Sunday Snapshots #3

A couple of weeks ago, Nate and I spent an entire Saturday trimming our willow trees. Here is the fruit of our labor....



Nate also pulled some mammoth weeds. I mean, are you kidding me?



Happy Sunday!

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Sunday Snapshots #2

All the pieces fell into place for me to capture a few shots of this gorgeous butterfly. I happened to be walking by the patio door on my way to the kitchen for some lunch when I noticed this large guy. And my camera happened to be right there on the kitchen counter from my scone baking adventure this morning....

I love butterflies.







Happy Sunday!

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Sunday Snapshots #1

It's been the hottest weekend of the year here in St. Louis. But the wildflowers and hibiscus are loving the hot temps!











I'm thinking of making Sunday Snapshots a weekly posting on my blog. It'll get me to practice photography more and blog more. Sounds like a great idea to me!

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Photo of the Day

[Summer Squash Pizza with Goat Cheese and Walnuts]

Recipe here

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The (Sun)Rise and Fall

When I returned home from the gym this morning, it happened to be just the time the sun was starting to come up. The sky had a few clouds that had turned a gorgeours pinky orange and the sun wasn't yet peeking over the horizon. So what did I do? Rushed inside to grab my camera and snap a few pictures! I think they really capture the beautiful images I was seeing with my own two eyes.

And while we're talking about pictures, here are a few I snapped over the weekend of our maple trees and mums. The colors are so vibrant right now.

First the trees. The oranges and reds are to die for.

The mums I planted for the fall season are just bursting with color. The only thing we're missing is a pumpkin!











My favorites are the oranges, of course. And you get extra points if you can spot the bug!

Happy Fall everyone (my favorite time of year)!

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Digital Camera Basics

I walked into the Creve Coeur Camera store on Olive expecting a small group of people gathered for the Digital Camera Basics class. Boy, was I surprised! There were probably 25-30 people in attendance. Ed, our instructor, commented that this was the biggest class he'd seen in quite sometime. I'd say!

Ed was probably a 30-something gentleman. He'd previously worked in New York and California and he really knew his trade. All around the room there were large printed photos that Ed had taken, each very cool in its own right. So at the very beginning of class I was already in awe looking at all the photos thinking, "Maybe I'll be able to take pictures like THAT someday..."

Once Ed started talking, I was drawn in by the wealth of knowledge he obviously had. The class exceeded my expectations, partly because I went into it thinking that since it was a free class, it wouldn't be that great. But lo and behold, it was all good stuff! And except for the annoying lady in the front row who seemed she needed to prove her knowledge by continously asking questions she already knew the answers to, the overall atmosphere of the class was good too.

The class mostly focused on the common elements between cameras and overall storage, memory cards, file types, photo editing, etc. Here are a few tidbits I wrote down in my notebook:

• .raw files are the best quality and what most photographers use; however, they take the most work on the computer to format
• Picassa and Photoshop Elements are both good software programs for beginners to use to resize and reformat pictures
• Everyone should have a tripod (he didn't say this, strictly my opinion) to get the really cool night-time or time elapsed shots you can't get otherwise
• Use autofocus (by holding button down halfway) to focus on main object in the picture and then move left or right to move off center
• Portrait mode blurs the background - the closer your subject gets or the farther away the background, the more blurry it is
• Mountain mode keeps background in focus; much easier to use during the day
• Sports mode (best used outdoors) will freeze the action; check camera to see if it goes into rapid mode (where you can just hold down the button and it takes picture after picture)
• Night scene mode needs a tripod; do not use flash
• On a sunny day, put the sun behind your subject and use the flash; this prevents shadowed faces

Cool, huh? Now I have to play with all of my camera modes to get comfortable with the automatic functions of the camera before my camera specific class in a couple of weeks. Wish me luck!

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My new love...

My birthday has come and gone and with it a whirlwind of gifts and a trip to Music City. I'll post more about our Nashville escapades later, but I wanted to share with you the awesome-ist gift--I'm sure that's a word--my husband purchased for me.

I think I had mentioned on a prior post my wishes for a nice SLR camera. Well, I had spoken to my husband about it once--ONCE!--a month or two prior to my birthday. I was quietly doing research on my own trying to learn a little bit about the features of that sort of camera, comparing brands I was familiar with like Nikon and Canon, looking into what camera would be good for a beginner, etc. Lo and behold, the last gift I opened on my birthday, the ONE gift that my husband got me, was this baby:



Now I have to admit, I was onto him on this one. I had questioned him several times about birthday shopping for me and he was so nonchalant about it. As in, "Oh, birthday shopping for you was so EASY this year, I've already completely finished." So the combination of his nonchalance and my recalling the camera discussion we had made it all come together for me. I had a sneaking suspicion that he had gotten me one BIG gift and I gave him flak about it a couple of times prior. Must be womens intuition or something.

He bought this Pentax at a local camera store, Creve Coeur Camera, and according to him he spent an hour and a half there days before--yes, my husband is a procrastinator big time--my birthday. The salesman touted this camera as wonderful for a beginner, despite being not a brand a lot of people have heard of. And what really put it over the top was it's value--it came in a combo package with 2 lenses, a 18-55 mm and a 50-200 mm. He also purchased the lens filters and had the batteries in it and all ready to go when I opened it. Oh the joy!

