One of my favorite Pinterest boards is my Photo Projects board. It’s everything from poses for photos, as well as fun things to do with the photos after they’re taken. That’s where I cataloged the idea for this pose which is PERFECT when you have kids spanning a wide range of heights.

I also saw variations of this on Pinterest. Dangling a child upside-down for a photo. It’s a perfect way to make sure they’re smiling and adds a little bit of personality to a photo. These are the photos I’ll probably frame because they’re the ones that will make people stop as they walk down the hall.

It’s that time of year when we’re all thinking about the pictures we’ll use on our Christmas cards. I always do a collage because I can never decide on one photo, what about you? Do you have any fun poses you’ve done for your family pictures? Do you do your own cards (I design mine Photoshop) or do you use a service like Shutterfly or Tiny Prints? I’d love to use those services but I can never find the perfect photos the perfect dimensions…and I’m annoyingly picky when it comes to my Christmas Collages. My bathroom floors my be disgusting…but my Christmas Card WILL BE PERFECT.

Nikki dressed herself (of course) with me just telling her to wear a hat because I was trying to do some different photos than I usually do. I put Wes in something decent (with a hat) and we headed downtown early Sunday morning. Now, these type of outings are fun with Nikki because she’s old enough to play along. But Wes? Not so much. I usually spend the entire time going, Smile! SMILE! Look at me! Now Smile! Say Cheese! Say Poopie Pants! LOOK AT ME! Wes! WES!

Imagine my surprise when I scored this one first try:

I was like Oh, yeah. We’ve finally made it. ALL KIDS ARE OLD ENOUGH TO COOPERATE. I didn’t have E with me but I was going to take full advantage of this new development and take as made frame-worthy pictures as possible with the two kids.

Are you KIDDING ME? This picture is PERFECT. I didn’t even tell him to lean on Nikki’s leg. Not only is he cooperating but he’s improvising. This must be the magic age: 3 and 2 months. The magic age when kids actually understand the point of having their pictures made. I didn’t mark the age with Nikki because it wasn’t significant with her little brother still trailing behind. But now? NOW? All of my kids are picture-friendly!

We still had a bunch of problem with Wes smiling too hard, or with him just getting bored after the first 15 minutes, but overall? He was entirely perfect.

Now, if only I could get his sister to quit growing up and everything would be fine. Who is this girl and what did she do with my Kindergartner?

Now I can’t WAIT to get all three of them out and about with my camera. I’ve only had a few good pictures of the three of them EVER and I take a lot of pictures. Making the Christmas Card is usually easy because there aren’t many photos to choose from. But now? It’s going to take a little longer since I’ll have so many more options. But one thing is for sure: This year’s Christmas Card collage is going to KICK SOME PHOTO ASS.

You heard it here.

Wes, on the other hand, didn’t quite understand the concept. He rolled around in the chalk for a bit first, of course. And then settled on a pose that didn’t seem to care about antennae at all. I tried to get him to roll over and he was all, “I want my picture like this!”

These grand ideas never EVER seem to turn out how I envision them.

Sometimes, they turn out BETTER.

While these guys kinda made me giggle a bit, they didn’t bother me. I respect their idealism and their cool black frame glasses.

HOWEVER, they also interviewed some lady who has been working in the Photography department at TIME magazine for 40+ years. She was discussing why film is better and she made this one point: She knows photographers who go back through their negatives years later and suddenly discover a frame they didn’t notice before and it’s AMAZING and if that had been digital? Those photos would have just been deleted.

Um. WHAT? That doesn’t make any sense. Yes. I delete them off the CAMERA, but I (and most people I know who obsess with photos) keep every picture I take that has even the most REMOTE essence of quality. If everything is blurred? No. But if one person or object is kinda is clear? It gets stored on my computer and one of two external hard drives. FOREVER. And you know what else is great about having those digital pictures to go back through? You can change your mind. AND you can go through them without a light table. I think she is just an example of someone who likes things a certain way and picks the best reason she can think of to justify it. THIS IS FINE. But she needs to pick a better reason. Do what most people I know do and just say you LIKE IT BETTER. That’s fine! I know people who are hardcore about listening to music on vinyl. I’m kinda snobby about using my hand-mixer when I cook. We all do things a certain way because we LIKE them. But she justified it with the craziest idea ever.

Unless I’m the only person in the world who saves her photos. Which I’m 99% certain I’m not.

My point of this was actually just to show you why I love Photoshop. Somehow my brain drifted back to that lady and suddenly this became a rebuttal to some lady interviewed on ABC News. I APOLOGIZE, LADY!

NOW…on to the REAL entry about WHY I LOVE PHOTOSHOP.

I took this photo last weekend:

AH! Both kids looking at the camera! It’s a miracle! Too bad I snapped it as I was falling over. Or maybe there was an earthquake? I don’t know. It’s crooked! Enter…PHOTOSHOP.

