Life Inside the Doll House

The house is tingling with excitement tonight as we are preparing to go on holiday tomorrow. We decided to stay in the UK because we couldn't face a long journey with the children. No siree, this holiday is all about quality time and relaxing. Before we start relaxing there is still the mammoth task of packing the car. I never fail to underestimate the enormity of this task.  We had some fun with shadows before bed. I never want this summer to end. f/4.5; 1/400; ISO 100 f/4.5; 1/400; ISO 100 f/4.5; 1/400; ISO 100 f/4.5; 1/400; ISO 100 f/4.5; 1/400; ISO 100 f/2.5; 1/160; ISO 200 It was a little hard to know where I should be focusing on the shadow pictures I went for heads in the end. They were tricky to edit too. The colours were all over the place.  I won't be able to post pictures on the blog while I am away, but rest assured that I will be taking at least a gazillion pictures every day. 

Wednesday is my long day at work and I have very little home time to take photos. So far I have managed this by grabbing a quick couple of shots in the morning before I go to work. Rexy steals the show today with his big blue eyes. f/3.5; 1/60; ISO 800 f/3.5; 1/60; ISO 800 It is just as well that Rexy was still sleepy and not moving much. Otherwise I would never have gotten away with that shutter speed. I like these photos of him. He looks happy and relaxed. School is finally out for summer and we are preparing to go on holiday for a week. We are beyond excited to be spending some time relaxing together. Of course I will be taking my camera and having fun taking pictures in new locations. 

We did not have a brilliant evening of photography. Everyone was too tired and a little bit ill. I decided to keep expectations low and take some quick pictures of the boys once Bear was asleep. This is a risky strategy because I could easily end up with nothing for the day. I figure that I can always take a doll photo to fill in on days when the kids just aren't up to it. I am looking forward to experimenting with my custom white balance setting with artificial light in the evenings.   First, we went for the kiddy feet option. Photos of babies feet are very cute. I am not sure what age feet stop being cute, but we went with it anyway because I think that they will be nice photos to look back on when I am older and even more sentimental. Well, it would be nice if they were in focus... There might be more feet photos later in this project. I think that we are still within the cute range, but I need to factor in that they are my kids' feet and I am most likely biased.  f...

I managed to snap a couple of shots of Rexy having an after school drink using AWB and Custom White Balance. The pictures were taken in our kitchen, where we have taken no end of horrible off colour pictures. This is a shame because we usually do birthday cake celebrations in this room. I am so excited by the difference. Here they are completely unedited. f/3.2; 1/100; ISO 800                           f/3.2; 1/100; ISO 800 We have collected a lot of Playmobil over the years. Bear is loving playing with it outside. She will spend ages chatting and singing to herself as she plays. More often than not the game involves some small creature or child "crying for his mummy". Not sure what to make of that...  f/3.2; 1/800; ISO 400 We made bubble mix today and discovered that using straws gives you the cutest little baby bubbles. You just have to remember to blow and not suck! f/3.2; 1/250; ISO 20...

I managed to set the custom white balance on my camera today. I was very excited by the results and I hope to play around with it again tomorrow. The card is awkward to carry around so I have added one of those lens cap thingys  to my wish list. We spent some time at the park today. Often it is best to just get out of the house when all five of us are home at once. I am finding outdoor photography extra tricky. I only had my 50mm lens with me, which certainly was a challenge in a wide open space. I would love a zoom lens but can't decide which one to aim for. The kids where jumping about so much that I had trouble keeping up with them. Also, I find it difficult to see the playback in bright sunlight and usually have to wait to see what I have got when I get into the shade. It can make judgements about exposure more difficult. f/5.6 ;1/500 ; ISO 400 f/3.5 ;1/640 ; ISO 200 Speaking of exposure, I am still baffled by why the meter sometimes says 0 and yet it is clearly ove...

