A dream

It was a typical Moms night out - I met with some gals for an evening of good food, wine and great conversations. I came home around 9PM and Daddy had the duty of putting Alex to bed that night. He went to sleep at his usualy time, but kept waking up and crying. He woke up twice since I had gotten home and it's usually best if the one who puts him to bed goes in there and settles him back down, lest he get all excited. But, by the third time, I braved the crying kiddo and went in. I asked him what was wrong, did he have a scary dream?

He said "yeah - scary dream"

I asked if it was about his bicycle (something that isn't scary - but a chance for him to say no and then tell me)

He said "No - boats"

We had a long coversation about boats, water, waves, boots and cold.

Guess what show him and Daddy had been watching on tv on Mom's night out?



It's called the Deadliest Catch - a show about Alaskan crab fishing with lots of scary, dark, boats, water, waves, boots, cold. All of it!


I calmed him back down and he was asleep for the rest of the night. Although, Daddy and I did have a converstion, as well, about appropriate shows for a 2 year old!!!

Strawberries!!!!

Happy Father's Day

So, Dad - do you want me to add some cinnamon to the french toast?

Yeah - OK. I'll help you out, since it's Father's day and all.

Dad - just for you - I'll help you stir it up. And I'll help you eat it all, too
!

Happy Father's Day!

corn on the cob

We had corn on the cob for the first time this year and I snapped some really great pictures of Alex enjoying his first corn on the cob. He loved holding it just like we did even though he didn't make much progress on eating it - it sure was fun!

Photography Workshop Day 2

As if Day 1 wasn't enough...

Day 2 started with a writing exercise about what had shifted for us since Day 1. We took about 5-7 minutes to write - what ever we were thinking... what ever came up....

Some of the amazing women shared what they wrote and we laughed and cried along with them. One woman was frustrated that she thought she knew her camera better and was dealing with remembering a miscarriage and another woman was wondering who she was - deep down. She has stayed home for the past 6 years and had never been away for a night without her kids. I was crying along side her, sister! Who I am is in such flux right now - with being laid off. You'd think that your work doesn't define you.... until you get laid off. I saw Lance go through it and now I can see myself going through it. Who AM I? What do I want? Is THIS what I want? How do I get there?

We then worked on metering and flash work, and then quickly went to a university campus nearby for an outdoor session with a family! This session was so much fun! Me Ra SHOWED us how she works with a family and her strategies (usually working with group shots before kids get tired of sitting still, then let them go and see what fun photos you can get of their personalities!).

See - here are the posed shots of the family - the must have shots for any family shoot!

And here are the some of the fun shots!

Then it was our turn...

I shared a family with 4 other fabulous women and we had a wonderful family with 2 girls and 1 baby boy. This little girl was lit up and loved the camera! And Ohh those curls!

We snapped some lovely shots of them sitting on the steps hugging each other. I can just imagine them years from now (many many years!) loving this picture of them as youngsters.

And a more intimate hug... Ahhh - how cute!

After all that and lunch we talked about post-processing (in film days this would be the dark room but these days its on the computer), starting a photography business, marketing. Whew! It was a long day.

What I learned this weekend is that I can better control my camera - how I choose it to be done. I have the ability to master this - it just takes practice, practice, practice. I also learned a lot about fear - my fear of signing up for a photography workshop was conquered, my fear of not knowing anyone at this workshop was conquered, I even met new friends and it was fabulous! Fear can sometimes be something that keeps you from doing something that isn't really scary at all. Like starting a business for the fear that you will fail. I think this was my biggest moment of the weekend was that if you don't even start - then you can't fail. But if you just start, then you may just succeed. She also talked a lot about being an artist (not just a photographer) and how we all "see something shimmering in us that wants to be creative and create" (or something like that) and it really struck home for me. Being a scientist - I didn't think I was "creative" until a couple of years ago and I learned that I loved ideas. I loved coming up with tons and tons of ideas. It was then that I realized that I was creative and I've been trying to become more in touch with that everyday. This is just one way I'm doing this for myself.

