pics of the kids

I decided it was high time I update this thing. Due to working and our crazy schedule I haven't been able to get out and shoot as much as I'd like. But I was able to get some pics of our girls. I still haven't managed to get the two of them together. Ainslee runs away before I can set the shot up.....but for now these will do.

Pictures from Mt. Graham

While on a weekend camping trip with the family up at Mt. Graham, I was able to break away from the girls for a while to take some pictures of the beautiful scenery! I've missed the mountains so much, and loved being able to photograph them. Hope you enjoy!

Fallen Tree
View of the Valley
Another view of the valley

Heliograph Peak
Lone Aspen
Beautiful wildflowers
Closeup of wildflowers
A view of the peak of the mountain

Well I've reached the end of my course. I have to say I'm a little sad, but I do feel that my pictures have improved over the course of this class. This assignment was by far, the most challenging assignment. It was also my favorite, because not only did it challenge me, but I was forced to learn a little more about Photoshop. I took a series of 4 pictures, use photomerge in Adobe Photoshop Elements to merge them together, and then had to tweek each picture so that they flowed nice and evenly. The file was way big....and in order to condense it down to fit on my blog, it ended up being pretty pixeled...but I loved how it ended up. This pic will give you a idea of what the final product ended up as. It is a lot smaller, and harder to view, but hopefully you get the jist. Double click on the pic and you can see it enlarged. It will be pretty pixelated, but at least you can see it a lot bigger.

Assignment 7, Composition

This assignment taught us all about the rule of thirds when shooting. My tendency before when taking a pic, was to place my main subject in the middle of the frame...thus making them the middle of the pic. What I learned in this assignment is to use the rule of thirds. Imagine there is a grid on your frame (like tic-tac-toe). Where the 4 lines meet (top 1/3 corner right and left, bottom 1/3 corner right and left) is where you want to place your main subject. It is more pleasing to the eye this way, as you will see in my photos. However, when doing portraits, of course you want your subject centered.....so you want to place your subjects eyes in the top third center of the frame. Also, most people have the tendency to shoot in horizontal position...but sometimes flipping the camera to the side and taking the pic in vertical position can bring a whole new perspective to your photo. I really loved taking these pics! I hope you enjoy. I'm including the 2 I submitted....and of course, you know I have some others that didn't make it in.

Flag Before

Flag After

Using the Rule of Thirds, I reframed the flag in the upper left corner and flipped the camera to vertical. That way I got more of the landscape behind.

Tractor Before

Tractor After

Reframed the tractor in the lower right third of the frame. I really liked this shot, it reminds me a lot of Utah....especially West Weber!

City Hall Annex Before

Although this is a beautiful shot of the building, I wanted to focus more on the water fountain.

Water Fountain at City Hall Annex. I flipped the camera on the vertical and came in closer for the shot of the fountain. This way you are also able to see the beautiful sculptures on the facia.

Above: Tractor Before

Below: Tractor After

I really love how the field pops in these pics. Another reminiscent shot of West Weber. I thought the dust plume behind the tractor was pretty cool!

More Pics from our trip up to Frye Mesa Dam

On our trip up to Frye Mesa Dam, I went a little camera crazy and took over 100 pics. Here are a few of my favorites!

Overlooking the spillway at the Dam

Waterfall that fills Frye Mesa Dam

Reflection of the sky in the reservoir. If you look closely you can see the ripples from where the fish were jumping. This place is a fishermans dream! Just ask my brother!

Family pic from the top of the Mesa. This overlooks Pima to the left, Thatcher in the center, and Safford to the right. I used the timer on my camera to shoot this pic, and it was quite interesting to get the picture set, push the button, and scramble my way up on the boulder to get into the pic before the camera went off....I was also trying to get the girls to smile at the camera and not look at me, thus, the open mouth expression.

Looking back at the road up to Frye Mesa. We were only about 1/2 way up at this point.

The long road up to Frye Mesa. I loved the simplicity of this shot. This was the beginning of the road before we hit the twists and turns.

Another pic of the spillway up at Frye Mesa. Jared was holding onto the back of my pants to keep me from falling off the cliff edge. But, I'd say the pic was worth it!

Assignment 6 - White Balance

For this assignment, we had to use White Balance to determine the "temperature" of our final picture. White Balance serves almost the same purpose in digital SLRS as filters do in film cameras. We had to submit 2 sets of pictures with different white balances applied to the photograph. I had a difficult time choosing which pics to submit...I had so many favorites, so I will post the before and after of the 2 I decided to submit, and the afters of all the rest that I didn't submit, but really liked.

Lizard Before: Shot with Daylight WB Lizard After: Cloudy White Balance

I wanted the colors to POP a little more and

also wanted to show the contrast of the lizard and the rocks a little better. By changing the white balance to cloudy, I was able to warm the final picture up a little more.

Jay and Ainslee at Mesa Dam Before: Daylight White Balance

Jay and Ainslee at Mesa Dam After: Cloudy White Balance

Again, I wanted to show the warm colors of the mountainside, by changing the wb to cloudy I was able to do that.

The following pics are the ones I also considered submitting for this assignment, but didn't. All pics I submitted were taken during our day trip to Mesa Dam....a beautiful dam up on top of a Mesa in the middle of nowhere! We took the girls up, went for a short hike, and I of course got a ton of pictures! In fact, I may submit more miscellaneous just from that trip, I took over 100 pics while we were up there! Isn't digital film wonderful!

Assignment 5, Exposure

This week we learned about exposure lock. Our assignment was to shoot a subject in the bright sun, under a lamp, or in front of a big window. We then had to compensate for the underexposure, or overexposure by adjusting the exposure on the camera, or by using the exposure lock function. The exposure lock function allows you to focus the camera on a certain subject, lock the exposure at that, then reframe your subject to take the desired pic. For instance, in the first pic of Ainslee, she looked really washed out, so I pointed the camera at her pudgy, cute little arm, locked my exposure, reframed her cute little face, and retook the photo. Thus I got the after result. With the flowering Yucca bushes, I wanted to capture not only the cool bushes, but also the amazingly blue sky in the background. When I took the first pic, the blue of the sky wasn't as crisp, so I pointed the camera at the sandy ground, locked my exposure, reframed the bushes, and Wala! This assignment was very challenging for me, and it took a lot of tries for me to get the results I wanted, but it was very fun, and I learned a lot! Now I'm not so afraid of taking pictures in the bright beautiful sun!

BEFORE

AFTER
BEFORE
AFTER