photography class

I've been taking a photography class online the past four weeks.

Its focus was on taking portraits.

Every once in a while someone will ask me to take pictures of their kids or family, and I thought this class might help me improve my skills with that so that I can do an even better job when the opportunity come up again in the future.

And, besides, I really love photography and want to learn as much as possible.

In fact, Brian will tell you that my camera is our third child :)

Anyway, these are some of the assignments that I had.

My subjects were very willing after I told them they would be paid for their work!

This first one was for a side lighting assignment.

This one was my submission for the specific age group photo.

We were to take what we had learned about photographing people of different ages and apply it.
I chose the boys' age group cause that's what I had access to and I figured that's what I photograph the most.


And this one was for a bonus creative assignment.
We were to take a portrait of someone but not of their face.

This last one was not for an assignment.

I just loved how it turned out and wanted to share it.

The last assignment was to take a group photo.

I had visions of getting a picture of Brian and the boys at a park near us, but the weather and our schedules this week just wouldn't cooperate.

I ended up submitting a photo that I had taken a few months ago with hopes of getting feedback on that one at least.

I really liked this class.

I feel like I learned a lot about taking photographs of people, and at the same time it made me realize that I knew more than I thought I did - gotta love that, too!

cheese

Oh my goodness these guys crack me up!

They were trying to do cheesy faces and poses,

but they couldn't stop laughing.

I hope that someday down the road - 

when they are teenagers or twenty-somethings or have children of their own - 

that they remember how much fun they had with each other growing up.

football fans

Who knew that flag football drew so many fans from so far away?

Love that they all take time to some and support the boys when they can!

botanical gardens

Brian recently had about a month-long vacation from work.

He is actually back to work now, but we were able to get a lot done and enjoy the time we had.

He was even able to get to Florida to see his family for a few days and catch up with some of his friends there.  

During the last week of his time off we went down to the Botanical Gardens.

I usually drag everyone down there a little earlier to enjoy the tulips or the cherry trees in the Japanese garden, but we just didn't make it this year.  We typically don't go during this time because the cherry blossoms have fallen off the trees and the tulip are pretty faded by now.  But who knew that the azaleas were blooming so fiercely?!  For some reason I never get an alert about the azaleas so I just don't think about them.  They were absolutely gorgeous!

The most fun part for me was that Brian brought a camera with him to shoot pictures too.

He was actually the original photographer in the family, but somewhere along the line (probably when the boys were born and I wanted to take pictures of them all day long) my interest in it kind of skyrocketed and I've pretty much taken over.  The camera rarely touches his hands any more,  because I'm always hogging it.

We don't do it very often, but it's fun to go on little photography jaunts with him.  He has a really good eye and it's fun to see things differently with him.  He taught me a ton about cameras and photography when I first started being interested.

Somehow, our quest for the day at the Botanical Gardens became getting an awesome blurred-motion running-water shot.  I think both of us had read how to do it and knew how to do it, but it was actually a pretty good challenge remembering everything and applying all of our knowledge.  I think you really need a tripod for a truly great shot of this, so maybe a little planning ahead next time :)

But here are a few of the images we ended up with.

Not bad for our first time I don't think!

Read Right and Run

This was the second year that the boys did Read Right Run with their school.

Last year it started storming the morning of the race so we didn't get to finish the 26 miles

at Forest Park as planned, but they did finish it at school because they have an awesome

PE teacher.

This year was the exact opposite weather.

It was absolutely beautiful.

Plenty of sunshine.

Not too hot.

Not too cold.

We were spoiled for sure.

They had such a good time.

I'm proud of them for doing all 26 books, good deeds and miles.

The good deeds were the hardest to keep up with.

Not the hardest to do - we would just forget to track them.

But they did it and are ready to do it again next year.

They even saw signs for a 5K Halloween run and were all over doing that

in October in our costumes.  Sounds fun!

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the zoo.

Along with almost every other St. Louisan I believe.

If you live here you know what it's like on those first nice Saturdays in spring and know what I'm talking about :)

Saw the new sea lion show for the first time and just walked around enjoying the day.

silhouettes

Absolutely my favorite photography project right now.

I'm on the lookout for an awesome place to do this with no weeds at our feet.

So hopefully there will be more to come.

I'm thinking the beach if we can ever get there!

4th Grade Camp

This kid was so excited to go to 4th Grade Camp a few weeks ago!  

And according to him, it was the best camp ever.  

He talked about it until he went to bed the night he got home,

and then started in again the next morning.

So much to tell us.

He was most excited about the archery sessions.

He got two bulls eyes in a row!

But he really liked every bit of it - even the food.

The best sloppy joe ever, apparently.

I'm glad he is outgoing and likes to be with his friends.

I'm sure this will be a forever memory for him.