My daughter, the posing pro!

About This Photo
Aperture: f/1.4
Exposure: 1/50
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 1600
Lens: 50mm f/1.4

My not-quite-5-month-old is now a pro at posing for the camera. No joke.

What a ham!!

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Lessons Learned or Affirmed:

• When it comes to babies, I'm finding that there's nothing quite like getting down on your tummy and getting at their level. I got so many awesome shots when I kept her at eye-level.

Morning Rain

About This Photo
Aperture: f/2.5
Exposure: 1/60
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 100
Lens: 50mm f/1.4

Have you noticed how in love with this lens I am? Just about everything happens with the 50mm f/1.4. Though a macro lens is better for this kind of photography (if you really, really want to get the finer details of things), the 50mm does a decent job of capturing details -- one of my favorite things to photograph.

I am admittedly a sucker for blossoms, for raindrops, and for that dreamy, creamy bokeh in the background. The only reason you haven't gotten more photos like this one is that I've got an adorable 4-month-old who steals the show.

This one seems pretty basic to me, so I don't know what else can be said. I set my focal points on the blossoms and went for it. I will add that since the shots where the lighting was set at the midpoint of the histogram looked overexposed to me, I did bump up the shutter speed so that they showed a bit on the darker side of the histogram. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut.

* * *

Lessons Learned or Affirmed:

• You can have too much of a good thing -- even bokeh. Now you know I love me some good bokeh, but for this one I put the aperture down to 2.5 so that I would still get some good bokeh, but would have a wider bit of the picture in focus. Since there were multiple blooms at play, I wanted at least a couple to be crisp and clear.
• Post-processing really can really make a photo pop. Before I processed this one, the green was dull and boring. I love how vibrant it looks here.

Before post-processing

Nom, nom, nom, nom ...

About This Photo:
Aperture: f/1.4
Exposure: 1/50
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 1000
Lens: 50mm f/1.4

If I could change one thing about this photo, it would be to have a slightly narrower aperture -- maybe f/2.5 or 2.8. But if there's one thing I've learned about babies, it's that they move at their own speed. They don't respond to "Do it again!" or "Hold that pose!" as well as I'd like.

I could have adjusted the aperture and then adjusted the shutter speed and/or ISO to compensate, but then we probably wouldn't have had this photo -- the moment would have been gone. And you know that I had to get one of her nibbling on her toes, right? We have to have something to show that future boyfriend. :o)

* * *

Lessons Learned or Affirmed:

• Especially when you have an aperture open as wide as f/1.4, it's important to be sure your focal points are set where you need them. Because she was moving more quickly than I could adjust my settings or my positioning, a lot of potentially good photos came out too blurry to be good. Having m focus points set made this one a winner.

Bridge(s)

About This Photo:
Aperture: f/1.4
Exposure: 1/640
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 100
Lens: 50mm f/1.4

There's a beautiful park near our home -- within a half mile walk. I love it there, and walk there with Austen as often as I can. Every now and then, I discover something new in the park that I hadn't seen before. It was in a visit just a day before this photo was taken that I walked on a previously untested path and found this bridge.

When I took pictures of it, I tried different apertures and shutter speeds, but had the largest amount of variation with the focus points. You can see how the bridge at the front of the photo is blurrier than the parts of the bridge in the middle of the photo. This is on purpose. I tried different focal points to see which looked and felt best to me. You would most often expect the foreground portions of the bridge to be in focus and the parts behind that to be blurrier. It changes how the photo feels when you switch up what's expected. Instead of the background, the bokeh is in the foreground.

I like it -- I think it points the viewer's gaze ahead, as if to say: take the long view. Don't look just at what's immediately in front of you, but look to what's just a little bit beyond that. I think that's good to do sometimes (in photography, and in life).

* * *

Lessons Learned or Affirmed:

• Even if you don't think it will work, try out different settings and focal points on a given subject. You might be surprised at what you like.
• Foreground bokeh can be difficult to do well. Sometimes it's out of place and feels wrong for a given subject. Go with your gut instinct.

Anniversary

About This Photo:
Aperture: f/1.4
Exposure: 1/30
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 100
Lens: 50mm f/1.4

It was our anniversary today (May 23) and as a surprise, my sweetie took the whole day off. We went to our favorite brunch place and followed it up with a trip to the museum that boasts a huge collection of Tiffany glass and other pieces of American art.

These blossoms (which are fake, but I don't really care since they are so very pretty) were there begging to be photographed when I looked up at the restaurant. Blossoms and bokeh? Yes, please!

* * *

Lessons Learned or Affirmed:

• Beautiful surprises await for those who look up or down with the camera lens. 
• Blossoms and bokeh are a match made in heaven. The first photograph of mine that ever won a contest was of some real cherry blossoms, all bokeh-ed out like you see here.

Tummy Time!

About This Photo:
Aperture: f/2.8
Exposure: 1/50
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 800
Lens: 50mm f/1.4

So, yeah. This post coming a bit later because we are full in the throes of teething. It has not been a fun couple of days for Austie B. Lots of crying, very clingy. Needs her mama lots. There's rarely a moment when my arms aren't full of that sweet, droolly baby and when they're not, I'm trying to rest.

