I tossed them, I wanted to take pictures of the pretty wilted flower. This was one picture that I actually managed to get the flash facing away from the flower, and bounced it off of a piece of white foam board. I like the resulting lighting.
We visited with my parents this weekend. It's very seldom that things align so that we get to spend time at bothof their houses. I cooked my mom an amazing steak on the grill, along with baked potatoes, kabobs (assembled by my youngest sister), hamburgers, and hot dogs. My other sister brought Birthday cake for my niece, who turned two last week. My brother and his kids were there too. Only my youngest brother was missing; but overall it was a good Mothers Day celebration.
Today we went to my dads and the kids got outside to play. It was a bit chilly, but we got to enjoy the sunshine for a little bit. My son definitely loves football.
My husband has asked that I remove some of the pictures of our kids from the internet, so I deleted them from Flickr and Facebook. It makes me angry that we live in a world where I can't post some of the cuter pictures of my kids on my Flickr account or blog because somebody with less than pure intentions might see it.
My daughter wanted to get me pink flowers in a pink vase for Mothers Day. We went out Friday night to look for my gift and I had suggested that we get live potted flowers instead of cut flowers so we could plant them in our flower bed instead of having dead flowers in a few days. We went to a nursery and looked at every flower they had and my princess didn't like any of them. I personally liked the orchids and rose bushes. But no, princess didn't like any of them.
We went to Wal-Mart to get stuff so I could cook my mom dinner for Mothers Day, and wouldn't you know that she decided the pink rose bouquet that she saw right inside the door.
I took some pictures last night using my lensbaby and bouncing the flash off the ceiling and the wall, and this morning using natural light. I love the dreamy feel of this image created by the lensbaby.
I love Flickr. I do. I like being able to share my photos, I like being able to view other peoples photos. I like seeing how people do the things they do with their cameras and learning about how to do new things with my camera. It's awesome. It's a great learning tool and a great way to see great photographers.
And then there is the darker side of Flickr.
Now, I'm just speculating here, but, I used to not put pictures of my kids on here, at least not publicly. I was afraid of pedophiles looking at their pictures and doing unsavory things, but I started to get over it, especially because there are SO many kids pictures on Flickr.
During this past week, I have added pictures of my kids out playing because I was playing with my lensbaby and they're fun to take pictures of. No big deal, right?
And then I looked at my stats, and where my hits are coming from.
"wet pants"
"wet boys"
"wet"
Really?
Wet pants was not even part of my tags, just happened to fall in the descriptions of the pictures, and it's taking these people to a picture of my son running around in a diaper.
I'm disturbed, really.
And it makes me feel a little sick to my stomach. I removed the words wet and pants from the caption of my photo. But who knows who has already seen it.
And then there are people that add me as a contact, with no pictures and no other contacts. Why? Are they really a pedophile that just wants to be able to easily access my kids pictures? Where do you draw the line? Do I just stop putting pictures of my kids on Flickr?
Sometimes, I'm really just disgusted by the world we live in. And I'm mad at myself for exposing my kids to that without even thinking.
I bought a Lensbaby Muse this weekend and I've been playing with it for the past few days. It's going to take a lot of getting used to and playing with, I think. Today was the first that I took it outside and took any action shots with it. They're still not coming out with any consistancy. I have to remind myself that it's only day three and I can't expect myself to be amazing with it. I'm not even consistently good with my regular lenses. I also bought a cord to get my Speedlite off camera, so maybe I'll get to have a little fun with that too.
