Dinosaur Museum

A couple of weeks ago, our little preschool group + siblings all went to a little museum to specifically see their dinosaur exhibit. We had been studying dinosaurs in preschool for a couple of months and after a couple of them caught wind that we were thinking of taking a field trip to "The Dinosaur Museum" we were expected to deliver.

The boys checking out the teeth.

 The dinosaur museum in this particular museum was a bit on the smaller side, but the company was great and there was a lot of other cool things for them to look at.

The girls in the dinosaur nest 

Penny was SO excited she got to tag along. She pretty much participates (as much as she can) any time  we have preschool at our house, so she thought she was quite the big girl to be hanging with her preschool friends.

R & P doing their best to make dinosaur faces for the camera 

R & P playing with the train at the train exhibit 

Me with my besties in front of some raptors!

Photography Notes: I have yet to master any sort of photography skills in regard to shooting indoors and "on-the-fly". I find the group or model dispersing by the time I figure out what settings will work best. As you will notice there is no sort of consistency with the lighting. That's why I never take my camera on outings--because I'm so slow at capturing real life and I get easily frustrated:) need to start working on that...

ZOO TIME

Today we got back from a little vacay to Seattle to which we (just Phil and I) took a mini-vacay within that one to Victoria B.C.  There was much fun to be had. Last Saturday we went to the Woodland Park Zoo, which is quite fun when you have Ryder around.

 
For example, his encounter with the komodo dragon...

Or there's Penny who is getting cranky that no penguins are swimming by...

The orangutans are my favorite...

And these little monkeys are pretty cute too (kids included)...

And lastly, my attempt at being artistic at the zoo...

G&G SALVESEN

While we were at my parent's house for Mother's Day a couple weeks ago, my grandparents came over for dinner. I was able to get a couple shots of them and while looking through them realized how important and fun it is to get photos of those generations before us. I think my grandma and grandpa are beautiful people, and there age makes them even more so. The photo of my grandma above is my favorite. Below are a couple of sweet moments as well. 

Now, I'm just sayin' but if you were to see my grandmas photos of her younger years, I might say there is a noticable resemblence between her and I.  I would be more than pleased to look like that when I'm her age. Here's hoping!

BLOWN OUT

Have you ever sorely miscalculated your camera settings and taken a picture like this?  

Yeah, me neither. But when someone else using my camera manages to turn a sweet moment into this, I'm left a little bummed. Since I'm currently introducing myself into the world of Photoshop (just Elements right now) I thought I'd see if there was anything to be done especially knowing  I couldn't make the image any worse.

After some cropping and goofing around with the lighting and color correcting I did come up with this, which I figured was better than a poke in the eye and best of all, this fun little moment we had today at the park isn't completely lost. 

I did try this technique on another one of my photo and it didn't turn out quite as well, plus, the editing I did in this photo didn't look as good around everyone else as it did Ryder, so it definitely isn't a consistent method. But worth a shot (hehe).

Anyway...kinda fun.

NOTHING BETTER THAN...

There is nothing better than 

BATH TIME!

Here is step number one to our essential night time routine. 

Photography note: I shot these in monochrome with my flash (If you could see my mauve and forest green shower, you would have too). I believe my shutter speed was 1/30 which really caught the movement of the water. Unfortunately the photos I felt comfortable enough to post on the web don't show too much of the water. I also had a very difficult time getting good photos with both of them looking at the camera, which is why I only have one good one of them together and a bunch from the night before I took of just P.

THE CAMERA

After all of the hulabaloo I posted about getting a new camera, a few of you understandably wondered what I ended up getting. I got her:

A Canon Rebel XS:

She's pretty much at the bottom of the totem poll as far as DSLR's go, but oh how I love her. Where I'm such a newbie to the world of photography (I don't even know if I can even say I'm in that world at all) she's just what I need to start learning.

A couple of others have mentioned you also got a new DSLR and are figuring out how to use it. To that I say, let's learn together!!! Here are some things I've learned along with a few other random thoughts:

• Right now I'm actually taking a free class from Mario Ruiz. He's professional photographer who is getting his MBA right now and kindly offered this class to any other fellow MBA students and/or spouses. This is where I first felt the desire for a fancy shmancy camera and learned terms like exposure and aperture.
• Right after I got my camera I experimented with the very little knowledge I had + the owner's manual. One night I start browsing through Pioneer Woman's photography blog (I've read her other stuff, but never had a need for the photography posts--until now)--SO HELPFUL. I love her. She explains things so they are so easy to understand. If you just got a camera that you don't know how to use, go there. Fast.
• I'm always confused to whether or not I'm "doing it right". Photography is SO subjective. Yet as beginners I feel we need some sort of way to check ourselves to determine whether or not we're using our new skill correctly. Obviously, there are shots that are obviously wrong--but I'm trying to make myself a little more comfortable in finding what I love and learning to go with it. This will be a lengthy process.
• Shooting moving things (aka people) is SO difficult for me! With my kids it's fine because I can just shoot a bajillion shots while they sit there and play. Tinkering with all sorts of settings and modes. However--I went to a YW activity the other night thinking how fun it would be to document the event and was like shoot...they're posing for me and ...nope--that setting didn't work. "Could you just stay there for a minute-hehe." Nope...that setting didn't work...sigh.
• Sometimes I like to think I can make any setting work as long as I find the right combo of settings. Especially where most of the photos I've taken during this past month  have been indoors when it's been dreary outside, this idea has left me frustrated. Sometimes I have to accept the fact that THERE IS NO LIGHT and whip out the flash and be fine with it. That's the conclusion I came to at the YW activity:)
• I'd like to say I'm a strictly a SOOC (straight out of camera. A term used for hoity-toity photographers  who think you shouldn't edit photos and are usually talented enough to take photos that don't need editing.) photographer because I'm awesome, but no. I just have a LAME, lamers, lame-o, computer that can't handle Photoshop. I downloaded a trial version of Photoshop Elements (simplified version of Photoshop) and it runs sooo slow. So right now I'm stuck with Picasa for basic cropping and that's pretty much it. I will also look at my photos on Phil's computer and realize there are details I can see on his computer that I can't see on mine. One day, my friends, one day.
• Speaking of SOOC. The theory interests my, but personally, I can't wait to get my hand on some great editing software. Can we say fun? I get the idea of reigning it in (PW talks about that too), but I shall always be pro editing.
• Finally, storage. I have taken more pictures this month than I did all of last year. How do I store them? Get more drives? Online albums/storage archives? Tell me. I want to know. 
• Oh and I want this bag to carry her around in: