photography

My favorite night of our beach trip every year is taking family photos. It's a mad dash of directing the family, setting up the shot, pressing the button and sprinting to get into the photo and look "casual" when I get there. My father-in-law caught me in action during our photo shoot:

I look SO much more "pro" than I'll ever be! :)

I saw this super-cute beach photo idea at RonWainscottPhotography.com and just had to give it a try with our family this week:

I have a very cooperative family.... 

After Ayla went to bed last night, Ben and I went down to the beach to walk. We watched the moon rise, and last night apparently was a special moon-night...there was a strawberry moon. It looked just like a sunset...going the opposite direction.

Unfortunately we didn't have our camera with us as we were walking, but
when we finished, we ran up and picked it up along with the tripod and played around with the camera. Most of the pics were a blurry mess, but we did get a few salvageable shots...and it was a fun thing to do one evening of our vacation:

While driving around the Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri I noticed there are such cool signs everywhere. While we were waiting to take a boat ride yesterday, I went for a quick walk to capture some of the signage. I have no idea what I'll do with the pictures now, but they were just too cool to pass up! Here's a collage of a few that I collected:

 

 And, since the one holding the camera is rarely in ANY of the pictures from the day, I was lucky to have my mom with me who could take a photo of what *I* did today. :)

While on vacation this week, I noticed that our entire family all has Canon cameras and they're all working overtime. So here's the Canon family photo (taken with a self timer on the bed, facing up...that's right....Grandma and Grandpa's bedroom at the condo has a mirror over the bed!)

Tonight I was reading an interview with Tara Whitney (an excellent family photographer), and one of her answers struck a happy chord in me. Although I'm not a pro photographer (nor do I want to be), I think she sums up my love for photographing my friends and family perfectly:

I loved Ali Edwards' post today about her approach to taking photographs. If I don't always match her photography practices, I want to. She has a very realistic and natural approach and style. And she makes it sound so easy to just take pictures--not "be" a photograper. I especially like this advice:

I am ruthless when it comes to deleting my photos. As I mentioned above, I don't need more than five (and probably less than three) from a similar series of shots. I simply delete, delete, delete. It makes for a cleaner folder of photos, less to choose from when I create a page (which can be a good thing), and I think I learn a bit about my self as a photo-taker in the process. Obviously this whole process of deleting depends upon the event and the story you plan to tell.

I just bought four photos from Elizabeth Bailey (our official Scrap Etc. photographer) that totally define my weekend and show me working my booty off...although amazingly, I look pretty happy doing it!

Thursday I was assigned a registration table, so Paige and I registered all the last names starting with Q through Z. That's Paige in the background....and it looks like she's working harder than me at that moment. Throughout the day I got very good at saying the following:

"You are in group 'A' and this is your schedule for the weekend in the back of your lanyard. You're an early bird, so you'll be taking the Creative Cafe class on Friday night. This is your ticket. Be sure to bring it with you to the class. Your Q & A session with the teachers is tonight after our opening ceremonies, which begins at 6:00 in Tennessee C. Here is your bag and shirt. I think you're all set!"

Then Friday and Saturday, I could be found walking up and down the aisles of our classroom with Group A. I'm just glad to see that i'm smiling in this pictgure, and I don't look as exhausted as I probably was. Well, the photo was taken during our second class on Friday, so that was when I had more energy! We helped everyone make sure they had all the pieces for their kits, picked up trash, and answered questions during each class.

And then there was Saturday night at the SNL (Saturday Night Layouts) fiasco. This huddle photo was taken as I was frantically trying to gather together 15 people to pass out the individual pieces of the 7Gypsies mini-book project that I was supposed to teach. The smile on my face is because we had just made the decision that we would pass it out, and I would show the project, but I did not have to go through creating it step-by-step...there just wasn't time. Which was okay with me! I probably would have completely made a mess of the whole thing. Maybe I'll do a video for my blog about how to make it...and that will make up for not getting to do it in person for everyone.

Can i just say once again that I LOVE these ladies? Everyone worked so hard, and no matter how much we complained to each other about how tired we were and how hungry, and how dilirious, it never stopped us from going the extra mile to help one of the attendees with anything they needed. Three cheers for the volunteers!

All of Elizabeth's photos were fantastic, and I'm proud to say she was my roomie for the weekend and she definitely worked harder than I did, since she was helping in classes, taking photos, and working the register at the store. Whew!

The full gallery of Elizabeth's pictures, available for purchase ($1.99 per image) can be seen here: E Bailey Photography Scrap Etc. Gallery

Thanks Elizabeth!