Faulous Friday Finds at ScrapTiffany - Favorite Photography Resources

Today I am hosting the blog over at ScrapTiffany.com. I have a roundup of my favorite photography resources. The more I play with my big girl camera the more I want to learn how to take better pictures. I am sharing websites you can check out, classes you can take, books you can read, post processing resources and more. Head on over to check it out...ScrapTiffany Happy Friday!

Vacation Finale - San Diego Zoo, Old Town and Heading Home

Day 7, Friday, October 15^th, 2010

Last night I sent a text my friend Stella to get some breakfast recommendations. We didn’t have plans for Friday so we decided to go out to breakfast.  She sent me a few suggestions, and we picked the Broken Yolk in Pacific Beach.  We got there about 9:00 am and it was busy. We had a really good breakfast. We both had omelets with home fries.  Nicholas and Jackson ate the muffin that came with my breakfast with pancakes and bacon.

It had been sprinkling since we woke up and we weren’t sure what we were going to do. Mike thought we should go to the zoo to keep the kids entertained. Kids were free for the month of October so we headed over.

We got to the zoo and even though it isn’t really that far from the water, there was no sprinkling. It was cool but not wet.

Here are some of my favorite shots from the day. I had some animals that really liked to pose for the camera...

I think this sleeping Koala Bear is so sweet...

Look at the bears eyes...

The leopard was named Princess or something like that, she loved to pose.

The giraffe's were cool. Some of my best poses were in to the sky, and were too washed out, but I like this one. At the Phoenix Zoo all the food spots are up above so they don't have to bend down like this.

Love this kangaraoo

Kissing camels (they really were, the one in the back though had some gross stuff coming out of his mouth that turns some of the better shots of the front two into something less than pleasant)\

Llamas?

Nicholas walked a lot of the zoo on foot....

Frogs/toads near the elephant exhibits

This elephant was dancing, with her trunk bouncing back and forth....

Yes this is the kid that will not wear shoes and socks. He is just like his mama, hates shoes. I know there were people looking at us like we were crazy.

Spacing on what animal this is, but many of them were happy to pose for us.

This is probably one of my favorite shots from the day. Right after this, the lion got up on a rock and strated making all kinds of howling and roaring noises, I would have photographed it but his butt was to us, so nothing great to look at, but cool to listen to.

Nicholas was interested in the tar pits.

Another model, I mean cooperative animal.

Hills do not slow my boys down.  Jackson is peeking back at Nicholas and me, happy he isn't walking.

The gorillas came right up to the glass viewing area.

These minature alligators didn't move, they were like statues.

It looked like they were posing for us.

Nicholas checking out what is going on...

This monkey was talking to another one right below him...

Tourists.

This was really cool but everyone was trying to get the picture of this hippo with its eyes and ears above water and it's huge body below the surface. This was the best I could get without people in it.

There is something just weird about how these turtles look swimming.

This lizard is looking right at me.

Looks like the tortoise is as well.

We stayed until the zoo closed and then decided to go straight to dinner at Old Town. Old Town Mexican Café had been recommended by both my friend Stella and Scott and Lori. So even though it looked packed we decided to try it. It turned out there was only a 10 minute wait that ended up being less than 5 minutes. We had guacamole and chips with margaritas.  For dinner the boys had tacos and quesadilla and Mike and I both had combos with Mexican beers.

Towards the end of our dinner the Mariachis came in to the area to play and Jackson loved it.  He was whipping his head around to watch them and giving them big cheesy grins.

To burn off dinner we walked around Old Town before heading back to the hotel.

We got back early enough to let the kids just chill out watching Disney shows while I started packing us up.  We got the kids in bed around 9:00 and Mike and I talked about next year’s vacation. We decided after this trip that the boys are ready and more importantly we are ready to take them to Walt Disney World next year. So I checked out pricing so we can start saving.

Day 8, Saturday, October 16^th, 2010

We got up around 7:00 and got ready and finished packing. We were going to grab Einstein’s for breakfast but there was a huge line and it was a bit cold to sit outside. So we headed over to the Red Marlin for breakfast. We had the buffet breakfast and were in and out of there pretty quickly. We loaded up the car to get on the road and were on our way around 10:30. We stopped quickly once and made it home around 4:00.

It turned out to be easier than the boys than we expected. Taking kids is definitely a different vacation than the old days of late nights, fancy restaurants and going as fast or slow as we feel like. Everything is at their pace, but they were very flexible and good little travelers. So I look forward to many more vacations with my little family.

Now that we are home, Nicholas asks us at least once a day if we had fun in California or Disneyland. He is still talking about the trip a lot a week later.

