No. 2

You may recognize this familiar face, as I have photographed him a few times. He just turned 2 and it was a lot of fun to document this milestone. Can't get enough of those curly locks!!

{His big brown eyes are like melted chocolate! So sweet--}

{J. feeding the goats at the farm}

{I love this one- and the great bokeh from the new lens adds that lovely background blur!}

{Big brother is there to help extinguish the flame on candle no. 2}

{Happy Birthday big guy- thanks for allowing me to tag along on your bday no. 2!}

This is a Lens

Busy week. Two birthdays- neither of them mine. UPS delivery. Big box. New lens. I promise to share it with DH as there is enough glass here for the two of us. Heart flutters. Shutter clicks. Bliss. Meet the newest addition to our Canon collection:

{add this baby to my camera, and the whole outfit weighs as much as a small child! I tell you, I'm going to get some major biceps toting this thing around! It is one of those lens with "zebra stripes" that mounts directly on the tripod rather than your camera on the tripod.}

And of course I did break it out of the box (within seconds of it being delivered!) and here are a few test shots:

{flowering pear 1/1250 sec at f/3.2, 200mm, 100 ISO}

{For some fun in the garage: try an impomptu photo session with the garage with the door open and your subject angled towards your new lovely light source. You'll notice a flattering source of indirect light, and a nice reflection in the eyes!}

{Birthday mail from a beloved Uncle M & Aunt D--you made her day! Notice the new rollerblades-- evidence of a recent birthday. More about this in the next post. I promise!}

{My darling A. in the kitchen. This lens works great indoors if you have enough room to move back and/or a full framed sensor. I love the bokeh (background blur) it produces! Now I'll never have to clean up my house before taking photos!! Hah! It handles low light especially well.}

Get the Snorter

So my 5D was showing a bit of dust and I read up on how to clean the image sensor. It is a bit intimidating to attempt cleaning it, as my camera manual lists about 3-DO's and 10 DONT DO's for this procedure. I heard of people using those little snot-suction things (intended for infants' noses) to blow air on the image sensor as part of the cleaning. A $2 snorter sounded like a much better deal than a $25 kit. So, I bought a NEW snorter and proceeded to clean the image sensor inside my camera. The fam knows that THIS snorter is not to be used for noses--READ: FOR THE CAMERA ONLY.
A few minutes ago A. picked up the camera snorter and offered it to me kindly, saying, "Look . . . can you snort YOUR nose?" Aaacck! Do I need a snorter of my own? Hope not! Hope I never do! It just made for a good laugh.

{Silly girl.}

Tulip Festival at 19 Percent

So about the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point . . .

For the last few weeks I've been daydreaming of the arrival of the beautiful tulips, flittering butterflies and the sweet smell of lilacs on the breeze. Truth is, springtime around here has been a slow poke. One day it is 80 degrees, the next day 40 and snowing. Yikes! For good reason, the tulips have been delayed-- and I am no horticulturist, but I understand that it just isn't prime tulip season. We only have one tulip bulb in our yard and it just bloomed. It was a tulip left over from the previous owners about 4 years ago. (Go figure?) Lacking in tulips, we rely upon the Gardens at Thanksgiving Point to fill that need.

So we waited all of last week to allow a little more time for the tulips to wake up. Friday was gorgeous weather and we could wait no longer. The receptionist at the gardens said the tulips were at about 19 percent. I figured that 19% of 250,000 bulbs still adds up to quite a lot. So we went.

There weren't a whole lotta tulips YET. If you can imagine, there will be tulips by the bushel in a week or so. I did manage to get some fun shots nonetheless, and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. My mother was in town and helped to keep the kidlets in one place, allowing me to shoot away.

{My little photographer's assistant: capturing her own piece of the tulip mania}

{Each one facing a different direction. Counting me, we've got the north-south-east-west covered! This is what I call "lack of posing" or "not willing to hold still."}

{Thanks Mom for this shot of my handsome little guy and my wind-swept hair. I love M's expression here!}

{My cutie pies at the fountain inside the secret garden. A. made a wish and plopped a coin into the water. S. did too- though her coin toss was too fast for me to capture! She asked me today with a tone of dissappointment, "Why didn't my wish come true?" I urged her to be patient, as some wishes take a long time.}

{Welcome to the secret garden . . . I can't show you everything inside, as it wouldn't be a secret! I can say that I dream of having one of my own some day!}

{Mmmmm. Springtime.}

{M. crawling down the steep grassy hillside. Most kids rolled sideways, he just met it head on. Atta boy!}

{Grandma won M. over on this trip . . . he's known for being quite the Mama's boy, so it was a nice break for me!}

{Sweet girl- love this one!}

If Only I Were a Child . . .

. . . I would run right through the door of this castle and live happily ever after. However, if I were a child I probably wouldn't have been hired to design and paint this castle in the first place. Nevermind.

I have painted murals for about a decade now. This is my "other" job, that somehow intertwines with my photography. I do play favorites at times, and I would say that my photography is a growing business and my mural art is an established business. I think I'm just happy that the two can be coexist peacefully!

So here is the castle of all castles-- I have painted many a few of them. This one was for a wonderful client- I've done many, many projects for them and I couldn't resist getting my hands a bit green for this. I just finished it this past week. I drew up a design when the house was being framed and then the finish carpenters built it "just so." Slapped (or fervently brushed) some paint on it and it came to life.

{note the mini-dragon on the coat of arms}

{My motto is: "paint the world as you'd like it to be." For me- green grass and blossoms on trees are just right. Where we live in Utah it is just becoming green- it has been a long awaited spring!}

{opposite side of this large bonus room: this cozy corner and built-in shelves + tv cabinet}

{BEWARE THE CAVE}

{We all know that inside every cave lives a . . . }

{Practically my favorite part of the whole thing- the family's newest pet!}

New to the World

A big congratulations to the beautiful G family on the arrival of their handsome baby boy! There is just something so amazing about photographing new arrivals! I had to post this first picture that just mesmerizes me! Enjoy the sneak peak of your session!

{Grandpa joined them for this one, as well as the two family doggies.}

{Newborns this age--2 weeks--usually sleep right through the session. Not this guy! He was awake up until the very end. Check out his beautiful eyes!}

{Beautiful mama and her handsome boys . . . she's just radiant!}

{One of my favorites from the session! Snuggly baby, beautiful light!}