End of Year Photo Roundup

Can someone please tell me how we got to December already? I am in the middle of the usual end of year frenzy and just noticed that I haven't even managed to update this blog with our Halloween pictures. I meant to do a big Halloween post but I guess it might have to be a fudged end of year post instead. 

We love Halloween and this year it was particularly brilliant. I'm not sure why given that it was mid-week but everyone in our neighbourhood threw themselves right into it. The kids had strong views over the vision they were going for and I pretty much left them to it. 

I think that they nailed it!

I took my big camera out for the second year in a row. I find this so difficult because it draws a lot of attention and I feel the need to down play what I am doing. Ideally I would be climbing into all sorts of crazy angles, or lying on the ground, but I had to try to content myself with a bit of pointing and shooting... and shooting... and shooting. 

As is often the case I feared that I was embarrassing myself for nothing. I could barely even see what I was doing most of the time because it was so dark. I just cranked the ISO right  up and went of it. I am so very glad I did because I managed to get some real keepers. We just love the whole ritual of trick or treating so much and I am delighted that I have some photos to remind me of it. I doubt that Roo will even come out with us next year. This precious time is drawing to a close. 

Next on our Autumn Bucket List was a trip to the midlands to visit Warhammer World. My husband has wanted to see this place his whole life and now the boys are really into it. It was actually pretty cool and as usual I had fun taking pictures.

The lighting was very challenging to work with in these pictures and I had to play around a lot in Lightroom to get something that vaguely looked like the real thing. 

But then I also had fun playing around with the colours for more dramatic effects. 

Bear and I do love a spinning shot.

We are also partial to a jumping shot...

The following day we went to the National Video Game Arcade. I do wonder how many of these places can we visit over the course of my kids' childhood? It is always a huge hit though. 

And a nice trip down memory lane.

I am still managing to capture something most weeks for the 52 project I am in. It can be very difficult to fit it in which is an indication that I am not ready to do another 365 anytime soon. Here are a few of my favourite ones.

Negative space. This gave me the opportunity to remind myself how to extend negative space into a wider frame in Photoshop.

 Warmth. The kids were totally on board with this one.

I am slowing drifting towards a more documentary style and have joined a couple of groups on Facebook. I think that this is likely to be the way forward for us as it just enables the kids to be themselves without any instruction from me. Every now and again they reward me with something totally crazy. 

I have been busy making photo books for ourselves and as Christmas presents for the grandparents. I have mixed feelings about the results and I am struck by how different photos look on screen and in print. I am also very frustrated by the fact that I cannot organise all of my photos in a neat photobook. There are just too many. It is a good exercise in only choosing the best but I might just start printing everything to keep loose in a photo wallet for years to come.

My other HUGE project has been scanning and cleaning up all my old childhood photos. It is taking forever but I hope it will be worth it. I would ideally love to get all of those into a nice photobook, which would make it so much easier to look at them.

More on that next year I suspect, but right now I need to be getting on top of Christmas.