Aperture

Alright, label me all you want, OCD, ADD, ADHD you name it I must have it.  Or, any combination of the group.  I am totally obsessed with learning real photography right now.  I have grown up with a Father who went though the same phase a few decades ago so it must be hereditary.  So, bear with me, I am going to document the process.  Tonight I worked on learning about aperture.  Here is a brief, non-technical explanation from the Jenny Joy Photography Blog.

Your aperture or f-stop setting contributes to how much light is allowed in to your lens. Picture yourself on a bright sunny day locked in a room with no artificial light, all the walls painted black and no windows. Pitch black. Get the idea? Now, imagine the difference in the amount of light allowed into that room with a porthole vs. a peephole. That is what your aperture setting does. It determines how much light is allowed to reach your image sensor (or film if you’re not shooting digital).

Here’s where it can get even trickier to understand. The smaller the f-stop, the larger the aperture size. The larger the f-stop, the smaller the aperture size. Again, my caveat on this entire explanation is that I am not trying to give you a master’s class or a deep technical understanding of photography concepts. So, let’s just cut to the chase and show you one of the most important practical uses of aperture; establishing a shallow depth of field (wide aperture) so that the background is out of focus drawing more attention and focus to the subject of interest.

More than anything I really wanted to figure out how to take a picture of a person or object and have the background slightly out of focus.  Now because of the ADD I have a really hard time sitting down with a book and reading about all the different f-stops and such.  But I buckled down and after some playing around, this is what I got.  

On a side note, please ignore the dust on table.  I wish I could become a little more OCD about house cleaning. And, I am neither ADD or OCD I just wish I had a acronym to explain my weird behavior.

Goodie Box

One of our good friends Janice, sent us a goodie box today full of fun flip flops.  Thanks Janice, you're so sweet!  This was also a great excuse to break out the camera and take some fun shots.  So here is my daily photo practice.

Wedding

I'm a little slow, but, Mike's brother Joe got married over Labor Day weekend in Colorado.  We are so excited for him and his new journey with his beautiful wife, Kirsten.  They seem to be made for each other.  Isn't that funny,  you can just tell when people fit.   I have never seen Joe so happy, it was wonderful.  

It's also fun to return to where you were married.  Mike and I were also married in the Denver Temple,  in the same sealing room.  It was wonderful to be back in that sacred place, in the same room, and feel of that spirit again.  Getting together with family just reminds us why we are here and why we try so hard everyday to make the proper choices.  It's so fun to watch families be created and grow.  While we were there we met our new niece Aubrey.  Mike's other brother Jim and his wife Amy had their new little one, just a couple of weeks before the wedding.  Great timing guys, way to work with the schedule!  

Visitor

We have a fun new visitor at our house.  Speedy joined the family on Saturday, thanks to the Houston bunch.  Christene called Saturday morning and said that they had found a Desert Tortoise in their yard and was wondering if we would want him.  So, right now we are trying him on for size.  He is supper cute (for a tortoise) and lots of fun to play with (once again for a tortoise.)  Translation, not the most exciting ride at the park, but a ride non the less.  Our kids have been asking for a pet, any kind of pet for quite a while now.  Neither Mike or myself are big animal people.  Let me rephrase that, we love animals, we just don't like the mess.  So for me a tortoise is the perfect answer to that.  From what I have been told, they are really low maintenance and they live in your back yard, not the house.  So...Speedy has yet to be named a permanent member of the family, he (or she) is here for an extended stay.  On a side note, my kids have spent more time in our backyard in the last two days than they have ever spent in the fours years that we have lived here. No joke!

New Toy

Here are the first pictures I took, right out of the box...

Now, if I only had the time to sit down and really learn how to use the thing!  Ragan beware, I am going to be giving you a call!

Happy Birthday Haley!

Haley turned eleven last week while we were in Colorado.  It was wonderful to spend the day with the family at Uncle Joe's and Aunt Kirsten's wedding reception.  The next day we had a family BBQ to celebrate her big day.  

Here are ELEVEN things I love about HALEY:

1. Her blue eyes, her lovely smile and her beautiful hair.
2. Her sweet side.  She can be so kind and loving to her siblings and to others.  
3. I love how everyday she comes strait home and without being told, she sits down and starts her homework.  This is something I really admire, I had a real hard time with that when I was in school.
4. Haley has a wonderful creative side.  She is definitely her mother's daughter.  She loves art and loves to draw and create wonderful things.
5. She loves action movies, once again a girl after my own heart.
6. She loves SUSHI and everything Asian.  There are days when I think she should have been born in Japan.
7.  Haley learns from life.  She can see the heartache that people encounter when they make bad choices and she strives to not make the same mistakes.
8. She is a loyal friend.
9. She's a fighter.  One of her qualities that I struggle with, however one that will help her out in this life.
10. She is a wonderful BABYSITTER!
11. She has always been my little friend, she is my Rory and I am her Lorelai.