Challenge Day 21: Manual Focus

Today we were pushed to capture an image using the manual focus feature on the lens.  I will admit that I try to use the manual focus as much as I can because it's hard for the auto focus to capture Eli when he is moving so quickly!  He is crawling and pulling up on everything these days, so it's getting harder and harder to catch him.  Forget about posing!  The kitties are getting easier to capture :-)

I'm lucky if I can catch him anywhere near me. :-)  He's fast!  In these photos, he's demonstrating another new trick, "look mom...one hand!"

Challenge Day 20: Multiple Perspectives

This was a fun and quick exercise.  You get your camera set and then just snap away from all angles of your subject.  Eli was having fun with his Very Hungry Caterpillar, so it was a cute one to capture.

Challenge Day 19: Silhouettes

Well, today I determined it is impossible to get a good silhouette of an 8 month old without someone else to physically slow him down.  Luckily, our kitty obliged me and stood VERY still for me to get many good snaps.   Such a good girl :-)

Instead of silhouettes for Eli, I instead tried a back lighting effect that I've seen tutorials for on Pinterest.  I love the super washed out look of sun drenched pics. To get the ideal lighting, I should have taken them later in the day, but with trying to get my little guy on a better nap and sleep schedule, we took what we could get :-)  Here are our pics for the day!

Challenge Day 18: Getting Low

This was a pretty easy one for me, since I usually take my photos of Eli from down on the ground....that's where he is, after all!  I'm typically covered in cat hair for most of the day.  :-)  Our newest kitty, Gwen, even makes an appearance in this challenge.  She loves Eli and is never too far away!

Challenge Day 17: Fill the Frame

This is another challenge that I seem to do anyways.  I'm stuck getting up close and personal with my little guy since I have a fixed lens and our house it pretty tiny (and we're stuck inside with the cold weather!)  So, I usually take pretty extreme close ups of my little one.  I'm excited for it to warm up a bit so that we can do a bit more outside.

So, for today's challenge...here are a few of my favs.  I will say, the more I'm practicing getting good shots, the less time I'm taking in photoshop on the tail end.  That it very good news for me since my nap time/free time is pretty limited these days!

Challenge Day 16: Stopping Motion

I feel like every photo shoot with my (now mobile) 7 month old involves stopping motion.  As soon as I sit him down, he's off and crawling towards me, ready to eat the camera strap.  He's a man on fire these days!!

We were able to catch a couple of funny ones today.  I think the motto of the moment is "if I see it, I taste it."

Challenge Day 15: Dramatic Light

This one kind of speaks for itself and was another tough one for me.  It's hard to get dramatic light in my house and to keep my squirmy little man in it!  :-)  Here are my pics for today's challenge.

Challenge Day 14: Leading Lines

For some reason, leading lines really stump me.  I totally get the purpose and love how it looks, but for some reason, getting them in my photos and having them look great is a problem for me.  A squirmy 7 month old is also an added challenge :-)

After what felt like a billion shots, I finally was able to get a few that look OK and actually feature leading lines.  This is something I am excited about improving in the future, and possibly when I have a subject who will actually sit in one place!  :-)

  

Challenge Day 13: Framing

I didn't get as creative with framing this photo session as I had hoped, but instead just used the randomness of my backyard.  We got home from our ski trip just in time for the sun to start setting so I grabbed the camera and propped up E outside.  He was such a great trooper after 5 hours in the car!  I think he was just as excited to get outside and stretch as I was.

Here are our pics for the day (after a few days off!)

Deployment Milestone

If you can ignore the hideous mustache (they always grow one when they deploy!) Here is my husband reaching a huge milestone during this deployment.

So proud of him and counting down until he is finally home (and the mustache is gone!!!)  LOL!!!

Click HERE or image for the video

Challenge Day 12: Partial Shade

Today as part of our challenge, we finally ventured outside!!  It was a beautiful sunnny morning on my back porch, even if the ground was covered in frost.  Brrrr!!  We're not used to that in North Carolina.

Luckily we were able to bundle up Eli and he really does love a bit of chill in the air.  The sun was so lovely and now I can see why people love to shoot outside.  :-)  Here are a few pics from our venture into partial shade shooting!

Challenge Day 11: Clear the Clutter

I'm usually pretty good about removing excess "junk" from my frame, but this one just made me laugh.  I wanted to line up the cute "baby booty" with stuffed animal booty shots, and our furry baby decided SHE was the star of this shot :-)

Was finally able to sneak Eli in as well.  I usually don't post bare bottom pics, but I think this one is pretty tame....more "plumber crack" than "full moon"  :-)

Challenge Day 10: Reading a Histogram

This challenge was to focus on exposure and to keep your histogram  values near the middle.  I am partial to an overexposed baby photo, so mine will always veer to the right of the histogram, but I managed to keep from blowing out anything other than the back light (window) which I wanted to glow :-)

My little bug was in a very happy mood so have a lot of great smiley pics today!  Only had a couple of minutes to edit, so these are my challenge pics for the day!

Challenge Day 9: Custom White Balance

With winter in full swing and many rainy days in front and behind us, it's been really fun learning how to use my custom white balance feature on my camera. I HATE getting a weird color cast in my photos, especially when I'm making cards.  I'll spend hours making sure every paper and detail coordinates, only to have a blue, green or yellow hue ruin it all in the photo.  Super frustrating.

So, learning to use a gray card and set my custom white balance has been amazing.  It's SO much easier than I thought it would be, and only takes 30 seconds at most.  Amazing :-)

I struggled to find pics today that I really liked, so instead decided to focus only on ones where my little man is making a funny face.  He's so expressive, it's kind of fun to catch him at his silliest :-)  He has the blessing (or curse) of his mama's "rubber face".  We're one step away from being Jim Carrey.

  

Challenge Day 8: Limb Chop

This was a really interesting challenge.  Looking back at many of my photos, I realized that I was guilty of this "no-no" many times over.  Apparently, you shouldn't cut your subject off at their joints, e.g.-ankles, wrists, knees, elbows, etc.

For this shoot, I tried to capture the whole kiddo.  We had some adventure near the end when one of our kitties, Gwen, decided it was the perfect time to play hide and seek in the quilt.  She is the sweetest cat, and really does love Eli.  She's never far away from him and they play all the time.  It's funny to watch them together because they are exactly the same age :-)  Love them both!

 

Challenge Day 6: Focus on the Eyes

My little man has HUGE dark eyes and long eyelashes (yes, I'm jealous!) so I love to get some good close ups on his big browns.  I also love how they crinkle up when he's in the midst of a big laugh, which is blissfully often!

He let me get some sleep last night, so we're all on a little bit of cloud 9.  :-)

Day 6, complete!  Tomorrow, focus on "limb chopping", or technically, avoiding it!