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

The Adventures of Bokeh the Ragdoll - Day Two!

(continued from yesterday, staying in Bokehs voice)

Monday I went to FedEx Ground.


Normally I pass through these places only able to hear them, so this was something different to be able to see it. There are two main areas - the area that loads up trailers in the evening, and the area that loads the vans that get delivered in the morning.

This is me in the area for the trailers. Each set of rollers back up to a door where the trailer is... there's over 50 doors on this side, and space on the other side of the facility for 20 more! In peak times, all the doors are used!


When I went to the area that loads the delivery vans, they let me sit in the drivers seat of a bulk truck.


HI!!


All the packages travel 'up stairs.' They call it that because it's actually up a big set of stairs. The packages travel on the belts really fast!


And they all go through a scan tunnel that scans all the sides of the box at the same time - even the bottom! How does it do that?? Hey, it's me Bokeh, in some bokeh!!


There's all these slides everywhere, to get packages from one place to another. I want to slide down this one! It's really really big!


Everyone has to go through security when they leave. They walk through metal detectors, and anything they brought in has to be put in these buckets for the guards to check. Good thing no one's given me any jewelry yet - jewelry is prohibited!


Does this clock say the time I think it says!?!?! Good thing my eyes are sewn open, or I'd have a hard time staying awake!


In the morning, we got me all packed up for my next stop - Michigan! Passport - check. New socks - check. A platypus to call my own - triple check!


And I'll miss these two!!! Olivia and Claire (and Heather of course) have been wonderful hostesses!


See you Ohio! It's been fun!!

The Adventures of Bokeh the Ragdoll: Day One

I'm a member of a photography forum... I'm a bad member in the sense that I'm terrible at responding and starting my own posts, but I love the forum because the photographers are all really supportive of one another, and they're a wealth a knowledge. One member created Bokeh. Bokeh is a ragdoll. She's traveling around the globe to all the photographers on our forum... each photographer is adding an article of clothing to her, and then photographing her around their hometown. Once Bokeh's traveled around and makes it back to the beginning, the head of this is going to auction her for breast cancer research. It's a pretty cool project!

Bokeh is in Ohio right now! That's right, I have Bokeh. So, in the bizarre-ness that is me, the rest of this post is going to be from Bokeh's perspective.

So I arrived in Ohio on Saturday night. So far I've been to Florida, New Hampshire, and Maine. On Father's Day, the Nesser family took me to the Columbus Zoo. According to them, Jack Hanna loves this zoo, and it's kind of a big deal.

I got ready, and rode in the car with Olivia.


This is us at the entrance


The big deal right now is Polar Bears. I guess the Columbus Zoo just built a whole area just for Polar Bears. When we got to the polar bear entrance, I saw this sign


WHAT?! Are there polar bears just roaming around?!!? Well, we found these statues. Claire had taken over guiding me around, and her and I rode the smaller bear

Turns out there aren't polar bears just wandering around... but there is a glass wall where you can see polar bears swimming over you. Claire showed me the bears above us, but I was still a little freaked out that they might get me.








The Nesser girls are learning about taking turns, so Olivia guided me to the flamingoes.


Flamingoes are Heather's favorite part of the Zoo, because they're really close, and are always out. I could see why she likes them...


...until the ones behind me started fighting! They get really big, and bite at each other... I was ready to go


The aquarium is the girls' favorite part of the zoo. Personally, I liked the sea horses... just my size!


Claire's turn to guide again... she and I are buddies now.




It was a hot day, and I was ready to head home. The girls wanted to play on these warthog statues. I asked if I could just sit on the bench and watch. Luckily for me, the girls were fine with that.


Day one in Ohio has been a lot of fun!