Going to the beach...

... at least as close to a beach as you get in Central Ohio.

My friend Amber and I took all the kids (there were 5 of them!) to Alum Creek beach yesterday. I brought my new camera along, though I was well aware that the star of the show was swimming, and therefore there would most likely be little photo taking. I was right... my girls have turned into water babies, and when you add in Ambers 3 water babies, you get five kids who'd groan every time they'd come up on the 'beach'

Claire would frequently run from the water, up to the beach, grab one potato chip, eat it, run back to the water...

Get a potato chip


back to the water... up to the beach to get a potato chip


back to the water. At one point Ryan (the only boy in the group, poor kid) was crying in the middle of the water like the got hurt. Not hurt hurt, more like one of the other kids bullied him. We holler to him, and get him to join us on the blanket, and ask what hurts.... and then we were horrified


Notice that his ring finger nail is grey, and the others look normal. That's because a piece of sand (ie:small chopped up Ohio rocks) had gotten jammed under his nail all the way to the bottom. And man he took it like a trooper. Amber and I MacGyver'd up some tweezers (the pointy end of a Capri-Sun straw) and got the thing out. And then Ryan was fine, like nothing had happened.

Here look Heather!


He even smiled with his mommy for some pictures




I was really excited when I saw this picture in the lcd of my camera, because I love Ryans look in it. But I really love it now that I see Amber's face. It was bright out!


Ambers two older girls did a good job mother hen'ing the kids. Here's Zoe, trying to figure out what drink to get


and Fiona looking like the epidemie of California summer


However Fiona managed to look bored almost the entire time we were there. Sure you could argue that she's 8 years older than my kids, and has to play with her siblings all the time, so it's not like this was exciting for her... but still ;) She did have fun... I swear.

HEY FIONA! Hey, look excited for me! Please! Come on we're at the beach


'K thanks there. Good job.

How about you Zoe?


I'm dying to do a photo session with Zoe. Secretly when I was younger, I wished I had her coloring. I love red-heads all alabaster skinned and covered in freckles. I even colored my hair red through my senior year in high school like that would magically transform me into a ginger kid. I do feel bad for Zoe in the sense that she must get a ton of attention for her freckles. Olivia's take on it the first time she met her? "HI!! Hi Zoe! Look at you face, it's got spots! Yous gots some spots on you face! Why you got dem?" I think she'd gorgeous


Oh hey Claire, back for a chip?


So you might be asking, where is Olivia?


OLIVIA! HEY! Are you having fun?? Mommy would love to..


Olivia? Hey... mommy really would like..


and shes gone again. Olivia rarely left the water... but frequently joined other families. If she joined yours, I'm so sorry! She's a little odd like that. Look at those three amigoes though!


They had so much fun! But Amber and I knew it was time to go when, well the clock said it was close to work-time for me, and because of the seagulls.


Personally, I'm not much of a seagull fan. I find them aggressive and scary


So when they started hovering out blanket (can't blame them - we had small kids tracking chips everywhere) it was time to go


I love Alum Creek though. And it's a great place for photo sessions! Just sayin ;)

and I've upgraded!!!

I have been using the same gear that I got 2 years ago. Well, I take that back... I bought a new lens last year... but other than that, the equipment I used on a photoshoot last week is the same equipment that I used on photoshoots a year ago, and two years ago. I believe in learning your camera in and out before upgrading.

I finally decided to upgrade! My new camera arrived yesterday, and I LOVE it! I'm having some technical difficulties with the necessary Photoshop updates, but I'm confident I'll get those sorted out. In the mean-time, here's my first two images from my new camera... these are straight out of camera, no editting at all (because of the Photoshop difficulties) but I'm so pleased with how the images turn out even straight out of camera. It would not be possible to take images like these with my old camera without some kind of flash because of the low lighting.

I say all the time, it's not about the camera, it's about the photographer... but this camera rocks! ;)

The wedding dress and the coat

Every year around Olivia's birthday, I take pictures of her in my wedding dress. I saw someone on Oprah do it, and thought it was about the neatest thing since sliced bread. Given that it's July, I'm a little late. Here's a recap of the last 3 years:

2007

2008

2009

2010

But being a month late on Olivia's picture is nothing compared to Claire. I didn't do the wedding dress with her, because her birthday is in December, and I thought a strappy wedding dress in the winter was, well, cruel. So I take her picture with my fancy coat, that I bought the year before I had Olivia. I love that coat. I can't fit in it anymore. It's such a drag! So I took Claire's picture after her first birthday... and realized over the weekend that I never took hers after her second birthday. Why must December be so busy!!??!! So I took her picture in the coat the same day I did Olivia's. I figure having one at 2 1/2 instead of 2 is better than not having one at all.

2009 (really for 2008, but I took it in January)

and 2010 (really for 2009, but I took it in July, yuk!)

and the same picture, just playing around