Today I switched my camera to back button autofocus as suggested by Courtney Slazinik at Click it Up a Notch . I used  this  video tutorial, which pretty much told me everything I needed to know.  I have been playing around with it all day, and I think that I like it. It's pretty easy to get the hang of except for when the kids are jumping about a lot and then it can feel a bit fiddly. I must have taken a million photos with it today and I am in no rush to switch it back. It might even stay for good.  It was hard to choose photos today. First up, Bear listening to her favourite tunes - What does the fox say ? and Gummy Bear . She takes her music very seriously.  f/1.8; 1/250; ISO 200 f/1.8; 1/250; ISO 200 The boys had a long over due haircut. Here is Roo sporting his.  f/3.2; 1/640; ISO 200 Bear got a new Dora sticker book. I love that she loves stickers. She followed up with a quick snack and then got busy walking her "bab...

Today was a Bear day. Once we dropped the boys off to school, we packed a quick picnic and went to meet a friend and her dog Bonnie. Today was the hottest day of the year so far so we settled ourselves under a big tree for most of the morning. It was a lovely morning and I enjoyed having the opportunity to take photos in a different setting. SS 1/4000 ; f/3.2 ; ISO 200 What a ridiculous shutter speed! Clearly the ISO should be 100. It was so sunny that I couldn't see the readings on the camera. Also I was distracted by my friend and Bonnie being there. I need to build up my confidence in taking my camera out in public.  SS 1/800 ; f/3.2 ; ISO 200   I decided to change the white balance setting on this one because they were coming out kind of funky. They looked better on the daylight setting.  SS 1/800 ; f/2.8 ; ISO 200  Home, exhausted and very sweaty. SS 1/80 ; f/2.8 ; ISO 800 I took some pictures later on in the day and I used my 18-55m...

My poor boys are exhausted and desperate for school to break up for the summer. In fact, we are all ready for a break. School certainly is winding down now and the boys have had lots of fun activities today like a book fair and a whole class water pistol fight! I have stumbled across some good tutorials today. I read them but still need to fully grasp the concepts in them. I am slowly getting a feel for the relationship between shutter speed, aperture and ISO. I found  this  tutorial useful and I loved the analogy of exposure being like filling a glass of water. This  follow on tutorial from the same source was also very good but went a bit beyond me and my exhausted brain. I will need to set aside time to read it again. I still get confused about which direction is higher/lower in shutter speed and aperture. The tutorial states that: "Shutter speeds are expressed as fractions of a second, so 1/50 is a longer period of time than 1/200. However, when people say “hig...

Today was Wednesday, my long day at work. Luckily I managed to take some photos of the boys just before bed. I have come to love the light that spills into my bedroom at this time of day. What on earth are we going to do for light when autumn sets in? I am hoping that the custom white balance will help me out. I also need to read some tutorials on finding light in your house. SS 1/125 ; f/2.8 ; ISO 200 SS 1/125 ; f/2.8 ; ISO 200 SS 1/640 ; f/3.2 ; ISO 200 I really like this last image. I imagine that others might find the blurred Rexy distracting and ideally the background would be blacked out a little more. I like that they are both in the picture as for me it tells the story of their different ages, levels of maturity and personalities. The numbers on this photo are really interesting to me. They fell together quite nicely. For a change I edited this picture to be darker.

I am a little cross with myself tonight. It was sports day at the boys' school and I didn't feel quite confident enough to bring along the DSLR. Lots of other parents had theirs and I feel that I missed the opportunity to catch some good photos. I feel that I need a zoom lens for days like this, but I am stuck on what would be the best one to get. There is so much choice and I don't want to make a mistake on choosing the wrong one. To be fair to myself, I also worried that I would get too hung up on getting good photos and miss out on just enjoying the day. I managed to get some quick snapshots on my phone, which is certainly better than nothing.  We all had a great day and the boys were proud of their achievements. I took my 365 project photos when we got home.  I just love this dress on Bear and I wanted to catch it in motion. I have been playing around with the metering mode. I still can't decide which setting I prefer. I saw a nice book on ...