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Blogger me and my blackberry are fighting so somehow my auto posts and when I post from my blackberry are not working. After todays hell commute I will write my metro post when I get home. Put it this way I had to drive to work after sitting on a metro train for 30 minutes, then metro still charged me. GRRRR! Even though I never left my original station.

June 7th - Week 23 "Play"

This was taken at a recent birthday party. You would never know this guy is 59. He was on the trampoline with all of the kids having a blast and staying young.

Come play along at I heart faces.HERE

Aperture- I

In a quest to learn photography better I am revisiting the basics. Rick won't buy me my next camera upgrade until I show him this isn't a phase. I have taken a few amazing photos but I am not sure if those are luck or skill because I still take a lot of crappy photos. So I have been doing the 12 weeks to better photos but I feel like its not 100% helping. I will finish it and not quit but I am starting my own lessons.

Week Number One is Aperture.

Aperture is a setting you choose that helps control the amount of light that enters your camera.

An overexposed picture (Very bright whites and areas of light) is from too much light.

An underexposed picture (Dark blacks and not much light) is from too little light.

I have issues with both of these.

Aperture is a mechanism inside your camera that is circular and opens and closes when a picture is taken.This controls the amount of light that is let in. You choose your aperture by changing your f/stop. This is where I totally got confused at first as the numbers seem ass backwards to me.

Lets say your lens has an aperture from f/1.4 to f/22.

f/1.4 means a very wide aperture so it lets in tons of light.

f/22 means a very narrow aperture so it lets in less light.

See that is backwards I thought the higher the number the more light and the lower the number less light. But that is wrong. So scratch that.

Okay so we covered the light issue with aperture the other thing you have to remember is that aperture based on depth of field can control how much of your photo is in focus. A lower f/stop would mean only a small part of your picture is in focus while a larger f/stop means more of your picture is in focus.

PS the blurry part of a photo is called Bokeh.

So this is kind of like the 12 weeks post but I explained it differently. Here are some examples of photos with very different f/stops. I took these with my 50mm 1.8 Canon lens. (It is a $100 lens that barely leaves my camera. I love it so for a cheap little lens.)

Tristan:

Aperture: 1.8




Tree:

Aperture: 5.6

Tristan face is in focus in the first and behind him is not. You can see the focus start to get soft around his ears. I love that. It makes you focus on his face.

The tree, reflections, and water are all in focus while the mountains on the background are not. This shot would not have looked the same if just the tree was in focus it loses the impact of the lonely tree and the reflection.

So next time in part two I will talk about how aperture works with other things to get the proper exposure of a photo.

Week 22 Photo Challange- Bare Feet

Week 22 Photo Challange- Bare Feet

Come to I heart faces (the link at the top) and play along.

Cell phone pictures from the farm.

Like I said in an earlier post the DSLR had to go away in the rain. I love my baby to much.
This is one of the 3 big parks over 5 acres. We were in this one to hide from the rain.
Daddy helping Tristan down the monster truck slide:

See that kid on the tractor. I almost had to beat his dads ass. He threw Tristan off of the tractor three times. I mean literally pushed him off. He was 8 his dad was laughing, saying boys will be boys. Umm NO! Some other random Mom stepped in and they were made to leave. T fell good when he pushed him. Some kids have no discipline.

Climbing the monster truck:

Walking around the monster truck:

Driving the tractor:

CSAs- Community Supported Agriculture

Since we have started eating healthier aka organic when we can and "clean eating" no white sugar or flour I figured I would post some of my favorite resources. I used www.localharvest.org to find a CSA. A CSA is when you pay a certain amount for a pre determined number of weeks of veggies and fruit from a local farm. It has its ups and downs. If it is a good crop year you will get tons. If its a bad crop year you won't get tons. But still its healthier and you know where your food is coming from. PLUS you are supporting your local farmers.

For clean eating I started making changes like using agave nectar instead of sugar. I also use honey instead of sugar. It is less processed. I use http://tpox-proceedwithcaution.blogspot.com/2009/11/clean-eating-recipe-index.html, http://marialouisepeters.blogspot.com/, and http://www.cleaneatingmag.com/recipes/.

I just wanted to share some resources that I love.

I forgot

I have some cell phone pictures from the awesome 2 parks today. Ummmm but I can't find it. Grrrrr Tristan must have it. As soon as I find it I will post them.

Pictures from the farm

I didn't get many because it started to rain. I look forward to going back in nicer weather. I am being lazy today and not watermarking. Please don't steal my pictures its not nice. Also being lazy and not uploading to flickr and then linking here. So the compression might be off since blogger compresses funny. You can click the pictures to make them bigger or the pictures are HERE (Flickr) bigger.
I call this one photographer's child syndrome: (on the way out)

He was sleepy and fell asleep shortly after this:

Going over the new Woodrow Wilson Bridge in the express lanes:

Northern Va Building I liked:

Driving in the mountains: (or if your out west you might say our mountains are hills)

Looking at the water:

Fish were all over:

The tree in the middle:

Playing:

The band: (Sorry the whites are blown out in this picture)

Dancing and trying to cause trouble:

We stopped for ice cream after we left:

Tristan's Book for the ride:

My book for the ride: (I read on Mobi Pocket)

Farm day/New Job

So we went to an awesome farm way out in the boonies of VA. Most of my work was there. All of the Partners and Associates were there. I was the only legal asst. that made it. Every one else bailed on me. :( It was hot and rained a lot so I didn't get many pictures. I'll post what I did get when we get home. The actual farm was awesome it had tons to do. So I can't wait to go back in better weather.

We remembered his travel booster seat/high chair I'll post a picture later as it was super cheap and we use it all the time. We forgot our stroller and had to buy one on the was. It was a $65 jeep stroller and it SUCKS! I missed ours.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I love my new job and I love the people there. Our DC office is 12 people. 1 of the name sake partners, 2 other partners, 3 associates, 1 law intern, 3 legal assistants, 1 firm administrator and her assistant. The Boston office is much bigger. I've met a few Boston people that came to DC for a law conference.

We do law that deals with HUD homes. I love it, I'm super busy. I'm right off of Franklin Square in DC. I drive 40 minutes to metro and its 30 minutes on the train and a one block walk through the park. :)

The baby just fell asleep in the car after 2 hours of screaming. Lol figures we are 10 miles from the house.

Chrystal
(I'm not sure how this will post as I'm writing it from my blackberry. )
Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

My favorite tree in Franklin Square DC by my work.