family

This is my family. I snapped these when we arrived to Grand Cayman and were waiting for my sister's flight (though that is a long story!). I just love the way my mom looks at my dad. After being married more than 30 years, she still looks at him as if she's never seen anything so wonderful in her whole life. The smaller photo is of my Grannie. I am always told that I get a lot of who I am from her. She's stylish and strong. I feel like its such a great compliment to be compared to her. My grandfather, Opop, has been gone for a few years now. He was a fantastic man and looked at her much the same way my mom looks at my dad. I titled this post "family" though it could have also been called "can you please put that damn camera away?" My dad gets upset sometimes because I don't often let him take pictures of me, yet I am always snapping pictures of everyone else. I guess it's because I am a control freak and when it comes to pictures of me, I want to make sure they're good. I'm really glad I got these shots though! I guess I can always refer my dad here the next time he tells me to put my camera away. If I put it away, then I won't get great shots like this!

Terra Dog

This is my sister's first child, Terra Dog. It was also my nephew's first word. She's a great dog and pal to my sister and nephew. When I was talking with Alix about my new camera lens, she said she'd love some pictures of Terra. I plan on doing a proper family photo shoot with Alix, Rowan, and Terra, but I snapped these on Christmas Eve and thought that I might as well publish them. I love Terra's eyes are in the main image. She's got such soulful eyes! Hopefully we'll be able to get my sister's family together for pictures when Rowan get's back from Japan. He's going with his father and their family for three weeks, and we even sent him with his own camera! I can't wait to see the pictures that he takes!

Mermaids Exist

Here's another one from my vacation. These girls were swimming in the ocean with mermaid tails and I thought it was so cool! I wish I had a mermaid tail like this to swim with. I tried to capture a picture where they look like real mermaids. How did I do? ;)

50mm AF-S is on it's way!

I took this last year at Districts with my 50mm 1.8 AI lens. I love that with the cropped sensor 50mm lenses actually give you a 75mm focal length (compared to film/FX-DSLRs). Yesterday I spent about an hour debating in my head between the 35mm 1.8G AF-S DX and the 50mm 1.8G AF-S. On the one hand, 35mm would be easy when I am coaching. I would allow me to stand fairly close to the pool and still shoot a wide angle, but it would make it a little more difficult at meets, where I am further away. The 50mm is harder for coaching practices, but over all I think it was a better choice!

It's predecessors have always gotten great reviews, and I quite like the one that I have for my manual film camera, but it's tough to use with my DSLR, as I really enjoy metering and auto focus! I'm also so happy I waited until the 1.8 AF-S to come out this year. I almost jumped and purchased the AF, that won't auto-focus with my D5000. Anyway, I'm super excited!

swim and dive

I have been coaching swimming and diving for South Lakes High School for 7 seasons. Throw in my 4 years as a member of the team while I was in high school, and I've been part of the team for over 1/3 of my life. Over the last 3 seasons I have been working to take pictures during dive meet and I have learned two things for sure:

1. Herndon Community Center has the WORST light in the dive well
2. None of my AF-S lenses are really fast enough for indoor, action shots.

Now this doesn't mean I'm not going to keep trying to take dive pictures at HCC, it just means I'm not going to publish any on here until I have either:

1. Become super skilled at noise removal
2. Purchase a fast prime for dive shots! 

Hopefully both of those things will happen before the end of the season. For right now, I will leave you with this swim picture!

Vacation

While I look through all of my vacation photos, I thought I would share this one of Rowan's toes. I took a lot of pictures and learned a lot of things that I can't wait to apply and share.