Day 3...Picture day practice

I'm totally still on a Sue Bryce high. :)

As I thought of what I would photograph today for my blog, an idea came to mind. Why not use my eldest niece? Early this morning she posted a photo of herself (on her Instagram) looking all glammed up for school with her freshly curled hair. So I thought, I better snap a photo of her while her hair was still all curly. I yelled at her to put a shirt on (yeah, I yelled because apparently she didn't hear me the first and second times I asked her to put a shirt on. Sheesh!)

Once she was done, I busted out the mini fan and an old Hilary Duff promo poster board that worked well as my reflector :) I stuck her in another corner of the living room and she gave me this...

My partner in crime is growing up! I may poke fun at her sometimes, but she's beautiful. Don't you think?

Here's another one I took of her.

I love the flowing hair. :)

Tomorrow (or today as you're reading this on the 31st) is her picture day. If only they allowed students to have a pose like the one above.

Good luck on picture day baby girl!! :)

Day 2... Channeling my inner Sue Bryce

Three things that I love (today that is) are 1.) Sue Bryce 2.) Black and White Images and 3.) My nieces (well, two out of three nieces. One of them was at her back to school night so unfortunately she wasn't a part of the mini session that happened this evening.)

Sue Bryce....have you heard of her? If you haven't, you should seriously move out from under that rock you've been living under. :) Sue Bryce is a GODDESS!! She's a natural light glamour photographer based out of Australia. (Oh man...don't EVEN get me started on those HOT AUSSIE MEN....That is seriously another blog post that could go on and on and on... :)) Well, she's an international natural light glamour photographer who's based out of Australia. :) And she's a GENIUS!! Please, do yourself a favor and go check out her work here.

Anyhow, I first fell in love with Sue when she visited the folks at CreativeLIVE (I'll blog about these awesome people another day) to teach a free three day course (free when you watch live. You can also purchase the course to be able to download the videos and watch whenever you please) on Glamour Photography earlier this year. Honestly, at first I wasn't going to watch. I've never heard about her before and glamour photography just made me think of Glamour Shots. Remember those? And I wasn't really interested in doing that type of photography. My oh my was I wrong! I watched her little promo video and I was instantly hooked! Her glamour photography is nothing like I've ever seen before. Seriously...go click on that link above! You'll fall in love too!

This week Sue's back at CreativeLIVE teaching more about Glamour (every day this week!). I unfortunately can't watch during the day because of work, but the beauty about CreativeLIVE is that they replay the course for the PM folks and anyone else around the world to watch. (Wow...did that make sense to you?) Anyhow, I caught a little of today's course when I got home from work and I'm completely amazed at her. She had a little segment where she tried to do as many poses (I think) in one hour. After 60 (and 1/2) minutes, she ended up posing a woman 102 different times. And guess what? It was all in one little corner. I COULDN'T BELIEVE THIS!!! One hundred and TWO different poses in ONE HOUR!!! And that my friends is how great and talented this lady is. I am serious when I say this, a new goal in life is to meet Sue and give her a great big hug. :)

Once I got home from the boys' swimming lessons, I quickly grabbed my two nieces and my camera. I wanted to take advantage of the natural light that we still had coming through the living room window. First up is my littlest niece, my god daughter, who seriously cannot sit still! LOL..

And because I don't have the control to just chose one image, I decided to choose these three and stick them in a side-by-side..equaling one photo. :)

And because I can't just put one niece up on the blog, here is my other niece. She's the third child and she's the biggest diva I've EVER MET!! The little one above takes after this one.

She was just wearing house clothes and wasn't feeling too well. She's got a cough, but that doesn't stop her from jumping in front of the camera. It's funny because I asked her if she wanted her picture taken and she shook her head no. Of course a minute later she wants to jump in. Such a diva.

These photos lead me to my #3 love, black and white images. (Oh wait...it was listed as #2 above. Oh well, you understand. It's all there. :))

I LOVE black and white images. Always have, always will. Back in high school, when I took up photography we shot black and white film. (I soooo miss being in a dark room.) I love black and white images and how they bring out the emotion in a photo.

These images above looked good with their original color, but converting them into black and white just made my heart melt. So that's how I kept them. :)

Oh, and I tried channeling my inner Sue Bryce when I posed them. It didn't work as well because they're only 3 and 5 years old and so far I've only seen Sue pose teenagers and up.

Tomorrow I hope to be photographing and posting something other than my family, but it's not a guarantee. Sorry. LOL. 

Challenge...ACCEPTED! Day 1.

Wow...I literally just logged on and noticed that my last blog post was in June. JUNE.....really? I know I don't blog much, but that long? My bad...

Well, I guess that it's a good idea that I took on this new challenge. Okay, okay, I know that I've challenged myself in the past and never finished. I'm human! Things get in the way and laziness kicks in (I seriously hate the laziness!) The only way I can put it is at least I'm taking on the challenge, right? Every time I see a challenge that catches my eye, I ALWAYS struggle on if I should take it on or not. So instead of saying no and hating myself for not challenging myself, I say yes! If I fail, I fail.

This challenge that I'm taking on was created by the Ashley Goodwin. I recently started following her (through the internet...) and she's fantastic! She's got a great eye for fashion, design and photography and I absolutely LOVE her videos :)

Anyhow, she posted something on Facebook about a challenge that she's starting today. The challenge is to take a photo (preferably with your DSLR and NOT your phone) and blog about it. I know, I know, very simple. You say that, but have you ever blogged before? This challenge already had me thinking "Can I take this seriously?" "Will I be able to bring my Canon 7D with me everywhere and be able to snap a photo?" "Will I actually upload the photos and post it to my blog?" Or better yet "will I have the words to blog about this photo?" That last question is always a tough one because I never have the right words to say.

Well, even with all these questions floating in my head, I didn't want them to stop me from challenging myself. So with that said, my challenge will start today. Well, the photographing started today, the blogging will be starting tomorrow because I blog about it the night before. Does that make sense? Ha ha ha... I'm sure some of you will understand what I'm saying.

The photo I chose to share today, well, I don't know if this is cheating, but I'm choosing to share two photos. My sons (twin boys, age 5) started their second round of swimming lessons. During the first set of classes I always took a photo of them. Every day for two weeks. It was only right that I continue this. Yesterday I snapped photos on my iPhone. Today, I brought my Canon.

This first photo I liked because it was just shadows.

The shadow on the left is me and the one on the right is Aiden. We were sitting on the ground waiting for the previous class to end. Even though the water on the ground is interfering with the shadows, I still like it. It's not the usual 'people looking in the camera and smiling' type of photo.

This next photo I LOVE!

This is Aiden jumping in the pool (Troy is behind him in the green shorts). I love this because he looks like a leap frog, fully extended before he leaps into the pool. :)

I love, love, LOVE these boys and I'm sure you'll continue to see them throughout this challenge. But I promise they all won't be about them. :)

Until tomorrow, have a great day :) And don't forget to come back to see what I capture everyday!