Our Christnmas Tree!

We finally got the lights on our Christmas tree tonight!  I was trying to get a picture of both kiddos just standing there looking at the tree, but when they glanced at each other, I simply couldn't resist!  :P

They were even holding hands!

First Exhibition!



JoopJoop



So, the photography guild that I belong to held it's very first little exhibition last weekend and it was so much fun!  Honestly, hardly anyone came, but it was a blast hanging out for a few hours with the other members of the group & getting to know everyone a little better!  No one actually purchased any of my prints (I don't think anyone sold anything, actually), but nearly 1/4 of my business cards were gone by the end of the night!!  So, that's a good sign, right???



Lindsey Mills Photography



Anyway, our little group is refreshing itself for next year and it looks as though I may be the Vice President in 2012.  I've instructed folks to just start calling me "Veep".  ;-)

 

On a side note, I guess it's time for me to actually think about taking Christmas pictures of my kids, huh? I want it to be something fun & different & using Christmas lights somehow... I was thinking of borrowing these ideas from these incredibly talented photographers.







First Self-Portrait

Okay, so I was fooling around with my daughter's "camera" this weekend (it's really just a teeny jungle-animal viewfinder) and I caught myself in the mirror and thought, "hey, that's kind of cute & might make a good head shot!".  Which means, of course, I have to get in FRONT of the camera for the first time in a long time...

Well, I got everything all set up and snapped away.  It's a pain the ass to take your own picture.  Maybe there's some way to hook your camera up to your PC so you can see what you're doing while you're posing, but I didn't feel like trying to figure that out at 10:30PM.  So it was setup, snap, run around & check camera, setup again, snap again, run around again, ad nauseum until I got one that I thought might work.

Here's what I ended up with.

Cute, huh?

I wish the little "camera" were angled up a bit more towards my camera, but at this point it was 11PM and I have to get up at 5:30AM. :)

Callaway Gardens

Frangipani (Plumeria)

Okay, so if you're ever over on the Western border of Georgia (by Alabama, for the directionally-challenged out there), you really should consider stopping by Callaway Gardens for a day.  It costs just under an arm & a leg to get in ($18/adult, $9/child, 5 & under/free), but it's a wonderful way to spend the day.  They have bikes to rent (though I didn't see anything for pulling small children, which is really TOO bad) and miles and miles and miles of trails to ride on.

Pioneer Cabin

The place is HUGE (13,000 acres), home of the world's largest azalea display, an incredible butterfly conservatory, and a magnificent vegetable garden, where PBS' "The Victory Garden" is filmed.  Then, there's random weirdness like ping pong tables and a shuffleboard court, a pioneer log cabin to explore, and a stone chapel.

Their newest recreation is the Tree Top Adventure... this looked like so much fun; I was cursing the fact that my littlest one is only three and the staff at CG would probably frown on my hooking him up & dragging through a ropes course, 30' off the ground.  Well, that and my 5 year old is afraid of heights.  Boooooooooo.  They were both fascinated watching people come down the zip line, though.  That might be my selling point in a few years.

Lake on Golf Course

If you're more into golf, God knows there's plenty of that to be had at Callaway.  Though I haven't touched my clubs since I was about 7 months pregnant with my first born, the course at CG looked really nice.  It was a beautiful day here in GA (sunny, about 70 degrees), so the course was pretty busy, but not annoyingly so.  The course runs between several lakes, so at least you have something lovely to look at while you're waiting for the foursome of 90 year olds in front of you to get on with it.  Oh, and there were beverage carts driving around, too, I saw.  Adult beverage carts.  That certainly makes the waiting more tolerable.

So, anyway, if you're in the area, stop by.  

Photographing Children

Okay, so I know I'm biased, but I think my two little ones are pretty darn cute.  My son is such a ham and my daughter is so used to having a camera stuck in her face she barely even notices anymore until I holler at her to hold still.  I love photographing them.

I do not love trying to photograph them together.

Have you ever tried to photograph two race cars that are going in opposite directions?  Now, imagine if those race cars could shut their eyes or make strange faces.  Randomly with no warning.

That's what it's like trying to take a picture of two little kids together. All the pictures in this post started life as pictures of the two of them, one looking so sweet, the other looking like they're about to sneeze, throw up, or cry; or maybe even do all three at once.

I try not to let those pics throw me for a loop.  All I can say is "thank God for the crop tool in Photoshop". In this pic of my little girl, my son was rolling his eyes and picking his nose.  Yup.  Classy, that one.

Crop.

And then, look at this gorgeous boy!  He was smiling for all he was worth and his whole little face just lit up! My daughter, however, was blurry from rolling the grass, looking the other way and like she'd had one too many doses of children's NyQuil.

Crop. 

Of course, once in a while, it all comes together and you get the perfect happy-family-together pic.  Everyone's smiling, everyone's looking at the camera, everyone's eyes are open and no one's blurry.

When I get one of those, I'll post it.  Until then, I guess I'm stuck with funny faces!

Namaste.

Weekend Photo Ops

So, not that it matters to you, but I have a very busy weekend planned hopefully crammed full of great photo ops.  First, tomorrow morning, I'm off to The Great Georgia Air Show where I'll be hoping to catch some shots of an F18 Super Hornet and the A-10 Thunderbolt II East Demonstration Team.  It should be a great site for people-watching, too.  I'm going with the Griffin Photography Guild; you can check out our Flickr pool here.

Saturday night is open, but I'm sure I'll be busy using it to edit & upload a bunch of GREAT shots.  :)

Sunday, I'm up  & off to the GA National Fair with my 2 ankle-biters, I mean, sweet children, weather permitting.  As it stands now, they're predicting 40% chance of rain, but we'll see.  "They" are frequently wrong.  If we DO get there, I'm truly hoping to capture my version of the following, seriously overdone swing shot:


Photo by April Bauknight

Please note that I put this pic in as an example because I actually think this is one of the coolest of these types of pics I've seen.  Dreamy.

Anyway, with those shots and the inevitable other fair shots (riding-the-beat-up-pony, cotton candy stuck in hair, ice cream falling on ground, feeding the nearly dead goat, crying face when it's time to go home, etc.), my portfolio should grow by leaps & bounds in just a few hours.  Oh, and I actually entered some pictures in the photography contest there, but there some of my earlier shots so I'm not holding my breath.  But you can.

So, get out there, fellow photogs, and bulk up your portfolio a bit.