Happy Thanksgiving!

And why am I sitting here writing on my blog when I should be stuffing the turkey? Oh well, you know how important you are to me LOL.
Well, we have used the studio a few times now and it's a load of fun! It takes some getting used to. The first time I forgot to take my ISO off auto and of course it went up to 6400 and I had a bunch of noise in my photos. Nothing that couldn't get fixed, but how can you be so stupid.... I never used auto ISO before, that's probably why I totally forgot I had it on. Hopefully that will never happen again! Do you want to see some shots?

We did these last night, just playing with light and stuff. She didn't even change her outfit and put a blanket over herself. Lots of preparations, huh?

Little Miss TG got herself into the scene the other day. She was just sitting there under the tree, perfectly content, so I just had to get that shot!

these next shots are from the day with the high ISO. I fixed them up, but I wouldn't blow them up for wall portraits, that's for sure. I had fun playing with different actions though...

I think it's time to change the background for the next set, I am getting tired of the dark..

Well, I went wild with my 365 pages, I am all caught up with October, isn't it great?

and the rest....

See that cat? She had to climb the ladder too, she is too funny! then she must have moved while I was taking the shot, because her image is kind of ghostly, transparent if you look close. 

Now if I could just get the kids to get some decent clothes on and pose them, so I can get a Christmas Card done, that would be really cool...We did a couple on that first day, but I really didn't like what I got, so we need to do a retake. You would think I was asking them to chop off their fingers for the trouble they are giving me about this... If everything else fails, the cat will be it!

It's pouring down rain out there, yuck! No outside shots today, that's for sure! My GF's son and DIL are coming in next weekend and I will get to take newborn pictures, I can't wait!!!!! I have some ideas already. I was lying in bed last night and all I could think about was how to pose the baby. Plus a couple asked me to take their engagement photos and I was going over poses in my head for those too. Oh my, I am turning into a lunatic! Can you tell I am loving this? :)

Well, gotta go, that turkey is waiting for me in the sink, hubby is on call today, he just left and I told him we would have our meal between lunch and dinner, so not to eat anything at the hospital. I got my cranberry relish done the other day, so things shouldn't be too bad. Oh yeah, I forgot, I had offered my neighbor to take something like a generation shot of her, her daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughters. That would be so cool. I just have to make sure I can fit them all in front of my white backdrop LOL. 

Okay, off to get that turkey in the oven, I hope you all will have a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends and lots of things to be thankful for!

It's done!

My room is done,  I dragged the refrigerator out of there (inch by inch) and cleaned the whole thing out while I was at it! :) Then I carried my backdrop stand and the 4 rolls I have downstairs. The lights have been moved and I think it's actually going to work. I am happy with it. Sure, it could look a little nicer, the plaster could be redone etc. but there will be a time for that too!

The carpet came with the house and I do need that on the floor since it's cement. That will be covered with the backdrop paper anyway or whatever floor I will put down. But at least I have a little more room to maneuver now. Now I just have to get the kids together and make them wear something that works together, man this is harder than getting the room done!

Yesterday we were in Altoona for Cohen's first Birthday celebration. I brought my speed light but had taken the batteries out which of course I had left at home. No light, no flash, good thing I have my Nikon D700, I was taking pictures at ISO 6400 with f 2.8 and they were actually usable. Now, I wouldn't print them out poster size but for normal pics they are quite nice. I worked at them all morning, here are a few samples

He started playing this clapping game. He would clap and we would all clap and holler in return and he got so excited and would clap again to see what our reaction would be. It was like a flashback to when Gabby was little, we did the exact same thing with her in our friend's living room. I can't believe that was something like 14 years ago!!!! Where did the time go??? Anyway, it was really cute and I am always happy to get pictures of him, he is so cute and personable.

Did I get any pages done? Let me see, I can't even remember what I do anymore LOL.

those are the shots of the girls I took the other day, I just loved the way they turned out. That's all I did, holy Moly!!!

Well, I am taking a class on fixing photos on the side and then yesterday this awesome awesome weekend course on children's photography started. I was watching it almost all day, there is so much great information. You can watch the live course for free and then they offer it at a pre-order price through tomorrow I believe. I just went ahead and bought it, there is no way I can sit there for three days and watch videos and not miss anything. This is right up my alley! Here is a link if anybody should be interested.

Today we ran up to Panera's for lunch, look at the sweetness we had afterwards :)

The bear claw was mine!!!

A short stop at Walmart and then we went to he Mall, I took Michael for a haircut, he looks adorable! Nothing like a good cut! He was happy with it too. I can't even believe how much money we can spend in one day, it's incredible. buy a shirt here, go to lunch there, get some medicine, get an icecream.....

Now we are all home, Gabby just finished her math homework with Dad's help. Good thing he know how to do Geometry, because I sure wouldn't be much help.

