This weekend I went cross country skiing again. It was amazing up there this weekend; it was warm (40 degrees F!) and the sky was clear and blue. Freakin’ gorgeous. I stopped a lot to take pictures… Hopefully I didn’t annoy anyone coming up behind me. But everything was too amazing to go unnoticed.
As for this little guy, he and his friend (you’ll see the friend tomorrow) popped up when I stopped to take a break and eat crackers. I was eating my crackers next to these girls who were eating all sorts of delicious looking muffins and such and well the birds wanted in on the sweet deals. I soon found that if I threw the birds a cracker every once in a while, they’ll stay still enough for me to get some cute pictures of them! This bird even hopped up on my backpack! I love how you can see the snow on his beak… Awwww!
I took these pictures on my baby camera (obviously not lugging the DSLR to go skiing…) and I think I put it to the test here trying to capture these wiggly birds. It has a setting on it that captures a bunch of frames in a row (so I could see the birds in motion) but I didn’t have time to remember how to get to that setting. (I know it works pretty well. I took a series of pictures of Cobalt kicking a kickball using the mode when I first got the camera but of course I had ample time to play with the camera then.) So for this time, we stuck to the plain old auto mode. Next time, cute birds…
Category: portrait
Portrait: Friends forever
This weekend, my friends Janet and Meghana asked me if I wanted to practice taking portrait shots. Of course I said YES! So we went out into the crisp cool air of Boulder in January and took a bunch of pictures. Janet and Meghana are such good sports, having to put up with me as their awkward photographer, still getting used to what settings I want to use and then having to decide what I want my models to do on top of all of that… Plus I got to play around with switching up the lenses. I usually take pictures with my trusty 18-70 mm zoom lens but I decided to try out my mom’s 50 mm lens too, even though I had to manually focus everything (so this picture is not autofocused). This picture turned out especially nice though I feel a little awkward about the white background. It’s funny that the sky was so bright at the time of this picture that it got completely washed out – but the girls are so nicely lit… I guess that would make it easier for me to put Janet, Meghana, and the strange statue they are hanging out with on some completely different background (ahahaha).
Anyway, I hope you are looking forward to seeing more pictures from our photoshoot soon! :)
Portrait: Now don’t pay attention to those folks over there
They are some crazy people! Look at them with all their cameras out!
This weekend, Cobalt and I headed to the Denver Art Museum to check out the art (well I don’t know what else one does at an art museum but in case you were thinking of something else, nope. We looked at art). These cows are chillin’ in front of the museum waiting to have their pictures taken. So how could I say no?!
Portrait: Why Do You Wake Me Up?!
So my winter break at home was awesome in a lot of ways but it was also very sad. This is a picture of my cat Blackberry, the matriarch cat of my group of kitties. She is 18 years old and is dying of cancer. So this was the last time that I got to see her and spend time with her. I spent a huge chunk of my break strictly sitting next to her on the couch, watching over her as she slept, making sure at least one part of me was touching her at all times, feeding her tons of cat treats, taking millions of pictures of her, etc. She is a good sport though, still as spunky and crazy as ever. Even when you could tell she wasn’t feeling super well, she still demanded her usual affections. It was special and heartwarming to be able to take care of her so much because she is such a wonderful cat. It was also heartbreaking to see her so sick and to know when I left that it was the last time I would get pet her and hug her. I’m really happy that I at least got to go home again and see her before anything happened. I’ll miss you Blackberry…
Portrait: Christmas Card
Welcome back for another week! I am so excited about this week. I have some great pictures lined up for you! So look forward for awesomeness this week. Let’s start with portrait Monday!
For today’s portrait, I have this picture of my gorgeous sister from Christmas eve! We had just finished taking our annual family pictures (my job this year! It was intense… ;)) when my sister, I like to call her my wee, asked me if I could take some pretty portraits of her. I said of course and we were off! This is one of my favorites from her photo shoot. I love the Christmas tree in the background and that she is off center just a little. And of course, she looks amazing! :D Man… I am getting a lot of practice taking portraits inside… Love it!
