Getting Our Pose On!

A couple Saturdays ago, my brother's family, and J and I headed out to snap some pictures.  They needed some new family photos and I figured I should get in a couple maternity pictures.  So, I took their pictures and my sister-in-law, Lessye, took ours!

After being so used to being behind the camera, it was definitely a little weird to be in front of it.  But it was fun and I'm so glad we got to capture a piece of this journey we're on! Thanks Lessye for being our photographer!

London and Paris, Oui Oui!

A month and a half later, here's the post.  Can you blame me though?  I had hundreds of pictures to go through and it's a little tough to whittle them down to just enough so that you don't get bored out of your mind.

Anyways, my parents love traveling and have tried to maintain the tradition of our family going on a yearly, or bi-yearly trip.  Two years ago it was Spain and Portugal.  This year it was England and France, and it was a blast!

Our first stop was London.  After a long first day wandering the streets in search of our hotel, we hit the ground running the next day and took the sightseeing bus around town to check out the sights.  It was a a typical rainy day, but we got to see see everything we wanted.  We saw Big Ben, the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Harrods, and the London Bridge.  Then, on Saturday we took a day tour to Windsor Castle, Stone Henge and the town of Bath.  It was so cool to see Stone Henge, and J was super excited to check that off his list.

On Sunday we took the train to Paris.  It was so pretty getting to see the countryside.  In France, we tried to take it a little easier.  For Lessye's and my birthday, my parents sent Michael, Lessye, Jason and I dinner at the Eiffel Tower.  Not sure why the boys got to join in on our gift, but, it was an amazing evening.  We walked around the first floor of the Eiffel Tower and then ate a wonderful three-course meal with one, or two, fine, maybe three glasses of champagne.  We also go to visit the Louvre and made a trip out to the Palace of Versailles.

But, for me, I think the true highlight was the food.  In London, we found a great pub the last night we were there where we had a lot of fun and the ambiance was great.  But the French food was divine!  Everything tasted great and they have beautiful presentation.  Jason found a restaurant where we had lunch one day.  It was the number one ranked restaurant, at the time, in Paris on TripAdvisor, and it was certainly our number one meal.  We also found several other great restaurants.  And I would love to go back to Paris again, just to enjoy all their food.  We tried so many new things; tuna tartare, foie gras, duck pate, crepes, macaroons, and so much more!  I could write a whole blog post about the food!  But, I'll spare you.  So, here are some pictures instead! I seriously can't stop dreaming about their food!

Photography 101

In May, I had the opportunity to attend a basics photography class, taught by Amber with Fife Photography, with two of my dearest friends, Lessye and Payton.  And I learned a lot!  Here are just a few of the general lessons I learned.

Lesson #1: Just because you have an awesome camera doesn't mean you're an awesome photographer.
What?! You have to have skills? Lame. So, my dreams quickly got squashed.  But, seriously, it's so true! Whether you've got a point-and-shoot, or a DSLR, if you're shooting in automatic, you can get the same results.  But once you actually understand what the deal is with shutter speed, aperture, and ISO, that's where you can build your skills and become exceptional.

And I've definitely seen this mentality from other people, and even myself.  You think it's all about being creative and if you've got a great model, setting, and lighting that's all you need, but there really is more to it than that.  Knowing the basics of how to get the camera to do what you want it to do is where you can truly make anything come to life.

Lesson #2: Now you will critique everyone's pictures.
 One of the unexpected bonuses to the class was that Amber would show us how to look at pictures, see what was good and bad in them, so that we could build our knowledge of what makes a great picture.  And now having that knowledge, makes me feel like a mean, hypocritical judge.  When I look at pictures taken by people that I know have fancy cameras, I judge.  Sure, I'll be the first to admit that I may not be able to take a better picture than what they took, but how could they possibly have under-exposed their picture?!  Or why do they have such a distracting background?  And the subject's eyes aren't in focus!  *gasp*  It's awful, but ignorance was bliss.  Now every photograph is subject to my judging eyes.

Lesson #3: You have to practice, practice, practice
So, the class is done, and Payton, Lessye and I are all inspired to take moving, emotional pictures that capture the moment perfectly.  So, I try...and I fail.  And I quickly run back to my security blanket of automatic mode because at least my pictures don't turn out blurry and unfocused..  Then, I'll warily go back to manual and adjust the settings, and then I get one great picture.  So, I try again.  I mean, I can't let all that money spent on the class go to waste!  So, over time I know I'll be presented with numerous different situations where I need to adjust my settings slightly, and hopefully I'll soon know how to quickly adjust the camera settings to get the best picture, instead of having to think real hard before snapping the shot.

Now, I am, by no means, any better at taking pictures now, than I was before; in fact, I feel like I got worse, since I try to avoid automatic mode and try to apply the lessons, so recently my pictures sometimes turn out all fuzzy and dark.  But, knowing is power, right?  And I'm confident that with time, my lessons will be totally worth it.  In fact, I hope to take more classes when my schedule opens up.