Double-hitter

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I left Columbus on Sunday in time to get to my friends Jill and Alan's wedding. It was incredibly beautiful and elegant, and I am SO happy for them!

Brian took these shots (thanks BD--this is one of my favorite pics ever with Christie!). The story behind them cracks me up. I was holding Lorien (clearly) and she was awake, babbling a little, etc. Then the next thing I know her weight pitches forward and she goes limp. I momentarily panic until I see that little-one has just fallen asleep really hard, really fast. These two picture were taken within seconds of each other and she fell asleep in that time!

LA is a MRS!

Laura Anne is now MRS. Laura Anne Rogers! I'm so excited for her, and I had so much fun with her, her family and her friends over the weekend. I'm super excited for her and David!

Wedding shots.

I struggled with picture taking at LA's wedding weekend. There was an aunt who was quite the photographer at every event, I was usually distracted by other things...I just didn't get a lot of pictures in. Speaking of pictures, I cannot WAIT to see the pictures her (incredible) photographers got.

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Her dress. It was beautiful.

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Laura Anne and her sisters. So lovely!

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The wedding festivities kicked off with a girl's night and lingere shower. I thought that this was such a cute pic of one of LA's BFFs Christen, who is having her baby very soon!

An a-game week of shooting. Sorta.

I call this an a-game week of posting because I consistently remembered to do my shot each day. Sorta. Kinda. Read on and see.

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I was told it was hard to capture sky and clouds in pictures when you're shooting on manual and get everything else in the image to look correct...no kidding. Sigh.

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As I was preparing for LA's wedding it was necessary to break in my heels for the weekend. Cue cleaning my room in them at 11:30 before going to sleep. It's not like I would wear them to work--I wouldn't make it!

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See! The "sorta!" I got home and realized I needed a picture. I turned out all of the lights in the kitchen and tried a few times to get a picture of a match lighting--fail. So I played around with a candle for a while instead. I don't like this picture (or actually, any of them in this post), but practice is practice.

Self-portrait in lamp.

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Just some practice with ISO and shutter speed.

Adventures in Babysitting, part ?!

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I really enjoy babysitting. It's (usually) fun, passes the time quickly...all around positive. I got to spend the weekend nannying for one of my favorite families. There is a lake near their house so the first evening we went for a walk (with me armed with my camera and on snake look-out) to it. The little girl LOVES to have her photo taken, so I got some cute shots for her parents. But those won't be on here. These will though...

The top right picture were the "treasures" she found. She had a lot of fun setting up the pictures. The bottom right picture was from my commitment to get a awesome water splash shot. She was happy to oblidge by throwing many rocks into the lake. The whole thing would have worked better with a different lens, but you gotta work with what you got. I have like 20 of those pictures now, and I can't make myself get rid of them (yet. I'm sure I'll get the urge to purge pictures soon). I really like the lighting in the top left shot, even if I'm not in love with its framing.

Guilty evidence. She came across some berries and I told her, "hey, you shouldn't pick those up, they'll stain your hands." Repeat a couple times. I turn my back to take a picture and I hear a small "uh-oh." I just have her promise to not lick her fingers before we get home.

She was eager to want to play with my camera. I was not so eager about that idea. I compromised by putting everything on automatic, putting the neck strap around her neck and having her lean against a fence. She took my picture, and loved it (I think she likes the click sound). She then told me she had a tough decision to make. What, I asked. "I need to decide if I'm going to be a teacher or a photographer. Or a lifeguard."

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Following a 6 a.m. wake-up we went to one of my favorite parks. Why my favorite? It has these swing-y seats that you spin around in really fast. They're incredible. I decided it would be fun to try to get one of those soft-blurry pictures while I was spinning around really fast (and I did have a plan in mind in how to save the camera if I spun off the chair).

As you can see, that idea failed. Because the lighting was so harsh (noon) I had to set the shutter speed really high, so I couldn't get it low enough to get blurry. All that really happened from this is that I (not the 6-year old I was sitting) got sick from getting to dizzy from spinning. A win of the situation is that she (finally) decided to get on them (and decided she liked them).

Following our afternoon I decided to make dinner (to her chagrin; she was holding out for pizza). I wanted to make it fun for her, so I taught her how to make garlic bread, and let her make it.

It was more like oregeno bread. But she was proud of herself. And had fun.

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This was just ISO practice. Nothing special, just trying to learn.

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I shot with Clark at the Botanicals between work and prayer. Always lots to learn...

While we were shooting, I came across this butterfly. And I was able to get pretty close without it flying away (Clark didn't have the same luck). But I'm pretty enamored with the pictures, which is why 3 of them made it onto here...

365 Project Posts

257.

Reunited! It had been far too long since I had seen my friend Christie (and baby Lorien). Since I had seen little Lorien last, she has gained some rolls, some more hair, neck muscle-tone, and her fun little personality was showing so much more. Oh, and she's started rice cereal. So precious!

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I took some pictures today at the prayer room downtown for the Link blog, and after I got the ones I needed, I had some camera-practice with one of the prayer prompts. Here are some other pics I took.

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Fellow-shipping at Link!

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Following a shift at the GAP I went off to take some family pics for a friend. She wanted some pics, I needed some practice...excellent. I'm really pleased with how some of them came out. I won't put them up on the blog, but I thought that this one was okay since Juli made it her profile picture. I love this family!

Following family picture time I went over to the condo for some work. The condo renovations are going to have their own blog post and facebook album, but this is what the kitchen DID look like. Note past tense. Saturday night was filled with priming away the red!

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I don't know where my daily shots are from this week...they'll turn up. Keeping moving forward though...(name that movie reference!)

Today was The Gathering, a gathering of four local churches for fellowship and worship. It was SUCH a lovely evening, and I am so thankful.

At the pond...

I didn't put this picture up anywhere else yet, but it makes me laugh really hard when I see it, because of the story behind it. I came over to take some pictures of the group sitting here and decided hey, I want to be in one! It was a minor-disaster. People were falling out of chairs, cameras flying...here's the pic I walked away with. Love it.

Go visit here for more pics I took from today.