Challenge #... What number ARE we on??

Good morning class!! Number 1 is off today so I will be posting our homework for this weekend.

(Fingers crossed) Number 1 and I are going to Buzzfest this weekend so we thought we would make the concert our challenge. Now, I have my fingers crossed because one of number 1's boys has been a little under the weather. Everyone join me in a little prayer to the concert gods that he gets better and we are all set to go on Sunday.

It will be an AWESOME time at the concert since there are about 20 bands playing and our Monday posts might be a little late cause I am sure we will all be sleeping in after our rockin' music fest so please cut us a little slack.

Now, I know you are all wickedly jealous of us, but try and have a good weekend anyway.

Fun Family Weekend

Good Morning everyone! I had a wonderful weekend with my fam. I hope you all did the same. It has been a very long time since we were all together. I did the same as my sis and my family pics are of my adorable little nephews.

Now first let me say that I am not a people photographer. I take pictures of flowers and trees and airplanes. This was my first baby photo session so I apologize if the pics aren't the best. There are a lot of challenges with baby photography and even more with twins. You rarely get them both to look in the same direction at the same time and there is a lot of movement. Their cute little facial expressions are so quick that it's a challenge to catch them before they're gone. Not to mention the short attention spans. I must say, my nephews are naturals. They had the best temperament and let us mess with them for a long time before they had enough.

Now, as I was leaving my sister chellenged me to take one picture on the way home. There is a massive coal quarry that I wanted to take pictures of, but I was too chicken. There were a lot of danger and beware signs. Not to mention the NO TRESSPASSING signs. I didnt want to get arrested so I settled for a more legal photo op. This is the long road to my home. I hope it satifies you sis.

Love them baby boys!!!

I hope everyone had a great weekend!! Hangin out with the fam was wonderful. I think this is the first time that we have all been together in a really long time. Too bad noone thought to get a picture of that. But we did get a bunch of beautiful pictures of our brand new AWESOME nephews-Ben and Liam. They are the first babies in our family in almost 9 years so we are very excited and blessed to have them. They were so good through all of the wardrobe changes and adjusting that we did. When these boys are old enough I am definitely going to give them a cookie-Until then I will just give them all of the hugs and kisses that I can get away with.

Fingers crossed that everyone has an AWESOME week!!

Talk to you all on Friday!!!

#1

It's Finally Friday!!!

So is it just me or does it feel like it has taken forever to get to this point. I have been tired and grouchy all week long so I am very grateful that the weekend is here.

For this weekend we decided that our topic would be FAMILY, we are getting together with ours so we thought why not focus on it. So do whatever it is that enters your creative mind and run with it. We haven't exactly decided what our plan is yet, but we agreed that once #2 gets to my house that we would do something creative and awesome. So come check us out on Monday and see what we decide on. I look forward to seeing what everyone ends up doing. Remember the big word for this weekend is FAMILY-So get out and enjoy being with yours, I know that we will.

Until Monday!!! Have a great weekend!!
#1

Challenge #6 Results

Okay, so after reading my sis's post I dont feel as bad. I didnt get an opportunity to take pictures. In my defense, getting a house ready to sell is hard work. By the time I got home I was too exhausted to go take pics. Plus, it was raining. Yes! I know I could have taken photos in the house, but the whole point of my useless babble is that I wasn't feeling it this weekend.

However, I do have some older photos that I haven't posted here before that I could share to prove that I do know how to take macro and motion pics.

Ok-I am officially a loser this fine Monday morning. I got up late so therefore was running late and in my rush to leave the house I left my camera at home. I know shame on me. But I didn't want to come here empty handed so I ended up digging through photos that I had on my computer. So I am cheating this morning.
For macro I found these pics that I really loved when I took them.
Also, if you check out our green post there is another good example of a macro photo that I took.

Next we come to motion. This picture I took while driving down a country road. I know how dangerous but I just love the way the lights dance across the picture and I don't think it would of happened quite like this if I hadn't been the one driving.