Picture Fall & ScrapTiffany Monday

Where did this past week go? I never did fit in blogging towards the end of the week. I got involved in creating my first photo book and finished that up Friday night. I am not really a digital scrapper, but I didn't like the templates on the photo book site, so I visited Designer Digitals and picked out a kit, frame, and some digital stamps and made my own. I am pretty happy with how it looks on the screen.  I can't wait to see the final project. I can't wait to see how it comes out. I think I am going to do another photo book for my current photo project.  I signed up for Picture Fall over at Big Picture Classes. It is a nice complement to the photography class I am taking with Maggie Holmes. The chance is giving more ideas to play with the camera, without always having to chase around one of the kiddos. The class started October 1st, but registration is open until October 6th if you want to join me. The daily photo prompt, great gallery and message board are great inspiration. Here are my first 4 days. I am keeping a journal off my thoughts on each day's picture. Then I will be ready to put it and the photo together for my photo book.

October 1^st, 2010

 Fall. Not really in Arizona. It is still well over 100 degrees and fall foliage is not anywhere near us yet. But inside our home you can find fall all around us.

October 2^nd, 2010

 A peaceful spot to relax, read and chat with Mike when the house is quiet and all little boys are asleep.

October 3^rd, 2010

 No real fall leaves in Arizona, maybe in December or January it will look like Fall? Our only brown leaves are from leftover tree clippings caught in a vibrant hibiscus.

October 4^th, 2010

Ready to Brew…these three words make me happy.

Mark your calendars. We are having a blog hop over at ScrapTiffany November 8th & 9th. Lots of holiday inspiration and giveaways are planned.

This weeks assignment was to use this sketch by one of ScrapTiffany's own designers, Keely

Here was my take on it...

Head on over to ScrapTiffany and check out the other ladies work and give the sketch a try this week.

Happy Monday!

Photography Class Assignments

I have had my DSLR camera for almost 5 years. I never learned how to use it, and with a kit lens. auto mode, and a lack of knowledge, a DSLR will not take better pictures than a good point and shoot. I have plenty of proof of that.

So when I heard about Maggie Holmes photography class for beginners I decided it was finally time to learn how to use this thing.

The 1st assignment taught us about ISO.  I realized I had never adjusted the ISO since opening the box. No wonder the poor light pictures were so awful.

The second assignment taught us about shutter speed and aperture. I am still trying to work through the correlations of F Stops and Shutter Speeds, but it is really starting to make sense.

Shutter Speed Assignments

Aperture assignments

My kids weren't cooperative models, so I had to resort to things I could control better.

Maybe they will be my guinea pigs on the next assignment. Time to get into Manual.  I am excited

Making Me Happy

Pretty happy with my shopping trip to Kohl's last night. I needed some things for our upcoming vacation and had a 20% off coupon. All but 2 things I bought were on clearance and the other 2 were on sale. So I got 7 pairs of shorts/capris, 6 shirts, a pair of shoes, a purse, sunglasses, a scarf and a watch for just over $150. I call that a score. Since I hate clothes shopping, that makes me happy. And it was done in just about an hour.

Love it!

I was home on Monday sick with an yucky bug and Mike had taken the boys out so it was quiet. I was sitting in the chair feeling awful, but then I looked out the window and saw this dragonfly just resting on a leaf. Well what is a girl that is taking a photography class to do? Grab the camera of course....

He was pretty cooperative, even with me trying to change my settings and figure out how to do that best with the zoom lens. He even scratched his nose at one point, too bad I didn't get that.  I also played with some flower photography here...

I'm pretty happy with these straight from the camera shots. I am excited to go to full manual this week in my class. I'll share some photos to date tomorrow from the class, it is amazing what you can do with a camera when you begin to learn how to use it.

Don't you love days where it all just clicks creatively? I have had a couple recently. I really wanted to update a the banner that was hanging on our patio door for awhile. We decorated for fall over the weekend and I was inspired to finally get to it, but at first I was stumped with exactly what to do, then it started flowing.

Then again tonight, I planned to just watch Glee (which was recorded on the DVR in my scrap room). I didn't plan to do anything crafty. Then I picked up the Jenni Bowlin Limited Edition Vitange Halloween Kit that I am pretty sure I ordered the last one of....

and before I knew it I was singing along with Glee to Empire State of Mind (New York) and creating something I love.

I can only share peeks right now, because these are may be future DT projects. But I love when creativity hits and you can just jump on it. Don't you?

Something else that is making me happy this coming weekend, Bazzill.  If you live in the Phoenix area this Friday and Saturday is the Bazzill warehouse sale. I haven't gone in a few years, but I plan to head over and see what I can pick up. I'm sure I'll at least get a pizza box of cardstock (not like I need it). Click on the link for the info.