Straightened it out. Cropped it in closer and sharped it a bit. Now? TOTALLY FRAMEWORTHY. Then, a couple days later I thought it might be good in a Black and White frame I’m working on. I never take pictures in Black and White, it’s always a post-processing Photoshop thing.

PERFECT. That one photo I can now do about a million things with. Which is good since it’s one of the ONLY photos where both kids are looking AT the camera and NOT making a “silly” face. Now, imagine if they were SMILING. I’d blow that thing up and turn it into a bedspread at Wal-Mart. Which you can do. Although I think it would funnier to use THIS edited photo to turn into a bedspread. Who wouldn’t want that Homicidal Glare keeping them warm every night.

Have you ever tried to get in a hammock? I mean, I know that’s the total sitcom joke: Getting In Hammocks Is Funny! With the rolling and the spinning and the falling…but did you know it’s TRUE? It’s completely impossible to get into a hammock for the first time – successfully. And did you know that a 5-year old trying to do it is at least 100 million times more hysterical than a grown-up? Because it is. To the 5-year old AND to the adult watching.

It turns out that me getting in first to stabilize the hammock, was the key. Then Nikki had the freedom to move about without flipping the thing over and ending up on the ground. And then we were able to take the picture below. Which I took with my purse camera and my arm stretched out. Nothing posed. Nothing calculated. Just two people cracking up in a hammock and taking a picture.

Sometimes, my favorite thing about being a recreational photographer is not the fancy camera or nice lenses, is my habit of always having a camera on me. So that these moments get caught on camera, even if it’s not the nice one with the good lens. And even if one millisecond later we were both on the ground covered in sand.

I’m weird about trees. There are several stories I could tell of emotional attachments I’ve gotten to trees. Sometimes it’s one specific tree (The 100+ year old dogwood at the botanical gardens) and sometimes it’s a certain type of tree as a group. In this case? Japanese Magnolia.

One of my favorite professors in college got very upset when the school decided to cut down one of the Japanese Magnolias we had on campus, in order to make room for a bigger Lion habitat. (What?) He was tenured AND about to retire so he just confronted the Vice President of the University about it when we passed him one day on the sidewalk. It was a great show of principle as my professor voiced his opinions about this tree and how ridiculous it was the university was just going to destroy it without even trying to move it. Since then, I think of him every spring when they bloom.

They’re fragile trees, so often you’ll only see their blooms for a few days before a storm or a cold spell gets them. But they bloom first in our part of the country…bringing in Spring with a crazy burst of gorgeous pink. I love them, even if they don’t last long.

This one is in my neighbor’s yard and I snuck over there today to photograph it before a storm hits. You can see the series here.

Since E did Seussical last spring, I’ve been researching new lenses and cameras. My Nikon D80 has been, and will continue to be, wonderful in regards to photographing my family as we go about our normal lives. But it has extreme limitations with stage photography, I learned. And as I researched lenses that would help, I couldn’t find hardly any information on those lenses as they would relate to the D80 because no one in the industry writes about the D80 anymore. So, I opted to get a new camera this year and maybe a new lens next year.

Deciding on a camera was tough. The cheaper (but well-reviewed) D3100 would not work with a lot of my lenses. The more expensive D7000 would work with all my lenses, but I hadn’t found a lot of reviews yet. I look periodically but it’s still quite new. Finally – my favorite reviewer discussed the D7000 here. Gave it a RAVE review. Then, this review gave me the kicker recommendation: “the D7000 offers an outstanding degree of value, and I have no problem giving it Steve’s highest recommendation; to be honest, the D7000 has made me consider crossing over to the dark side from Canon.”

To hear a Canon person consider becoming a Nikon person for this camera? Kinda sold me once I had read Ken’s review.

The camera came tonight and it had 5 minutes of juice in the battery. I took it and photographed the most random things possible. This is all on auto with the ISO cranked up so I wouldn’t have to use the flash. (I’m of the Pioneer Woman school of thought in that I avoid using the flash if at all possible. With a high ISO? It’s totally possible. Especially on this camera.) These are the random of random photos I took. And photos this random? I still fell completely in love with the camera.

Ring from Leah

LOVE.

I went junkin’ for the first time ever this week. A friend took me and it was so much fun! I probably could have spent at least twice as much time in each place (if not longer) but the mission was to hit as many places as possible. So I didn’t even look at clothes or linens much. I was on the hunt for some cool plates and some large picture frames. Here are a some more pictures of some of the treasure I found. I haven’t photographed everything yet because some of it I’m planning on using for projects so I’ll wait and do Before/After stuff.

I wanted to show off how great the three glass pieces I got thrifting look with the other pieces in my china cabinet!

I like some of these pictures so much I’d like to frame them! Would that be weird? Framing pictures of my thrifting finds? Either way – the objects themselves are pretty awesome. Are you a thrifter? What do you think of my finds? Do you love them as much as I do?

Second off – you should totally go watch this hysterical video of Wes that takes about 30 seconds and allows him to tell you about what he wants when he grows up.

And now – for the REAL miscellany – random photos from 10/10/10!