Fun with the Camera

So, I'm trying to get better at photography lately and Ive been reading a lot of books on how to use manual mode and all big words they use in photography like aperture, ISO, shutter speed, white balance, etc. We went to A Taste of Edmonds today and I thought I'd try out a few of the things I've been learning. Mostly, making sure it is a correct exposure(all these were taken in manual mode) and also playing around with shutter speed/motion. The book I am reading right now is Understanding Shutter Speed so my mind is kinda focused on that right now. Pun intended. Check out some of the pictures I took today. Click on the picture to see the bigger version.


I just liked this stand because it was so colorful, so I practiced setting a correct exposure.



These next few are panning. It is supposed to have your subject in focus and the background blurry to imply motion. I have no clue who these people are.







For this one I was attempting to pan along with the people in blue and black. Maybe a longer shutter speed would have made the background more blurry.




E with his bubble gun. After this he kept trying to shoot me in the face with bubbles.



Freezing bubbles in motion.



More practicing correct exposure.





Freezing motion. E had a huge smile on his face the whole way down the slide.



Composition.




The lady down the way just would not get out of my shot and would not close that door, so this is the best I could get with this shot, but I kinda like the open door.




Painting. For these next two I used a slower shutter speed and moved the camera in a circle while it was exposing.





This was a difficult shot because the white flowers kept overexposing. So I shot it underexposed and corrected it on the computer.



Zooming out while exposing with a slow shutter speed.



Practicing depth of field. This has a shallow depth of field so the front is in focus but the background is blurry. You get this by using a wide aperture. It seems like a ton of people like to shoot this effect.


I just liked the bright yellow of the fire hydrant with the deep purple flowers next to it.

3 Months!

Someone turned 3 months old last week!! I can believe how fast time is flying by and how fast this little girl is growing and developing. She is now reaching for thing and can not so coordinately grab onto her toys and mama's face, etc. He smiles all the time now and has even given us some laughs. For some reason, saying "Orange carrot" makes her bust up laughing(its from her jumperoo). Here are a few pictures of our recent adventures.

Official 3 month pictures.




First Swim - you can see the rest of the pictures here. We set up our above ground pool and bought a solar cover this year that really helped. Madelyn did great for her first swim!








We took a hike up to Wallace Falls the other day to try out the baby hiking backpack. Madelyn loved it! She was looking around the whole time in awe of all the things to see. She also fell asleep a few times but she was awake and interested for a lot more than I thought she would be.

The whole family.


Checking out the river.



Just looking cute.


Oops, she fell asleep again.

Madelyn's First Swim!!

So I was being optimistic and set up our above ground pool the other day. Last year, even on the few days it was in the 90's the water was still pretty cool by the time I got off work. So, this year I bought a solar cover for the pool in hopes that it would keep the water warm and also keep the bugs out. And it worked great! This week it has been in the 70's but with the solar cover the water was warmer than it ever was last year. So tonight once Nick got home we took Madelyn for her first swim. She did really well. She seemed to like and didn't start to cry until I think she got a little cold and her diaper was completely saturated. (It was a good advertisement for pampers. We weighed the diaper afterward - 1lb 4oz. Compare that to a 0.5 oz dry diaper and that means that diaper held 1lb 3.5 oz of water which is almost 3 cups of water!) Needless to say, Baby M and I will be out in the pool a lot more during the day. :) Check out this slide show of the swim.