Hopefully I will remember my new stuff tomorrow to share with everyone. Or maybe I will get motivated and post tonight once I get home.
Until next time!!
Everyone have a truely AWESOME week.
#1

Challenge #6

This has been a long, exhausting week for me and I am super glad it is finally Friday. Whoever said sleep was overrated needs me to punch them in the face. And if my husband tells me I can sleep when I'm dead one more time then he is going to find out exactly how much sleep a dead person does get.

Whew! I think I need a break...

The challenge for this weekend is motion and macro photography. I hope everyone has the equipment required for this. If you dont, then you will just have a lot of blurry photos which could be cool if you blur them right so be creative.

Now while I was discussing this with #1 she told me that booger shots are out so let's keep it clean people. As for me, I will have to come up with a new idea. Thanks a lot sis! I had this idea on how I could combine macro and motion with one snot.. I mean shot.. I would have used a tissue :/

Have a good weekend folks and enjoy the challenge. Talk to ya Monday - #2

Challenge #5 results (is that what number we are on??)

Goooooooood Morning everyone!!

Just kidding, I'm really not in THAT good of a mood. I had a grrreat weekend. I did ABSOLUTELY nothing on Saturday. Unless you count napping then I did two things.. :)

Sunday was a much different story however. I woke up at 6:30 to watch my neighbors run a half marathon (Pictures are on Flickr, but not here). I am happy to report that they both finished and they were still running when they crossed the finish line. I got home pretty early in the day after that and I spent the rest of my day taking photos.

I got a couple of good black and white nature photos, but my real results came with the water photography. This turned out easier than I expected. My only disappointment was that I didnt have a multi-colored dish to use. I just got a yellow mug and sat it in my kitchen sink. Then I situated my camera on a tripod with my 300mm lens. We dont want splashes on our lens. Getting the tripod situated right was my biggest problem but once I got it right everything else went pretty smoothly. The timing is a little tricky and I did find that I got better splashes if I put a few drops of dish soap, but then I started to get bubbles. I got my faucet to drip.. drip.. into my mug to get my droplets. I took about 100 photos but I only posted my favs on Flickr. I posted my 2 best shots here.

I hope everyone else had good luck with their photos. Have a grrrreat week!

Monday Already??

It's Monday already?? I don't know about everyone else but I am so TIRED today. It feels like a typical Monday-You know the one where you have to get up but don't want to and when you finally do NOTHING goes right-That has been my morning so far. It was sooo foggy out this morning and I think people forget how to drive when the slightest thing happens so I was very late this morning and I hate starting a week out this way. Ok-I know enough whining so I will stop right there.
On the bright side I had a good weekend, actually I got my new furniture yesterday so I had an AWESOME weekend. When I was out and about doing the weekend challenges I couldn't help but think how ironic it was that we picked B&W nature. I have been complaining for months about not having anything of color to shoot and when the wildflowers finally come out we decide to shoot B&W. But that is ok-I got my B&W pics and then I went color crazy. Here are my faves.


I tried the water drip-Very frustrating. I could not get this to work quite right. I will admit however that I didn't quite put the effort that I should of into this. I think I will try again off and on this week and see what I can come up with but until then here is my pathetic attempt.

I hope everyone has a great week!! And I truely hope that your Monday morning has been better than mine.
Take Care!! #1

It's the WEEKEND!!!

#1 here,
Hope everyone had an awesome week. I know I did. The weekend is here-so it is time for some relaxation, but don't relax too much we still have our lovely challenges to think about.

#2 and I were brainstorming on what to do this weekend when we both came across one of our fave sites and their idea just jumped out at us. DPS you are AWESOME!!!!
So unto our challenges:

Challenge #1- Black and White Nature-we all love black and white and we all love nature so this should be fun combining the two.

Challeng #2- Water drops- we have seen several pictures of this and they all look AWESOME and we have read and watched many tutorials over this. So we thought hey lets give it a try. We will posts the best ones as always. We will also try to post pointers on what we did, what worked and what didn't. Hopefully we will all come up with some really good stuff and not get too frustrated if it doesn't go the way we want it to (mmm-smoke).

Everyone have a safe and happy weekend. Until later!
#1 is out!!