Happy hump day!

ScrapTiffany Monday and a Quick Weekend Update

We had a relaxing weekend, other than that every one of the male species in this house was sick with a stinky summer cold. I am hoping it stays in the male genes and I don't get it. We just laid low, no projects, no work. Saturday I made a lot of progress on my scanning project. I have been scanning and re-touching my mom's collection of photos going back to young days of my grandparents and lots of my childhood. I'm done scanning now and working my way through 160 or so scans that have to be split to individual pictures and re-touched. I have about 55 scans to go.

I am taking Maggie Holmes Beginning/Intermediate Photography Class starting in a week. I just bought a new 50mm lens for my DSLR. I only had the kit lens that came with the camera (18-55mm). I never could figure out what the big deal was with a DSLR, since my point and shoot Sony took just as good, if not better, pictures.

So call me amazed when I downloaded my camera card this weekend and saw some of the shots I got with the new lens. I still don't know what I am doing with the DSLR, but I just kept turning the dial and shooting away and got shots I could never get straight out of the camera with the point and shoot.

These are all straight from the camera, no post processing.

This is a shot with the kit lens...

Same location, new lens (in auto)....much crisper I think...

Now all new lens....

Taken in auto (the flash went off)...

Taken in aperture priority (what that means exactly, I don't know yet), no flash...

I'm not sure on these,I was either in manual with no adjustments or auto, but the darned flash wants to go off in auto all the time, so I think it was just on manual...

I am now looking for the next lens for my wish list. I think I want something that will zoom. I will wait to see what I learn in Maggie's class before I decide. But whatever it is will be on my Christmas wish list.  I downloaded  The Digital Photography Book, Volume 1 to my Kindle now to learn a bit more. I like what I am reading so far, no words that I don't understand yet.

This week's ScrapTiffany assignment was to use the color orange. Tiffany is not a fan of orange, me? I use it a lot. It works good with the boys, it goes well with other colors, I like it bright, I like it Fall-ish, whatever, I like orange. So this one was easy and made even easier with a few products from my August Studio Calico kit...

I stamped the border with paint using a round foam brush and stitched the tickets on and the bottom border and added some of my favorite punches.

Check out what the other girls did this week over at ScrapTiffany and if you do an orange layout send it to Tiffany to share with us.

Picture Summer Days 1 - 10

I was going to skip out on Picture Summer at Big Picture Scrapbooking, but I have seen a few blogs recently of other scrappers that were signed up and decided to go for it.  I started a few days late, and I am now caught up with my assignments. I used my Sony DSC-TX1 point and shoot for all of the pictures (except the one in the pool). I used PSE actions from Pioneer Woman for most of the pictures, although for a few I did my own manual post-processing.

Day 1

Summer is the boys having fun and playing outside in the evenings.

Day 2

Splashin' in the pool.

Day 3

I love the way the fountain in the courtyard is angled to line up with the windows on both sides.

Day 4

Grilling is a big part of our summer and always on the 4th.

Day 5

It doesn't matter the season, for me a glass of wine in the backyard watching the sun goes down is perfect any time of year.

Day 6

A view I haven't noticed much lately that was one of my favorites when we moved to our house 5 years ago.  Looking down our street at the lake from our hallway windows.

Day 7

This starfish was hanging out on the side of the aquarium. I thought the colors of its belly were splendid.

Day 8

The prompt for today led me to photograph these shells I have had for years.  I had collected most of them as a kid.  I have had them in one of my bathrooms at each home we have lived in  for years.  I see them every morning when I get ready, but haven't thought much about them in years.  Yet, every time I update the bathrooms I always hang on to this bit of my childhood.

Day 9 

These textured balls are on display in my entry way. Love the different textures and sizes.

Day 10

A scene I don't want to forget.  Nicholas and Jackson pillow fighting in the family room.  I heard them this morning giggling and playing while I was checking my e-mail I snuck up on them and found this.  I know they will be teenagers in a blink of the eye, so I want to enjoy the toddler rough housing while it lasts.

Picture Spring

I am taking the Picture Spring class over at Big Picture Scrapbooking. The instructor is Tracey Clark, the founder of Shutter Sisters.

I never made it through 365 days of photos last year, taking a picture everyday got difficult when I couldn't find something new to photograph each day  I signed up for this class to help expand my horizons, so to speak, and re-train myself to look beyond the obvious.  Each morning our we have a prompt for the day in our in-box. It is up to us to interpret what that means to us.

So here are my first 10 days of pictures....

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10