Photography

One of the things I love most in the world is taking pictures of my kids.  I have always been sort of lucky to capture a few good images, but never really understood lighting and how it relates to apeture, shutter speed and ISO setting.  If I understood those things, then I knew I could capture the photos like I see them in my head.  So for my birthday this year Todd signed me up for a photography class.  It was 5 hours of learning, listening really.  I left feeling like I knew something but needed to practice it all before I forgot it or got all the information confused.  Since then I have taken about 300 hundred pictures.  Here are the three that actually accomplished what I wanted:

My kids are always on the move...always.  I don't get the opportunity to photograph them sitting still and posing much.  So I needed to learn to change the shutter speed so I can capture them in motion and keep all my photos from being blurry.  Above, Zach was swinging this rope around as fast as he could.  I wanted to see if I could get it to suspend.  You can see a little movement in the top of the rope so I wasn't perfect at it, but I like the effect. I also love that his face shows the effort it takes to swing the rope.

Who doesn't love a little girl on a swing?  And to capture the moment that Molly learns to pump was pretty special...only the only picture that actually turned out was the one where she is getting ready to jump off.  I love that her hair is blowing in the wind and that she is almost at a perfect angle with the legs of the swing set.

Emmie is the perfect model, because she can sit for hours staring out the window looking for squirrels.  However, here she looks so sad, as only dog eyes can.  Is she sad that the kids are gone? (unlikely) Is she sad the squirrels are in someone else's yard? (possible)  Is she sad I am not walking her, but taking her picture?  (very likely).