Camera Club fun!

I have had a fun day even with little sleep! I finally did fall back asleep about 0800 and slept till noon. I kept hitting snooze till about 1300. I needed to get up if I was going to meet up with the camera club! I ended up finishing my scarf last night and starting on my third pomp-a-doodle scarf! I might be able to meet my goal for V-day! :-)

The camera club meet up at a garden to take pictures. I was thinking we would be outside a lot but actually we were inside the greenhouses. It was a little warm and humid. It was a nice change from being outside but I was getting a little hot! I took about 200 pictures. I did take a few with my Lensbaby. I am still trying to figure it out but it was fun to play around with it today. I need to start just going out and taking pictures more often like this. It was a fun afternoon activity!

Here are a couple of Lensbaby photos:





A few more pictures with a regular lens:







I also found out today that the president of the camera club knows my Dad! They work together and have went on float trips together. It is a small world! I enjoy getting to know more of the members of the camera club and have enjoyed it so far. It has been almost a year since I went to my first meeting. I am planning to join the competitions this year. I am curious what the judges will say about my photos. I need to get my first photo printed! I have been printing some of my photos and putting them in frames. I am unsure where to hang them but I will have to find a spot!

I hope to be able to do more field trips with the camera club. It helps encourage me to take pictures something I haven't been doing enough of.

After I got done with the camera club, I went to the superbowl sale at the LSS! I bought too much paper but I tried to buy papers that coordinate together for a LO. I need to sort the paper and have sketches in mind for them. :-) I will have something else to do tonight if I can't sleep!

I am chilling at the Mudhouse. I finally took time to change the look of my blog. I have been wanting to do that for a long time! This background and header gives a more spring look! I am ready for Spring!

Vacation week . . . .

Is about over!! I haven't kept up with my blog as I had hoped. I haven't been able to stay awake at night getting up early with the puppy. Then I don't want to be on the computer to long as to waste the day away! Here I am at the end of the week and didn't keep up with my blog as I had hoped.

It has been a good week and a nice break. I actually go back to work for 2 days and then off again for almost a week. I could get used to this!!! My Intermediate Photography class ends this Tuesday which makes me sad. Then I start up with my last photography class on Thursday which is about lighting. I finally have a flash for my camera but haven't really learned how to use it yet. I think this class is going to talk about lighting that I don't have but I am sure it will be useful for me if I do end up getting lights in the future.



I started my vacation out with scrapbooking which is always fun!! I finally got my Project 365 kit from Creating Keepsakes and was getting it caught up. I still need to print some pics and also resize some pics. I might have to get this caught up more at CKC-St. Louis next week. I have quite a few LO's I have done that need pictures. I also have some that I need to ad journaling too. I was hoping to get this done but just haven't. I need to get in a better habit of sending my pics to be printed more often. I find it difficult to go through tons of pictures! I have finally learned how to tag photos in Photoshop so that will help me some. I still have a ton of photos not tagged!



The other highlight of the week was playing with my fisheye lens and doing some photography. I have rented a fisheye lens and it has been soo fun!! It has made me really want one! They are kinda expensive. The one I have rented is cheaper but you have to manual focus the lens. I have some fun pics I took with my nieces!





I have known about a camera club here for a while but earlier in the week decided to search for the web page. I saw that they were having a meeting this week and guest were welcome to join in the meeting. It was great! I was impressed on how many people are involved and the different activities that they have. I am planning to join and hopefully be able to attend some meetings. They also talked about a photography symposium in May and it is my weekend off!!! I am going to go! I am glad to be able to get involved with this club and continue learning from other photographers.



I am going to finish editing some photos and will post them here when I get done!

*I have had this post saved since the end of March to add fisheye photos to and finally sat down and got it done today! I was renting this lens and it was a sad day when I had to return it. I really liked it! It was just fun to play around with!

I am in love with the art of photography!

I have really been enjoying my photography classes that I have taken so far. I am sad that next week is my last portrait photography class. I have learned so much and looking forward to taking intermediate photography and then the lighting class to learn even more!

I have also started reading Popular Photography & Shutterbug to pick up on other tips. I picked up a Digital PhotoPro magazine today as it was the masters special of great photographers. I have also been saving lots of photographers blogs to watch and learn what they are doing in poses and composition. I got some fun ideas today in class watching a video of a photographer doing a senior portrait session. I wrote down some ideas and want to take my nieces on a photo shoot now! I just wish the weather was warmer. I can't wait for Spring!

After tonights class, I came home and started to google ways to make your own lights. I ended finding not only that but how to make a ghetto photography studio from things you would find at the hardware store. I even added some of this to my Christmas list and looking forward to making my own affordable photography studio. I even have a perfect spot in my living room to set this up. WOOHOO!!!

I learned recently about bokeh. I have the perfect lens to make bokeh and learned something tonight on how be more creative with this. I have a great idea on the use of Bokeh and my puppy! I need to get all my Christmas stuff out and I can give this a try.



Today before class, I finally took time to merge three photos I took of the Diana Memorial Fountain in London, England. It turned out pretty good. I thought one part was to dark but my instructor told me that it actually matched the trees and didn't notice it till I pointed it out. Yeah!! I am glad that I thought about doing this while I was there!! I had found panorama photo paper for $3 at an office supply store just recently! I hope to print out some of my Eiffel Tower photos as panorama's! If you click on the photo, it will take you to my flickr photostream and you can see this pic in panorama. I made the photo fit my post and it is squished now!

I am going to finish watching Grey's Anatomy and then head to bed.

Happy 4th!!

I hope that everyone had a happy 4th!! I was excited this year because I had the 3rd and 4th off so I could be awake for doing things during the day. I actually didn't do much as I was sleepy but I still had a good day!!



My sister, nieces and I went out to the city's big celebration. We got out there about 1900 to stake out our spot. Alot of the people had tents up and we were having a hard time finding a spot that we were happy with. Then shortly after we got settled, they announced for everyone to take there tents down. :-) I didn't remember that many tents from the previous times but the people that did have tents must have been there all day. That would be a good idea to help with the sun.



I had gotten instructions from my photography class on how to take pictures of fireworks. I had brought my tripod and was ready to go!!! To start the evening off, I broke a very important piece on my tripod that holds the camera in place. I was able to get this piece to stay so I could attach my camera. I need to figure out if I can get a new part or how to fix this. I had about 100 photos left on my card. I did end up taking about that many as I had 8 pictures left when the night was over!



I was quite happy with the results of my photos! This photography class has been worth it! I am much more comfortable using the manual setting on my camera. I have posted the pics I tooks tonight of the fireworks. Some are just so many fireworks going off that they kinda blurred. I started using the bulb setting on my camera instead of leaving it open for 8 seconds and I liked the results a little better! This one is my fave:



I just love the red, white and blue in these fireworks!



I am about to fall asleep! I am going to head for bed! :-)