I was able to use it several times in Nashville--I'll be sure to point out which pictures were taken with it in my Nashville post--and although I'm only using the "auto" function right now, I'm loving it already!

One benefit of purchasing the camera from Creve Coeur Camera is that they offer a wide variety of classes--some for beginners, some that are camera specific, others for those that are more advanced. With the camera purchase, my husband received a coupon so I could take their Digital Basics class for free! I'm signed up for the Monday, September 28th evening session, so I'll fill you all in as to how it goes after that. Here the description about it from their website:

Digital Basics
Do you have a digital camera and want to know more about what it can do? If you would like to use your camera to its potential, this free one-hour seminar can help you. We'll talk about the advantages of digital photography, some common terms, storage media, printing and about some simple programs to play with and manipulate your images.

They also have camera specific classes, so I've already signed up for one for my Pentax K2000 in October. This one should show me all the in's and out's for my camera and educate me on all the settings and when to use them. Now THIS sounds interesting:

Pentax K200D/2000
This user-friendly DSLR camera for the beginning digital photographer captures high quality images with either simplified operation or use of manual options. This class will show you the best options in different situations, even low-light conditions. Bring your camera, batteries, manual and questions.

Then once I get all that figured out and am comfortable with it, I can delve deeper into the manual functions of the camera and how to utilize those. One thing at a time, though. Can you tell I'm excited? [insert giddy laughter here] Hopefully you all won't get tired of my new photography obsession. Wahoo!

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New Look

If you haven't already noticed, things look a little different around here! I was getting tired of my annoyingly busy background, so I decided to change my whole blog template to incorporate a much more clean look.

I'm also going to start including larger pictures, in hopes someday soon that I will have a higher quality camera to share crisp photos. I'm secretly drooling over getting an SLR camera for our pending trip to Italy in the spring. Plus I want a really good camera for when we have kids someday.

I'm currently researching what the best, most affordable "beginner" camera of this variety would be, so we'll see when/if I make the plunge. All I know is if I do purchase the camera, some photography classes are in order so I use more than auto mode...

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Photo Contest

Whoa, hello February! Am I crazy or was it just Christmas a few days ago? Time has flown so fast, in fact, that I forgot that way back in November I actually submitted one of our wedding photos for the STLtoday 2008 Travel Photo Contest. The rules were to submit a photo from somewhere you had traveled in 2008, and it had to be outside of counties like St. Louis, St. Charles, etc. I submitted this photo from our honeymoon, as I felt it just captured the spirit of the whole trip.


Wedding Rings in Tahiti

Sure, I could have submitted one of nice scenery or a sunset, but that's too ordinary. If you want to vote for my picture as one of the "best", all you have to do is click on the photo above and submit your name, email and a comment. And no pressure....I'm not expecting to win. It was just a fun way to share a small piece of our wonderful honeymoon!

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Photographer Update

Well folks, next week is do or die week for finding a photographer. I have an appointment on Monday at lunchtime with Michelle Ross from Under Grace Photo in St. Charles (http://www.undergracephoto.com/). Thanks for the suggestion Jen! And Wednesday I have an appointment after work with Joanna Kleine from Joanna Kleine Photography (http://www.joannakleinephotography.com/). And I am trying my darndest to get an appointment with Stephen Seward (Stephen Seward Photography - http://www.stephenseward.net/#). He had to cancel a previous appointment due to some unexpected life events. I think out of the three - who all look quite good - we should be able to "click" with one of them. The end of next week equals decision time. That is my goal and I'm sticking to it!

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The Hunt Is On But...

We may have found the one! Nate and I had two appointments this past week with potential photographers, and I had had one myself previously in Columbia. I had talked with Kim in Columbia from SilverBox Photographers and she was really sweet, energetic, and we got along really well. However, she was much more than I would like to spend, so price is what ultimately ruled her out. She photographed Tim Allen's (2nd) wedding in Colorado...so if a celebrity can afford her I don't think we can! The second appointment was with a girl at ImageArtistic Photography here in St. Louis. She was very nice and a lot closer to my age, but she didn't do anything to "wow" us, and really didn't have a lot to share with us verbally, she was just mostly answering our questions. We looked through some photos and albums and they were nice, but a lot of the pictures were a little more posed than I would have liked, and we didn't see a whole lot of shots in black and white.

And then we met with Jon from Koch Photography...and let me tell you I think both of our eyes lit up right when we stepped foot into his studio. First of all, he had a really cool loft setup with a big, cozy room that had high-tech equipment and all his work. He had a flat screen TV continuously scrolling through wedding pictures on the wall and big, framed black and white wedding shots he had taken hanging around the room. When we got there, we actually just chatted for a little while before jumping into looking at sample albums and pictures. Jon is a really great guy, has a fun personality, and really encompasses the documentary type style Nate and I were looking for. This may very well end up being the most expensive piece of our wedding, so I'm feeling very happy right now that we've potentially found the perfect fit in this photographer! We have one more appointment setup for this week, so I'll let you all know when we make our final decison...should be by weeks' end!!!

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