Easter Challenge Results

Morning everyone! I hope you all are feeling better than I am. I am a bit... Hungover. I had my brother and his wifey over for Easter and we hit the bottle until there were no more bottles to hit. Boy am I glad I didnt buy any more booze. I sure hope they got home safely.

Now for the challenge! I think Spring turned out pretty well. This is a tree that we planted a few months ago and it is budding nicely. I put my camera on the ground and shot straight up the trunk.


Unfortunately I dont have face planting kiddos to photograph at Easter time. Kids really do make the best subjects. I took a picture of the tulips my husband got me for Easter. Don't be jealous. It took several years to train him like I want him.

Lastly, I attempted smoke again. It was still freakin hard. I did notice that the longer I worked with it the better my photos got. I guess practice really does make perfect. Too bad I got tired and bored before I got perfect. Here is one of my good ones. It would have been better if I had the appropriate back drop. Maybe if I decide to go into smoke photography for a living I will buy better equipment.

Well, I posted my 3 best but I do have more on Flickr so you should check them out. I had fun this weekend and I actually tried harder on this challenge than I normally do. Yay for me!

Spring and Easter!! Smoke again??

How was everyone's weekend?? Mine was truely GREAT-the best one I have had in quite sometime. I finally have blinds on my windows at home so all is wonderful in my life :) Now if I can finish moving in completely all will be perfect.
I hope everyone had a great Easter-Mine was a lot of fun. I got a big kick out of watching my boys hunt for eggs. My two oldest ones were imitating various video games so it was hilarious to watch until my oldest slipped and landed on his face. He just got a few scratches so no big deal.
I really enjoyed this weekends challenges (all except for smoke-UGH it just doesn't like to cooperate)
Easter (Sorry no pics of the face plant)

Spring (I have lived in Texas for like 18 years and this is the first time I have taken pics of the pretty Bluebonnets)

Smoke (was very frustrating but I think it looks better than last time)

Well, this is all I have. Have a great week!!!
Until next time,
#2

Challenge #4

I am stoked about this weeks challenge. Easter and Spring kinda go hand in hand so it should be easy, peasy. Lets all hope for sunshine, so we will have plenty of opportunities to complete these. Just wanted to add a quick note and wish everyone a Happy Easter!!
#2 is over and out!! Peace!!

Well, April has arrived. It seems like just yesterday it was January. My how the months fly by. Anyhoo... Enough of that.

So I spoke with #1 and we decided that we were both unequipped and ill prepared for the smoke challenge and now that we are a week older and wiser we are ready to tackle it again. Not to worry though, for those of you that have mastered smoke pictureing we will assign new challenges. For those of you that would like to attack smoke and completely mop the floor with it, we welcome your entries on Monday.

In addition to smoke the new challenges for this weekend are Spring and Easter. Go figure, huh. We thought we would be different and pick a couple of random topics out of the blue. So collect your Easter eggs, make some Deviled Eggs (how did THAT tradition start?? Isn't Easter about the resurrection of Christ and you celebrate with some Devil eggs??), and get out and enjoy the sunshine!

I apologize, my mind sometimes wanders when I type.

I wish you all the best and have a wonderful Easter weekend.

Finally!!!

Ok-So this has taken me practically all week. But better late than never-right? I had planned on getting really creative with this but things did not end up happening that way. I did complete it and that is what counts-Atleast for this time around. Next time I will do better and get in on time-fingers crossed.

Smoke was the first one that I completed. This one was a lot tougher than I thought it would be. I took about 100 pics and was only really semi satisfied with this one. I did this by holding up a burning incense against a black background.

For my photo about me-I included everything that is important to me. My kids, my sister and my hubby are the most. And you might think I am crazy but Blue October is pretty important too. I see my kids and hubby everyday. I try to talk to my sister everyday and I definitely listen to Blue October everyday. There are other things that I could of and probably should of included in this (mom, dad, brothers-i promise you are important too)But these were all of the items that I had on hand at the time. That is what happens when you are in the process of moving.

WOW it has been a really fast week!!!
Til tomorrow when a new challenge arises.
#1 is OUT!!!