My husband hates to take pictures. My oldest daughter is great at it and usually doesn’t mind, but it really isn’t her thing, either. The teenage boys? Forget about it! So, if I want my family to remember in years to come that I actually existed, I’ve got to get in front of the camera more! I own a tripod and a remote so there really is no reason not to. Easy peasy, right?

Ummm… I’m finding it a bit more difficult that I originally thought.

A few days ago my husband took most of my children to their first day of homeschool co-op.

Since they were going to the library and homeschool pe after co-op, I had over five hours to myself. Well, sort of. I still had a 6 week old baby home with me so my time wasn’t really my own. But I had small blocks to do with as I would.

During one of these blocks, I got the tripod set up. I discovered the batteries were dead in one of the remote pieces, so I replaced those. Then I started trying to figure out where I should sit with the baby. I got a lot of pictures like this:

Then I wanted to mimic me in the picture. I wanted to make it easy for when baby woke up. This is where I ran into trouble. I don’t know what I was doing wrong, but the remote only wanted to work if I was standing behind or beside the camera. Whenever I sat down in front of the camera and pointed behind me, it wouldn’t take the shot. It was so frustrating!! Occasionallly it worked. But I never could pinpoint why. I got shots like this:

During this time, baby was snoozing peacefully in his bassinet.

I tried a few shots when he woke up before changing his clothes. But again, the remote was inconsistent. 🙁

And baby got mad…

At this point, I was frustrated, too, as evidenced by the fact that I didn’t even bother to try hiding the remote.

I waited until baby was a little happier and went ahead and changed his clothes. I decided to just hit the trigger as much as possible while I changed him in hopes of getting something.

Then he got mad again. But at least he’s in focus, right?

Here’s my favorite shot:

I’m anxious to try again, but now that school has started back my time to practice photography is limited. I’ll do what I can when I can!! I’m taking an Intro to Natural Light class with clickinmoms.com so that will push me to keep photography in my schedule.

I think I wore baby out with all the getting up and down off the floor trying to figure out what was wrong with the remote. He went sound asleep after we were done. 🙂

Thanks for stopping by! Posting is hit and miss for now but I’ll post when I can. I’m still keeping up with the 365 project. I’m just not blogging about it. You can find my project at http://365project.org/abesfolks.

Day 35

I have to admit. It was right around day 35 that I started getting lazy about my pictures. Thanksgiving and being sick took a toll that I’m still not completely past. Just so you’re warned. 🙂 This picture is of a new dessert I tried for Thanksgiving — Oreo truffles. The kids loved having these around because I let them snitch a couple throughout the day and there were plenty left the next day. SO. EASY. You literally just mix a package of crushed oreos with softened cream cheese, chill, roll into balls, and dip in melted almond bark. I’ll probably have to make these again for our Christmas party.

Day 36

Our table on Thanksgiving. The kids did every bit of this while I finished up the dinner. I think they did a great job!

Day 37

I bought a copy of The Unexpected Everyday from Click It Up a Notch for 50% off on Black Friday. The first assignment was setting a focal point and the suggestion was to use little feet.

Day 38

I didn’t feel like baking all 48 rolls on Thanksgiving, so I baked the second half of the dough two days later. Turned out to be a good idea as everyone was thrilled with fresh rolls amidst all the leftovers.

Day 39

Novella helped me set up a lightbox for this shot. It was one of my most popular so far on 365project!

Rats. I got behind again. I’ve got to carve out a little time in my day just to post my 365 project photo of the day! In my defense, I’ve had a terrible cold for about 2 weeks. Hopefully now that I’m feeling a little more human, I can do better! I won’t inundate you with too many photos in one post. I’ll do about five each time until I catch up.