Portrait: Perfect Postcard
Back to Portrait Monday already?! Craziness… Anyway, I hope you all are having good times getting ready for the holidays… I know there has been a lot of crazy weather in the western half of the US for a few days. I hope it hasn’t made anyone’s holiday plans too soggy…
For today’s picture, I have a portrait of our family friends Amy and Gene at a caroling party we go to every year (in fact we went last night but this picture is from last year’s party…). I had gotten my DSLR earlier in the year and I brought it to the party just in case I had any opportunities to snap a few pictures. I took this one of Amy and Gene and then had so much fun playing with it on Photoshop that this is actually version 7. As you can see, I’ve done a lot to this picture, editing the background so that it is blurrier than it was in reality and editing the photo itself to make it look more painted than photographed. When I sent it to Amy, she told me how much she rarely likes pictures of herself but that she really liked this picture! Yay! I felt so honored! I love making people happy with the gift of photography…
Whoa! Look at this, children!
Today’s picture is a chance to show a funny picture I took of Cobalt and to advertise his wing blog a little. For the wing blog – he updates it about once or twice a week with ratings on different chicken wings served in Boulder as well as ratings of various hot sauces he’s encountered over the years.
As for the picture, Cobalt and I were eating at Wahoo’s Fish Tacos one day and he was reading The Onion while we waited for our food. We sat next to a windowsill that had a bunch of bottles of Tapatio hot sauces sitting on it. I thought it’d be cute if Cobalt read The Onion to them as if they were his children because… well… he really loves hot sauces. You can read his blog to find out more…
Portrait: Three Little Angels
Welcome back to a new week! I can’t believe it’s portrait day again already! You may remember two people in this picture from portrait day last week… that’s right! Cobalt’s niece and nephew are back and cuter than ever in this picture with their friend! I love that her robe is so big that you can’t even see her little hand!
(Potassium’s quick note on posting pictures of kids – I feel really awkward using their names on the big scary internet but if you are a parent of the photographed kids and you give me permission, I will use only their first names in future pictures)
This weekend, Cobalt and I did a whirlwind trip down to visit his family and see his niece and nephew get baptized! This was a very special day for the kids and also kind of a special day for me for two reasons. First of all, baptisms are always so full of joy that they never fail to make me cry. This one was even more special though because I love these kids so much! I was so proud that I was literally blinking away tears so that I could focus on taking some good pictures!
Second of all, this was probably my first opportunity to take pictures for someone. Usually, I’ll bring my DSLR somewhere and snap some pictures and if they turn out somewhat decent, I’ll send them to whoever is in the picture. This time, I was really trying to get good pictures for Cobalt’s sister. I was so nervous that I wouldn’t get the lighting just right, I made Cobalt stand in random places around the church so that I could snap a few pictures of him and make sure I had good settings! I think it was a good experience for me. I still have a lot to learn but I think the best way to learn some of these tricks is just to get out there and practice!
For those of you who I promised baptism pictures to, this is your sneak preview! There will be many more in your inboxes… soon… hopefully.
Portrait: Wakey Wakey!
Wow… these weeks are just flying by! Now we’re back to Monday again! Today’s portrait Monday is Cobalt’s adorable but crazy niece. She sat in front of me on our epic road trip to Oklahoma and at one point I broke out the camera. As soon as the camera came out of the bag, she hammed right up in her seat and was so cute that I couldn’t help but take some pictures of her!
Now to be fair, I am also going to post a picture of her brother who was playing his DS at the time but I snapped a sneaky picture of him anyway:
I hope you all are having wonderful Mondays! :)
Portrait: Centennial
Welcome back from Thanksgiving break! I hope you all had wonderful Thanksgivings! I definitely did. Cobalt and I went to visit his family in Oklahoma and it was a lot of fun. I took many pictures so you can look forward to seeing some of them in the near future…
Anyway – today’s picture: this is a portrait of my mom’s mom from 1981 (so I wasn’t around to take this picture). Today would have been her 100th birthday which is crazy epic. Unfortunately she died in 2001 so she’s not physically around to celebrate her huge accomplishment but she’s here in memory. Happy 100th birthday, Grandma! I love you and I miss you!
Potassium Photography 