New, and Random, Content Forthcoming!

So I just don't take and process enough pictures to devote an entire blog to my (verrryy slllooowwwllly) developing photography career!  So I'm am going to blog about whatever I feel like in between shoots.


And today I feel like talking about school!  We are homeschooling our kiddos and this year I have both of them doing school.  Last year I worked just with Mikaia on preschool while Caleb was napping and I was a tinge worried about beginning this year with both of them.  But it has been really great and so much easier than I anticipated! 

Mikaia is essentially doing her kindergarten year this year, although according to public school she'd really be pre-K.  She is working through Sonlight's P4/5 curriculum (their version of pre-K).  This encompasses read aloud books, social studies, science, and Bible.  It is not what I expected for a pre-K student in that (most of-but not all) the books are more challenging than I would have expected for a 4 year old.  For example, we are reading through an Uncle Wiggily book that has very few pictures and the language is a little old-fashioned (it refers to him as the bunny gentleman and his home is referred to as his bungalow, ect.).  However, she actually likes the stories.  I've really been pleased thus far with this curriculum.  She also does Horizons Math Kindergarten.  We began this over the summer.  I was worried that this might be too much for her and pretty well intended to work through it until it just got to be too over her head.  But we are now working on simple addition and understanding place value for the tens and ones and she still gets it.  So we will just keep plugging away.   Now I do incorporate lots of review and extra activities to reinforce what she is working on and we go pretty slow through the workbook.  We do about 1/2 a lesson a day and that seems to be just right for her.  We also work on reading and printing skills everyday.  I had to go through 3 phonics programs before I found one that really suited her.  I knew she was ready to learn to read, but for some reason the first two programs I tried just bombed with her!  She was either bored or just not willing to try.  But when I found the one we are going through now-it just clicked!  It has been really wonderful and she is catching on SOOO much better than she was earlier!  Her printing comes very easy to her.  One thing that has been interesting to me is that the better she gets with her printing, the better she has been getting with her art and artistic creativity.  She is very artsy and it seems that practicing writing skills really unlocked the door to her art endeavors.  

I had to create my own curriculum with Caleb.  I want him to recognize his letters and the corresponding phonics, recognize numbers 1-20, and also recognize various shapes and colors.  My goal in putting together an actual curriculum was to help me know where I was going with him and not leave anything out.  (For instance, I really wish I had worked with Mikaia on recognizing/memorizing her numbers through 20.  I stopped at 10 with her and it would have helped her in math now if she just automatically knew her numbers all the way to 20.)  So I pulled from 4-5 different websites and various curriculum I already had and laid out a weekly agenda for Caleb.  I only completed up through M because it was A LOT of work and I wanted to test drive it before finishing.  We are in week 3 and it seems to be really good!  It is not too hard nor too easy for him and seems to have a good balance of songs, books, crafts, and physical activities.   So I am really, really proud of it!  And hope to finish the rest before Noah comes along!  :)!

We do school right after breakfast Monday through Friday.  I usually begin with Caleb's school (although Mikaia always wants to do school with him) and then we do the first part of Mikaia's school.  Caleb is very good at playing on his own and usually plays happily while I am working with Mikaia for about an hour.  Then, Mikaia and I finish her school while Caleb is napping (about 30-45 more minutes of work).  Both kids really seem to love it.  Mikaia has often commented about how much she likes school and how she wishes we could do more of it (ie she wants to do school on the weekends and she doesn't like taking time off for holidays).  When I announce it's time for school in the mornings, both kids go running to the school room to start!  That has been fun to see!  (And I am just waiting for that to end!  ;)!) 

Sorry about the picture-less post this time.  I intend on taking pics of them working on school soon! 

Cousins

I went to Dallas last week and my mom wanted me to take some pictures of all her grand kids.  The kiddos were great-everyone smiled and looked at me--for the most part!  :)!  I forgot that my niece was wearing her glasses in all the shots and had to learn how to correct glasses glare via Photoshop.  That was a bit tough and every tutorial I looked up to learn how to accomplish this pretty much said, "Get it right when you shoot, ya schumck, and then you don't have to do this complicated correction!"  Noted!!  I just didn't even give her glasses a passing thought because she is always wearing them and I forget that they are even on her face.  Can we blame this on pregnancy brain?  Pretty please?  :)!  Anyway,  I had one shot where most everyone was looking good and that had no glare.  Then, I had two others where I tried my hand at glare correction.  I think they turned out decent enough.  So here they are!

This first one is the one where I didn't correct any glare.

Here is a before and after shot of glare correction.

Here is the second before and after shot with glare correction.

One note:  For some odd reason that is currently beyond me, some pictures I post are significantly lighter here than they are on my computer.  So the lighting is beautiful on my computer and then I post it and it looks overexposed.  I need to fix that problem somehow, but I don't have much time these days!  Anyway, forgive the supposed overexposure and know that it's really great looking on my computer...not that that helps you guys!  :)!

Hello again!

Well, I haven't posted in awhile because my first trimester of pregnancy with number three left me pretty tired and then I started back up with Mikaia's school and ran out of time to edit anything. 