Day 30

Even though I was sick, I forced myself to do a lot of Christmas shopping this day. It was dh’s day off and the big boys had co-op. I dropped them off and had three whole hours to myself! I thought I’d take pictures of shoppers or the stores where I shopped, but I was a little chicken. I did get a couple of shots of the front of the mall, but when it came time to post my picture of the day, I felt like I needed something better. My 9 year old had been trying to catch up with his readings for school and read Robinson Crusoe for so long he fell asleep. Perfect! Dh helped me by holding my cell phone up above me and at an angle with the phone flashlight on. I used my tripod so I could have a shutter speed of 1/2. My ISO was set at 400 and my aperture was 6.3. I really love how it turned out. He is always so diligent about his schoolwork so capturing a shot of him asleep with a book in his hands really captures who he is right now.

Day 31

Saw this photo idea on Click It Up a Notch and couldn’t resist re-creating it for Kenny’s birthday. I also practiced dramatic lighting while he was blowing out his candles.

Day 32

It was getting late on day 32 when I realized I didn’t have a picture for the day. (This seems to be a trend! I need to think about it all day not just 5 minutes before I lose light!) I called to the girls and asked them if they wanted to take a quick walk with me. We walked to a pond near our house and I took lots of shots but I knew I didn’t have “the one.” On the way back home, Sophia stopped to look at some flowers and I took a few more shots. The unplanned and unexpected always seem to turn out the best!

Day 33

I was so sorry I didn’t have a zoom lens when I saw a giant bird sitting on the edge of the church property. I got as close as I could, but the bird spooked and flew away before I could get a really good shot.

Day 34

The kids and I made pumpkin bread for breakfast on this morning. I got a couple of good shots of the mixing bowl with all the spices for the bread lined up in a ring, but I got afraid it would give away too much of the recipe. My mom’s pumpkin bread recipe is a family secret. 😉 So I shared an image I captured of Jesse later in the afternoon while he was playing outside.

Day 28

We’ve been pretty cold in Florida the last few days. No, it’s not New York cold. But we’re in Florida. I’m expecting to walk out most days of the year in flip flops and shorts. This has been sweater weather, people! And jackets!! I made the kids hot cocoa during our morning break from school yesterday and snapped a few pics while they enjoyed the treat. Here are a couple others I liked:

Day 29

Wow! The stage makeup was crazy! Novella had a performance at a Novemberfest celebration tonight. It was the first time we’d had to do recital hair and makeup since she switched to the ballet preparatory school. They glued rhinestones under her eyes and painted and glittered her lips. Again. Wow! I was so cold I didn’t even think to get a picture of her whole costume!

Day 18

This girl is so photogenic! Here’s another one from that day that I like a lot.

Day 19

Day 20

I was trying a technique called “panning.” I definitely need more practice, but this shot is kind of cool in it’s own way.

Day 21

OK. I started getting a little desperate for inspiration here. It was almost sunset and I had nothing. We had just dropped Kenny off at the church and John asked me to look at some legos he was playing with. I immediately had him jump out of the car and place them on the fence at church. Thank goodness I had my camera with me!

Day 22

I read that my DSLR camera has a macro setting. I was trying it out but had trouble because of a breeze that wouldn’t allow my flower to stay still long enough! Therefore I couldn’t focus as closely as I would have liked.

Day 23

There was a specific dramatic lighting technique I was trying to achieve here. It didn’t really work. This was also the day my 50mm camera lens finally came in the mail. (I bought it used off ebay for a deal that was really too good to be true. After it took over 10 days to arrive, I thought I’d lost my money!)

Day 24

Yep. That 50mm is pretty cool! Here are a couple others I liked from that day:

Jesse said, “Look Mom. Take a picture of me eating dirt.” Thankfully, he didn’t actually eat the dirt.

Day 25

Hang on. Just a couple more days and we’ll be caught up. 🙂

Day 26

After I took pictures of the two girls, I tried the dramatic lighting trick again. I got a little closer, but there were some strange shadows I didn’t like.

Day 27

That’s what I was trying to do! Happy dance!!

Thanks for sticking in there for the massively long post. Going forward, I’m hoping to post at least every other day so I won’t have to post so many at once. Have a great Wednesday tomorrow!