Now my dryer is beeping, calling me to take the stuff out before it gets wrinkled (what a great invention btw)

Well, I better follow the call of the wild, dryer and save my clothes. Have a wonderful weekend!

It's Gone!

Hurray! This morning I looked in the paper for somebody to haul stuff, found a name, called, he stopped by, looked at everything, gave me a price and came back an hour later with his brother and they hauled it all away! Wow! The pool table was taken apart and carried out and all the junk is gone. Now why did I have to wait for at least a week for my neighbor? He came by this afternoon wanting to know where all the junk was, since he was planning on taking it all out tomorrow. Sorry dude, all done! It felt good to have such prompt service. Maybe I paid a little more, but it was worth it to me to get it done! Now to clean it out a little, move a couple more things that are in there and then drag all my stuff down there, set up the lights and play! :) How fun!!! I am so excited! I hope my darling models won't tire of posing for me LOL!

Well, that was my exciting news. The weekend flew by. Hubby took us out to brunch on Sunday. We went to Harrigan's, it was awesome! They have the most amazing salads, very european tasting, I loved it! How can you not stuff yourself with that kind of food :) Of course the kids had to be silly the whole time and especially when we left. At least I got them to sit on the rail together for me to take a picture. This is the only one that's usable LOL.

and then Gabrielle thought she was Mary Poppins, slowly sliding down the banister, oh my...

I guess the full belly can make you do goofy things!

That afternoon the girls and I had to do some shopping and I snapped a couple of pictures of them. I just loved their expression

One more picture, this one was little TG, she is my second favorite subject after the kids :)

She is always so soft and cuddly!!!

Okay, let's move on to some pages. I worked on my 365 pages again, how boring, but boy, I am so behind, if I don't do a bunch of them, I'll never get caught up!

and some regular pages...

the photo in the last one was created using a Scott Kelby photoshop tutorial. Amazing how you can create water with a few strokes. I love doing stuff like that!

Well, I am going to head for the basement and swing that sweeper around, so that I can carry my gear down, finally! And then I'll get to play with lights :)

Not much progress

I spent all these hours cleaning that room out and getting everything in there, only to find out that it won't work, because it's not big enough. I mean in a crunch I could make it work, but if I want to shoot kids, it's just not workable. Once I put the lights in there with the big softbox I could hardly move :) Well, that means, we have to move into the basement where I have that pool room that nobody uses but the cats. It's actually a little wider and a lot longer. The only problem is the pool table, it's an old, heavy slate table. It's a shame, we had it moved here from Philly, but nobody ever plays pool in our house anyway. So, the room is mine and I already started cleaning the basement so that people won't fall over backwards going down the steps LOL. Amazing how much junk you can accumulate through the years... So not giving up, just switching plans. The other room is still going to be awesome for natural light shots, that's what I'll use it for. I bet I'll wind up getting another backdrop stand for downstairs so that I can keep one roll upstairs. Putting up the lights was very adventurous at first, it  takes a lot of fooling around with them... I got a few nice shots of Rachel, she is such a sweet patient model!

Of course she is way too close to the backdrop, I don't like the shadow I'm getting. Oh well, hopefully with the other room that will be easier. Enough of that!

Karate testing is over and it was actually fairly easy. Master Kim was in a great mood and complimented everybody. He did not ask for additional forms and was generally happy with everybody's performance. Of course we worked really hard, Gabby almost passed out at the end. They had to escort her to an open door to get some fresh air, the poor thing. I think we did pretty well, so now we are set for another 4 years, no testing!!!! Just certification every 6 months, but you can't fail those. We'll find out in January whether we passed or not, but I don't foresee not passing. Another hurdle out of the way!

Everything else is going it's normal routine. Gabrielle wants to join the swim team, I was hesitant at first because she is already spreading herself too thin, but it might be a good thing for her to do, plus practice is right after school... we might try it and see how it goes. It would be a good way for her to meet more kids. It's hard to juggle everything at this point. We had teacher conferences today and her math teacher told us he would be more than willing to stay after school and help her out if she needs it. How very gracious! I would like her to take advantage of that and we'll have to see how we can fit that in too. HS is certainly a lot different.....

With all this cleaning and fixing rooms up and trying to learn about lighting I don't get as many pages done. Here are the few I did

I am way behind with the 365 pages again, yikes!

I talked to my brother last week, we always have these endless conversations, it feels great to talk about all these little things forever, nobody has time to talk anymore! He actually likes my pages, made me feel good!

I subscribed to Scott Kelby's NAPP again and received a DVD he made about different shoots and how he set them up. Plus the retouching of pictures etc. It's amazing how good this guy is! I learned quite a bit about different things just from the first disc. Things you can do in LR that I didn't know. Very cool!

Well, I am not making this too long, nothing exciting has happened. I always promise myself that I won't wait another week before posting again, but time just gets away from me! :)

I'll talk to you all soon!