Alex and Daddy had a lot of time that weekend to be together and have some quality time. He did great, but when I got home on Sunday night and took him to preschool on Monday morning - I could tell he missed me - and I missed him. It was difficult to leave that morning and he started acting out. I think it was that he wanted more attention from me so I've been making a particular effort to give him more undivided attention. He just soaks it up!

Overall - a wonderful weekend. I would highly recommend her workshops to any women out there!

Day 1 in Black and White

I usually forget about turning photos Black & White but I was reminded of what it does to a photo. It's so timeless and simple. I think these two photos look fabulous in B&W.

Photography Workshop Day 1

What a fun time I had a couple of weekends ago! It was amazing, inspiring and fulfilling to say the least. We met at Me Ra's house on Friday night for a meet and greet. There were locals there along with people who had flown in from across the country. We had all been introduced by email and I found out that another fellow workshop attendee was living very close by, so we decided to carpool together the entire weekend and I feel so lucky to have met her. She is a lot like me, loves photography, a working Mom. We got along great. We had a great time at the meet and greet and didn't get home until about 11:00 PM. Late night to have to be back at 9:00 AM the next morning!

We started the first day of the workshop with introductions and basic understanding of our camera and what it's doing. We then got to practice on real models - Moms and babies, and sometimes Dads too! It was really challenging because we were inside a hotel and the light wasn't that great. There were 5 photographers per family and we were squeezed in like sardines. I was pretty frustrated at that point even though Me Ra had shown us what to do with those types of lighting situations. I had to remember what she had told us not 1 hour ago and make some settings changes. Below are some of my best images that I captured.

ER boo boo

ER visit

Wow - Lance and I have been super busy and we were just talking about all the things we had to do last night when

BAM!

Lance and Alex were running around playing on the (ironwood) deck last night and Lance took a turn and Alex didn't and

Fell and hit his head right on the corner of the bench on the deck.

He hit hard and we knew it was a bad one.

Blood starting gushing and squirting out, TONS of blood. I quickly told Lance to get me a towel FAST. I put my hand over the wound and put some pressure on it. Alex was having an automatic response to wipe the blood away from his eyes and blood was everywhere. Lance brought the towel and I put it on the wound. He asked if we should call 911... I said no. I needed to look at it. So I pulled back the towel and saw that it wasn't really that bad, but we did need to go to the ER. We would drive. We got a couple of things together and were off. No carseat, no seatbelt for me as I was holding Alex in the back seat.

It's amazing how when you show up to the ER with a (pretty calm at this point, actually kinda limp looking because it was past his bedtime) kid with blood ALL over his face - you get to talk to someone fast. The check in desk was the first person we talked to - but the triage nurse came out from talking to someone else as we were there. Once they realized that it looked worse than it was, we were seated and just waited about 5 minutes.

We got to the room and there were such wonderful nurses and assistants coming in and helping clean him up and look at the wound in more detail. A nurse even gave him a teddy bear and he loved it! We showed him where his boo boo was on the teddy bear.

Because he has new baby skin they were able to just put some numbing medicine on the wound, instead of using a needle injection, which was great! After about 30 minutes of holding this numbing medicine on the bridge of his nose, the wonderful doctor at Evergreen came in and just used a glue like substance called Derma-bond and glued it up. No stitches!

Daddy holding the medicine

Mama's turn to hold the medicine (he loved the blue exam gloves and it was entertainment for him - that is why we were wearing the gloves! Anything to entertain a 2 year old at the ER!)

P.S. Darn that I took my point and shoot out of my purse! Curses! Well, at least I had my cell phone camera!

Let me catch up

photo by Me Ra

Before picture - we were scared to shoot in manual mode

Hi there!

I've had a crazy fun exhausting enlightening wonderful weekend. I got home last night at 8PM just in time to put my baby to bed (thank goodness! I missed him!). I will catch up on everything and post about my weekend, but in the mean time - you can see some pictures of my wonderful group here http://www.merakohblog.com/ .

Photo by Me Ra

Now we're feeling confident and comfortable in manual mode!