Twins!

I had the opportunity to photograph these sweet little twins a couple of weeks ago. I was all set to proof and post and then Kian got sick. Again. Shortly after Kian presented with his fever and after several days of him sneezing and coughing on me, on my food, in my face, I came down with it too. I don't know what it is about this winter, but I feel like I've been sick since two weeks before Christmas. It's just been absolutely freezing here in Portland (I know, my mid-Western friends, we can't compare our 31 degrees to your negative temps but still...) At any rate, I am finally feeling like myself again and am almost able to breathe freely. Now if I could just fully regain my hearing, I'll be golden. So finally, here are a few portraits of these lovely boys. Their sister has also been featured here on my blog as I have been lucky enough to have photographed her a few times in the past.
On another note, Brad and I got Kian a beautiful kid-sized table and chairs for his birthday. The thing is that they are raw, unfinished wood. We had this grand idea that we would stain them and paint cool designs on them and give it to him when he turns two. I will be blogging our efforts. Sadly, I think we may have a project bigger than our abilities on our hands. It may make for a fun adventure. It keeps getting bigger in my mind and the more ideas I have, the more I am struck with blank canvas syndrome. What was I thinking? I'm a photographer, not a drawing or painting type artist. Then there are all these other things to consider: Paint or stain or both? What type of paint or stain? Should we burn the design in first? What should the design be? Arghgh. Maybe we'll just stain it red and call it good. Or not. I'm really determined on this one. Ok, gotta go start building my closet organizer. Till soon. Look for pictures of the table progress so you can make fun of us. Who knows, maybe it will turn out killer and we'll amaze ourselves and our friends.

California winter and camera review

At last, I have found my USB cable for the new camera. Full specs first: This is a Nikon Coolpix L14. After uploading the photos and seeing them large on the computer screen, I got a much better idea of what this camera can do and what it's shortcomings are. First of all, it performs awesomely (is that a word?) in situations where the light is adequate. If you like to use flash (and I don't unless absolutely necessary) it does what all cameras do when the flash goes off: blow out skin tones. If you shoot without flash in low light situations, the image tends to be grainy and of course, a little blurry. But for about $130 bucks you get 7.1 megapixels and it's small enough to put in your pocket or purse. This makes it easy for me to get those snapshots of everyday things. Because I shoot photos professionally, I fall into the trap of thinking that every single photo I take has to look like artwork. Unfortunately, this eliminates about 95% of every day situations. I want Kian to have a record of his life, and not just awesome portraits. What's nice about this little camera is that it allows me to "turn off the inner editor" to quote my publishing professor and just shoot. The photos in this post are all straight out of camera (SOOC). This means that other than resizing them for the web and watermarking them, I did absolutely NOTHING to them in photoshop. So all in all, I would highly recommend this camera to anyone looking to pick up a nice little point and shoot. It's the perfect thing for those of us on the go. And the battery really does last a heck of a long time. About the pictures themselves: The first one is on the beach in California. In the previous post, you can see one from the same day taken with my D80. With the light conditions, not much difference. The other photos are of one of my favorite places in the world. Just 2 miles from the house where I grew up, there is this amazing hiking area called Point Mugu State Park. There is a 9 mile trail to the beach as well as a nice climb to Mt. Boney (3,800 ft). I could go on and on about this place but I'll just say that it is like a little bit of heaven on earth. See how nicely this camera does in good light? I was loving that backlight and those silhouette shots. That last shot is my dad with Kian on his shoulders. I think I will blow it up big.

Crazy Train

This year we went to the Zoo Lights at the Oregon Zoo. They run in December through New Year's Eve every year. I had never been and had always wanted to check them out. Apparently they use over a million lights to do the display. Finding a night that isn't pouring rain here in the winter can be a bit of a challenge but we lucked out on the last night. It was freezing cold (that's 33 degrees on the display), but totally clear. When we arrived, we were really happy to see that they had free admission that night! Kian loved riding the train and looking at the lights. I'm glad that we did it this year because next year we'll have a 6 month old in December. There was a family on the train just behind us with a 2 year old and a 6 month old who screamed the entire train ride. They just can't deal with freezing weather at that age and the train ride and lights just aren't worth it. Who knows when the next time we'll get to go again, but I'd love to make it a family tradition.
Until I can get Brad to tell me what he did with the upload cable for the new camera, I will remain unable to post my killer photos from my new little camera. I can't wait to see them big on the computer. I keep looking and looking at them on the little camera screen but it's not the same at all. Hope everyone is keeping up with their New Year's resolutions. Ha ha!

Happy 2008!

The holidays always seem a total blur of trips to the post office, the mall, wrapping, decorating, traveling. This year was no different. We traveled to California for a nice visit with my parents and my two brothers and their families. It was the first time that all three boys (Kian and my brothers' boys) were together. Getting a good photo of the three of them proved to be quite a challenge but above is the best I got. California was beautiful and sunny. I reveled in that sunshine and tried not to miss an instant of blue sky. Who knows when we'll see it here in Oregon! So here are some photos of Christmas morning as well as some other random photos from the other days of the trip. I got a new little camera for Christmas, a point and shoot sweet little digital that I can just pop into my purse. None of these photos were taken with that one but in the next post I will have photos taken with the new camera. We went for a killer hike and I played around with my new toy. I am blown away by the quality of photos that little thing takes. I will reveal full specs, make/model, etc. in the next post. I am also aiming to post more often here on this blog. Hope this is a good year for everyone.

By the way, somehow blogger screwed up the order of the photos so they are a little bit random. I would fix them but I still have to go and deal with the tornado of toys that seems to have gone through the house today. Brad and Kian built a fort with the couch cushions today. Fun times.