Game Plan

I am a spatial person.  It's always easiest for me to sketch out ideas so that I can see them while I think through them.  When we were recently re-hanging the picture frames in my living room, for example, I made a whole Photoshop document of the layout-- complete with a couch and each of the six frames and mini versions of the pictures-- to help me visualize the layout before we pounded a single nail.  I make lots of lists and go through tons of Post-It notes.  Many of my students, after asking me for help, have seen me grab a piece of scratch paper to sketch out photos or brainstorm lists. 

So, the other day, in true form, I sketched out a general layout of the church where we'll be shooting the wedding.  Dustin and I walked through the whole ceremony and picked the best spots in the church to take each important picture (note the X's on the diagram.)  We listed out which of us would be where and who would be responsible for each shot.  I guess I'm just not the kind of person who is comfortable winging it, so the whole thing was actually relaxing for me.  When we were done I just had to take a picture of the layout.

Our New "Baby" : 50mm f/1.8

We headed down to San Bernardino a couple weeks ago to scope out the lighting in the church where we'll be shooting a wedding this coming weekend.  Yes, I did say we--Dustin and I will be co-photographers for this shoot, and I'm really excited to get to work with him!  Our favorite favorite favorite lens, our 85mm prime, was great in the somewhat dim lighting in the church (it opens up wide to f/1.8) but was just a bit too close for many of the shots we'll want.  So, we used the wedding as an excuse to add a new lens to our kit--a 50mm f/1.8.  It came highly recommended and was actually very reasonably priced.  Now, where our 85mm is a rather beefy lens that just looks fancy, this itty bitty lens weighs only 1 lb and juts out a mere 2 inches off the camera body.  It's tiny!  But, don't be fooled by it's size (and low-ish price).  This lens is pretty awesome!  It's only downfall that we've noticed so far is a little extra lens flare, but hopefully paying attention to the angle of the light will help that.  Plus I actually usually like a little flare.

Somewhat random side note: This pic of the lens was shot on my kitchen counter, and I think it's my new favorite place to shoot still life pictures.  It's just so bright!  I don't know, I just like it.

Here are a couple quick pictures taken with the lens.

P. S. If you're going to check out lighting in a church DON'T go on a Saturday.  Saturday seems logical, right?  Church services are usually on Sundays, so should be pretty empty on a Saturday, right?  No.  I had a serious "Doh!" moment when we arrived.  What happens in churches on Saturdays?  Weddings, duh!  Yep, and the church we went to had TWO weddings back-to-back.  We had to hang out in our car out front and wait patiently (probably looking like total weirdos.)  Lesson learned.  :)

Goal #9 - Update Family Photos

I know it's already two and a half months into 2012, but I'm still excited that I finally get to cross off one of my 2011 Goals.  If you're not familiar with my "11 Goals for 2011" you can still see them on the My Goals page, because I haven't made 2012 goals yet... story of my life! :)  Maybe my 2012 goal should be to update my goals and actually put something on my About Me page (been blank for a year!)  Anyway, thanks to the amazing photographic talents of Ruben Tinajero, former student, I can now say that Goal #9 - Update the family photographs in my living room - is now complete.  I wanted the whole experience of having someone else take my family photos this time--no remotes or self timers and no editing on my part.  I wanted to see someone else's vision.  I chose Ruben, because I knew that he had experience with shooting portraits and would be a confident director of our shoot.  I also really admire his photography and editing skills.  Thankfully he said he'd do it!  Since we had recently moved to Hesperia I wanted a "high desert feel" to the photographs, and scoped out some great locations off of Santa Fe Road near Hwy 138.  Unfortunately it was really really really cold the day we met up for the shoot.  Not sure if we're hiding it well in the photos, but we were freezing!  I wanted kind of natural looking interaction photographs with at least one good photo of the four of us.  So, we just kind of horsed around and let the boys wander a bit while Ruben followed us around and captured images.  When he dropped off our CD of edited photographs Dustin and I were beyond excited. The pictures were everything we were looking for and more!  And, the more we looked at the pictures the more we loved them!  We used to have three frames with family photos above our couch, but couldn't decide on just three favorites from this shoot, so we ended up adding three more frames to our wall!

If you would like to see the amazing photos that Ruben posted on his blog click here. There were a few that were our favorites that Ruben didn't post, so here are those.

February Brag Post : Joseph M.

My February Student of the Month, Joseph M., could have just as easily been my September student of the month, because he started standing out from the crowd way back then.  On more than one occasion Joseph has approached me the day after I've announced one of our class-wide photo challenges to tell me that he had a dream about the assignment.  When he makes these dreams a reality his photographs usually do really well in the challenge, and I know that he's won class favorite at least a couple times.  Another thing that made Joseph stand out in my mind was when he brought in an old photo of his Grandma to scan and re-touch as a gift for her--such a sweet and simple gesture that probably made her day.  Thanks for being such an awesome part of 2nd period, Joseph!