SO, here is some pictures that I took back in April when we went to Galveston beach.  I loved them more than I thought I would!  Hope you enjoy!

Self portrait

So, time for a little self indulgence!  I wanted a new picture for my blog because the previous one was just a random snapshot and I didn't love it.  Plus, I wanted to show off my new, fun, red hair!  :)!  So I set up the camera and the scene and had my husband click away!  I was pretty pleased with how they came out.  I had so much fun editing these and since they are mine, I could make them as funky as I wanted!  So here are a few.  I like the edits on numbers 1 & 3 the best.  I need to write what I do down, so I can copy it for other pics later!  :)!

Under Construction

I was fidgeting with my blog design because I'm not a pink person really and Mikaia came in and interrupted me.  I was working on it in the early morning and ran out of time.  So it'll be under construction for a day or two.  Please excuse the mess!  :)!

Presenting Miss Ella

I was fortunate enough to be able to practice taking newborn shots on my new niece, Ella.  It was a lot of fun to shoot her and I learned A TON!!!  Here are a few of my favorites:

I love her big yawn!  This one was at the beginning of the shoot and I was already wearing her out!  :)!

 

I love this one, but it was SO much work!  I darkened the background and then blurred it out.  But I had to paint the chandelier (and Ella and the table, but that was easy) in detail to not apply those particular changes to them.  Anyway, it took a long time!  But I think it turned out well!

I love these sweet feet pics!

  

And here are precious hands...

And last are a couple of family pictures.  These were a lot of work as well.  I don't own a reflector yet to balance out light, so the left side of Mark's face was really dark and the other side was really bright.  So, I had to try and balance out the light on his face and make it look natural.  I ran the Super, Happy, Fun action (from the Totally Rad action mix) over these and love the ethereal glow it gives them.  I used that same action on the first two as well.

Leave me some comments if you are taking a peek!  I love feedback!

In anticipation of spring...

It has been much colder this winter in Houston than it was last year!  I am chomping at the bit for spring to arrive!  So, in anticipation of spring (and because I've been needing to edit these pictures for a year now so I can put them into a photo book!), I am posting last year's bluebonnet pictures of my kiddos!  Without further ado, here they are (drum roll, please):

I was all over the map in how I choose to edit these.

These I just brought up the curves a bit and saturated the color. 

With this next group, I experimented with a feature called "hard light".  I think I like what it did for this group a little better than the first ones.  They seem to pop a bit more! 

Here is the same picture (one of my very favorites) edited in 3 different ways.

This one is done with a curves adjustment and saturation adjustment.  Oh, and I added some bluebonnets!  :)!

 

This one I cropped according to the rule of thirds and I applied a hard light blend to it.  The hard light is too harsh for this particular picture, although I did like what it did for the others.

Here is the last one.  I cropped it correctly, adjusted the curves and the saturation levels, and added some more bluebonnets. I think this is my favorite of the three.

Detail Work

A friend recently asked me to photograph some jewelry that her mom is trying to sell online.  It was a great chance to get to practice some creative detail work that I had never done before.  I had a lot of fun with it.  I will go back and shoot the pieces against some black velvet, but I wanted a chance to see what creative shots I could get as well!  Here are the results from that session:

Vaughan Family Picture

So over Thanksgiving, we took a family picture for my side of the family.  It was taken with a point and shoot camera and my son was crying a lot during the whole session and it was shot in the middle of the day.  But I used it as a chance to practice more Photoshop.  I've always wanted to know how to do a black and white pic with a pop of red and now I know.  It's surprisingly easy!  :)!  Anyway, here are the shots:

Caleb's 1 year old pictures

So now that I am understanding Photoshop better, I am going back and editing some pictures I took a long time ago.  These are from Caleb's 1 year old photo shoot.  I loved some of the images, but the lighting and the background against his skin just didn't come out right.  These were taken with my point and shoot camera, so I had little control over what I was doing.  I made them a little dark because I wanted him contrasted with the background better and I wanted them to have a more edgy, urban feel.  I think the second one is my favorite. 

Here are a few more just for grins.  I just touched these up a smidgen in iPhoto.

Mikaia's 4 year old photo shoot

I took Mikaia out to Market Street for her 4 year old photo shoot after we got home from the holidays.  Market Street has put up these really cute birch tree statues with red birds.  I really wanted to get pictures of both kids for a Christmas shot this year, but I just didn't have it together enough to get that done.  So I used them for Mikaia's photo shoot instead.

It was pretty cold the morning we went out, so I had to work pretty fast.  (I had her take her coat off while I was shooting and then had her put it right back on in between sessions.  She was such a trooper and didn't complain at all!)  I really wanted to do some shots with a blurry background and was pleased with the ones I got!

I learned a lot more in Photoshop during the editing stage of these pictures too!  Mikaia was pretty pale from the cold and I learned how to add color to her lips and tongue without making her red all over.  I really liked how she turned out once I did that.  I also learned how to darken the background and keep Mikaia nice and light, which helped the pictures where she was standing in front of the store front.  Once I learn how to use all the settings on my camera, I won't have to Photoshop so much.  It is nice to learn and practice all this cool stuff though!

Here are the before and after shots of this session: