March has to be the busiest month of my year and this year is definitely no exception. While we started the month with trees being removed, we also got a visitor for the weekend. The boys LOVED spending time with their cousin and she was patient enough for me to take her photo for my class.
Speaking of my class – I am learning so much. I have always shied away from darker images in general and tended to overexpose so that things are bright and airy. Now I am going the opposite route and learning to embrace the shadows more and more. And my editing techniques are certainly getting refined as well. In this next set of photos I was going after slight silhouette with Cutie Kitty going after the hummingbird and then the Rembrandt Triangle on Linda’s cheek (many thanks to Linda for letting me use her as a model!). Both images have intense shadows – something very new for me.
Our cats continue to entertain us and each day I try to find a lighting situation to work with. For these two photos, the rising sun hit Miss Meow just perfectly and then of course our little roar-er with Cutie Kitty, sitting in full sunlight.
The boys created a parkour course using the downed logs. They are not going to be happy once we get them split and moved.
And it is definitely starting to look more like spring around here. We had to stop and wait for these two on the way back from an orthodontist appointment with Carter.
We got the stump ground down for our Japanese Maple. And then it started snowing that night. Guess Spring isn’t as close as I thought.
Speaking of snow … the next morning we got three inches. School was still on time and it was a slippery ride to get the kids there. Thankfully it melted off by the afternoon.
I tried to get Carter to help me with doing a split light photo – where half his face is in the light, the other half is in the shadow. Looks pretty good! Though he needs to stop growing.
For my critique photo I took this one of Gavin. We were supposed to show a lighting style (split/short/broad/Rembrandt). This is broad light where the side of his face closest to the light source is also closest to the camera. And I love the reflections. The only feedback I got was to burn out the background more (which I did in this photo). I am pretty happy with it!
We got another round of snow again, but just a dusting. And our sunrise view is sure prettier now that you can see more of the sky.
We rented a splitter and started the long and painful process of splitting and moving and stacking all of that wood. And then we couldn’t move. We still need to move the split wood from up by the kitchen to down below where the wood stack is, but I have to dig out three trees and a rhododendron first.
I played around with alternative light sources some this week – practicing how to direct light with a single source (Carters reading lamp – the light on his face is actually reflected off the pages of his book).
Then two more fun photos – I submitted the one of Gavin and the flashlight for critique this week. Only feedback I got was to pull up the shadows so you could see his head a little more and then some advice on cropping the image. Then this photo of Carter stops me in my tracks. He is not looking like a little boy anymore – I feel like this is a glimpse into the young man he is becoming. And those blue eyes…
We finished up the first half of the month with celebrating this guys birthday.
Logan, Ian, Keegan and the kids all came over to celebrate Jeremy’s birthday. Carter made him red velvet cupcakes for his birthday cake and we got to see how much Madelyn and McTavish have grown.
