Franklin Family 4 x 12 Project: You get what you get and you don't throw a fit

I've been so busy with my Project 52, that I have had to make a serious effort to fit in the most important project of all, my Franklin Family 4 x 12. The weather here is rainy, typical for February, so getting a family photo has proved very challenging. I've taken the family out to get a few photos, without much success. Hence the title of this post,

"You get what you get and you don't throw a fit"

Nate thinks all photographers should permanently brandish this into their brains. He gets impatient with me and the camera if we are out and about and I am trying to get "just the right shot". With two active kids, often my "time is up", and I am learning to take what you can get. Even if it is noisy, out of focus, no one is really looking the right way, I need to learn to accept that some photos may have to be this way if I want a photo at all.


Here is us. Just us. Being together. Nate and I. Our kids. Coffee. Muffins. Us.


February 2011

Fifty-two on Fridays: Love

Welcome back to my Project 52, or Fifty-two on Friday's.  I hope you've had a chance to catch up on my previous posts covering the themes Motion, Signs, Warmth, Shades of Red and Self Portrait.  I am so fortunate to share this journey with 17 other talented photographers, so don't forget to link to the next photographer at the end of my post to see their interpretation of this weeks theme.


This week, Valentine's Day fell on Monday and naturally our group theme was LOVE.  Valentine's day is a special day for my husband and I because before we were married it was our dating anniversary.  Over the years Valentine's Day has changed for us, but one constant is the very simple and basic love we share.  Life is complicated but I find my retreat in the simplicity of our love!


Here is a stolen moment of our love.  Shockingly, we don't have one of the kids running through the frame! Amazing!

Now grab your coffee, tea, mocha or latte and head on over to the incredibly talent Seattle Child and Family photographer, Sarah Bunch!

A Before and After: Strictly a Lightroom 3 edit

I have never done a Before and After post, so I thought I would give it a try.  I was a good girl this Christmas and was given Lightroom 3 as a surprise.  I totally wasn't expecting it!  Thank you to my husband! It has taken me about a month to get it out of the box and get set up.  This was no small feat, since on top of getting Lightroom, I also went ahead and bought myself an external storage drive.  I took some time to figure out the best way to configure my system, and let me tell you the posts over at The Lightroom Lab are AMAZING! Their posts provided the step by step procedure so that I got it set up with my external hard drive the right way, the first time.  So so happy!


On to the before and after.  I was also given for Christmas a wonderful book by David duChemin (thank you Andrea!) that has really changed the way I approach my post processing.  I give this book a healthy 5-star rating!!! No longer am I looking to actions to make my photo look the way I want it to.  I have nothing against actions, I just think for me they have slowed the process of finding my style and how to express it in my finished photos.  

This before and after is really to illustrate a simple clean edit performed solely in Lightroom 3.   What I mean by clean edit, is that I adjusted the WB, exposure, blacks, fill, brightness, contrast, clarity, and used a medium tone curve. And a bit of luminance noise reduction, which is super impressive in LR3, followed by a more pleasing crop.  Hope you like.

Fifty-two on Fridays: Motion

Welcome back to Fifty-two on Friday's or my Project 52 journey that I am sharing with 17 other photographers around the world. Grab a cup of coffee and catch up on our previous themes like Signs, Warmth, Shades of Red, and Self-Portrait. And don't forget, that at the bottom of my post you can link to the next photographer in our blog-circle and her interpretation of the theme.


This week the theme is Motion. In our house, we have a saying, "Big muscles, require big movements". I knew that I wanted to catch my big mover in motion. So on a really nice evening this past week, we took the kids for a walk after dinner, which for Noah always turns into a run. I got my camera ready and gripped it to my hip as I chased him up the hill, shooting, while both of us used our big muscles.


I adore this photo because it reminds me of a Nike poster that hung above my bed all through high school and college which read,

"There are clubs that you can't belong to.
Neighborhoods you can't live in.
Schools you can't get into.
But the roads are always open.
Just do it."

These words were above a picture of a lone runner on a country road.

Our bodies in motion inspires me, because of the amazing motions that we ask it to do each day.

No go on over and check out the amazing work by Sarah Bunch, Seattle Washington, Family and Child Photographer.

Sometimes a nap is what you need

I would love to take a nap every day. Some people in my house don't share my opinion.  




I know it is probably mean that I was taking pictures while she threw a fit, but I'd tried everything else at this point. She eventually got herself to sleep though...thank goodness.  


PS this is super grainy b/c it's at the ISO setting labeled, "way to high lady"!

Fifty-two on Fridays: Signs

Welcome back to my Project 52, or Fifty-two on Fridays.


The Project 52 is a creative photography endeavor by 18 different photograhers worldwide participating in a blog-circle. In this project we all work from the same theme each week, putting our own creative spin and vision into the project. Remember at the bottom of my post is the link to the next wonderful photographer and her take on each week's theme. Please check out our previous posts, to catch up on the creative sharing for the month of January. Blog love, is loved!


It's the first week of February, and our blog-circle theme is, Signs. I knew immediately what I wanted to photograph, and the more I thought about it...it quickly became my back up option (see my outtake, I'll explain later).
When I was thinking about Signs, I was thinking about how a single sign or symbol can represent an entire brand, a thought, a perception, and how incredibly pervasive a sign may become. Take for example, McDonalds golden arches, Starbucks siren, or Apple's, Apple. All of these are signs that alone without words or print, point us in one single direction, and an associated identity.


My interpretation of the theme, Signs, is Peace. Peace the word, when spoken in different languages, for obvious reasons sounds different. Peace by definition or in print, may also mean different things to different people. But the sign for peace, is clearly understood around the world, and understood without the utterance of words or print.


My interpretation of Signs



Now for my outtake.  When I thought of photographing signs, I immediately thought about photographing a tile designed into the words SHALOM.  This tile sign sit's at the base of a set of stairs that I climb every morning with the children in front of their preschool.  It is the staircase to the place where I leave my children to be cared for while I am at work.  I have wanted to photograph this sign for many years now, and this project gave me the push to do it.


Shalom is a hebrew word meaning PEACE.


Now, please go check out the amazing photographer Shauna, at  Simply Shauna Photography.