Jenny jenny jenny

Jenny and I worked together at MedSpeed, and once she found out I was a photographer, Jenny had been asking for me to take headshots of her.  When I picked up my camera again, Jenny was my first call to get some much needed practice on.

I say much needed for a reason.  I decided to have exposure issues today.  I used to fall into this bad habit, where I tend to get excited when I shoot, and I don't pay attention to my meters when the sun changes.  When it comes to exposure, you have to pay attention to three things:  your ISO, your Aperture, and your Shutter Speed.  All have to be working in harmony to get a properly exposed shot.  If you take multiple shots in a row in the same lighting, and the first shot is exposed properly, the rest will be as well.  But once you change lighting, you have to check you meters.  If not, this happens

Dangit.  I only took two photos like this before I caught myself waay over exposing.  Still very sad, though, because I love Jennys expression in this one, and the other shots in this set up just weren't as cute.  Poo.  But we got a lot of great shots.  We joked it was like taking senior photos for adults.

I love someone not afraid of a camera, and Jenny loves herself a camera.  We started just laughing and joking around, and Jenny broke our emoji posing

Overall, I'm pleased. Still some cobwebs to shake off when it comes to shooting, but I'm so glad to be doing it again.  

Thanks Jenny for being my guinea pig!

next up in dogs I know

I'm apparently on a 'photograph dogs' kick. Or, I'm just encountering a lot of dogs in the beginning process of me getting back into photography.  Tomato tomato (that doesn't exactly work in print.....)

Anyways.........  Here's Milkshake!

Milkshake is my friend Emilys dog, and might also be considered a frequent flyer in the Nesser household of watching dogs.  Milkshake is some kind of mutt of a Bichon/Poodle/Cocker Spaniel grab bag of fun.  Milkshake is also still very much a puppy.  For ever shot I would get like this....

(randomly trying my hand at making the cluttered living room disappear.... dang that yellow pillow!)

But for every nice shot of Milkshake, there were about 10 of the 'real' him

Oh yeah -- there's the Milkshake we all know and love.  Got to love Otis in the background there (getting some sugar from his mommy) giving Milkshake some epic side eye.

Milkshake doesn't know any commands yet, and isn't as treat suggestable as I'd like, so I mostly just tried to catch him when he would rest from zooming around the room.

Sometimes the couch worked in my favor

Sometimes the couch was just a great way to lunge at me

Emily joined us on the couch for some mugging.

Thanks for letting me photograph you two!

We have a visitor

Meet Otis

What up Oat!  Otis is currently staying with us while his 'mommy' is recovering from a nasty compound ankle fracture. 

Otis is an old dude, and a little dude, so of course the girls love him to bits.  It was raining today, and I wasn't keen on going outside and taking photos.  I figured I could give Otis a run for his money though.  I kept breaking off little pieces of treats and only gave them to him little bits at a time.  This made for fun expressions.

While Otis loves it at my house, I am POSITIVE he prefers it at home.  Like I said, he's an old dude, and the girls keep him up and moving the entire time they're around him.  So every opportunity when they're not around, he sleeps.  I think he misses his quiet home.

But we enjoy him during the times we have with him.

It can't really have been four years..... could it????

Easter of 2011 was my last blog post?!  That can't be right!  It doesn't feel like it's been that long!

But alas, it has.  I took a break.  A hiatus.  A vacation (where I didn't go anywhere.)  I went through a divorce.  I changed jobs (a couple times.)  I discovered single parenting.  It's been a wild ride.  And through it, I've felt like I've been missing something.

I stopped taking photos because of the divorce.  Everything that was fun just stopped being fun anymore.  I guess that happens to people pretty frequently, or so I'm told.  I'd been struggling internally with wanting to take photos again, and fearing that it would leave me feeling empty like it did at the end of my marriage.  I had a lot of random signs from the universe (if you believe in that stuff) that I should get back to what I loved.

So.... I started with the people who inspired me to be a photographer in the first place.  I picked up my girls from school, and took them to the field across the street, and hung out and took photos.  At first, it went a lot like this.....

Turns out, the 7 and 8 year olds aren't as easy to buy into photoshoots as the 3 and 4 year olds of yester-year.  But I managed to get them to sit together, and randomly Claire had this goop stuff that just fascinated us all (and grossed me out a lot)

Claire has become a ham when it comes to taking her photo.  Its HARD to get her with a "normal" face.  I had waaaaay more forced hard grins to chose from than her normal pretty smiles.  Killin me smalls!

Seriously though, that goop was disgusting

I pretty quickly decided not to try to pose the girls, and just let them be them.  Which meant we disolved into cartwheeling and doing handstands.  Olivia has gotten incredibly strong!

Claire, however.....

 She tries!  She just puts too much momentum into her handstands, and flings herself everywhere.  And she doesn't quite have the upper body strength that Olivia has yet.  But she's determined, so I'm sure she's close to getting it.

So a lot of the rest of our time was spent upside down.

I'm glad to be back to taking photos.  And back to blogging.  It's something that I love to do.

Everyone should get to do what they love to do, and I'm lucky that I even have the opportunity to.

Consider the long post with lots of photos an apology for being gone so long.  I'm back.

Happy Easter!

Since Easter was right around the corner, yesterday when my sister spent the night at my house, I took her and my girls to my backyard to take some photos in their Easter dresses.

I learned a couple things while taking their portraits...

First - Olivia has become a ham



Oh yeah... that was the first picture I took of her





I did eventually get this out of her though



I also learned that Haley is growing up a little too quickly... I mean look at her!



But the girls still make her crazy...


And Claire... well... she's completely herself, 100% of the time









And I have to say... Look how great my yard looks!!!! It looked like utter crap last year! But a summer of ScottsLawn, and a fall/spring of diligent work, and look at it now! It's green and pretty!! YAY!

I hope everyone enjoys their Easter!!