We have our good moments, though -- like this one. I get the sense sometimes that when we do tummy time, she is pretty darn pleased with herself. She can hold up her head like no one's business, has mastered the art of rolling over from tummy to back and from back to tummy, and will likely be crawling within a month or so.

I love in this one how she is engaging the camera, smiling, and because of how I'm positioned, the way you can see that whole long little body. The eyes are clear and in focus, and there is just the right amount of bokeh. It all works.

And now, for bed!

* * *

Lessons Learned or Affirmed:

• It pays to have the settings adjusted to your particular circumstances before shooting. There isn't time to be making adjustments when you've got a subject who doesn't know the meaning of "Hold that pose!" Not only do the pictures come out looking better, but there's also less adjustment needed in the post-processing phase.
• The eyes have it, baby! I have yet to be led astray by the advice to focus on the eyes when taking a portrait. 

Focusing on the unexpected thing

About This Photo:
Aperture: f/2.5
Exposure: 1/60
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 200
Lens: 50mm f/1.4

I love baby legs, baby feet, baby toes ... all the baby parts!! When I was incredibly pregnant with Austen, BabyLegs had a huge sale on their legwarmers: 75% off of $75 or more worth of those delectable little stockings. I bought seven pair. I mean, how could I resist?!

For this particular photo, I chose to focus on the legs. Not typical for a portrait, is it? It changes how it feels to look at the baby, making something other than the face the focus of the photo. It's not because her face isn't important (or cute). We can still make out her face, and that she's smiling, but as blurred as it is, it's not meant to be what first draws the eye.

One of the primary reasons for me to take a photo like this is that it draws the viewer's attention to something different and unexpected -- something that's not typically the subject of a portrait.

It draws our attention to new and fun details that we might otherwise overlook.

And sometimes it's fun to draw attention to the unexpected, isn't it?

* * *

Lessons Learned or Affirmed:

• Even if I don't think it will work, I try setting my focus points in different places for photos like this. Sometimes it doesn't work, but sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised with the results.
• Geesh. It's hard to go wrong taking pictures of babies, isn't it?

Milky smiles

About This Photo:
Aperture: f/1.4
Exposure: 1/40
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 640
Lens: 50mm f/1.4

I'm afraid I may have become one of those women ... you know, the ones who fall in love with breastfeeding and can't help but gush about it and secretly hopes that every pregnant woman she sees -- whether she knows her or not -- will at least give breastfeeding a chance.

We had a rough go of it at first -- there were a lot of mama tears for the first few weeks. Nothing was wrong with her or me -- it was just about both of us learning how to do something brand new together for the first time. And when you're just getting to know each other, one of you learning to eat and deal with gravity for the very first time, things can get frustrating just as quickly you can blink.

Though we have our tough days still, it has mostly become second nature for both of us. I've fallen in love with these smiles and these moments where it's just her and I, snuggled up closely. She's not going to need me this way forever, and I know I will want to remember this.

* * *

Lessons Learned or Affirmed:

• The composition and/or processing of a photo need not be complex or overthought to be beautiful and meaningful. Sometimes the simplest and most spontaneous photos are the best ones.

the gifts

About This Photo

Aperture: f/1.4

Exposure: 1/30

Focal Length: 50mm

ISO: 400

Lens: 50mm f/1.4

I'm such bokeh a junkie it's ridiculous (for non-photog types, "bokeh" is the dreamy, creamy blurriness in the photo) . Bokeh doesn't work for everything, but dried roses encased in glass? Yes, please!

Normally (at least in the English language), we tell a story going from left to right. It wasn't until after I took this photo that I recognized the connection between the book on the right and the dried roses that stand out on the left side of the photo. The story of this photo is told from right to left.

Please allow me to explain.

On 18 September 2010, I gave birth to a beautiful boy named Ewan, our first child. We found out at a routine 20-week ultrasound that he had a serious and life-threatening heart defect. We stood by him and fought for his life alongside him until, at just barely 16 days old, he died in my arms. There are a lot of words I could use to describe what that felt like in the days, weeks, and months that followed. Devastated. Grieved. Many times, I felt like I could die myself. It felt wrong somehow to be able to survive a loss of that gravity.

Before I returned to work from my leave after his birth and his death, I wanted to take a trip. We had some free travel vouchers from a previous trip where we had agreed to take a flight that was 2 hours later than the one on which we were booked. We used them to spend a week with friends in Nashville, and then another week with friends in Orlando.

Our Orlando friends planned a special surprise trip for us -- a sunny beach getaway on the isle of Captiva. My friend gave me a copy of this book, A Gift From the Sea. It's about being a Christian and a woman and a mother and the work those things do on your soul. She uses seashells as metaphors for this life of woman, wife, mother. It was that book that accompanied me to that island, to that place where for the first time since my son had died, that I came back from the dead myself.

And the roses? The roses were given to me by our midwife upon the birth of our daughter, Ewan's little sister. Austen is no replacement for Ewan -- she has value in and of herself. But her birth redeemed so much of what I suffered throughout my pregnancy with Ewan and the loss that came after. I never had to hand Austen over to hands wearing sterile gloves, I never had to pace hard tile floors while waiting on surgeons. She was born at home, into my arms and is alive and healthy.

So I look at this and I see pain and loss and death and beauty and redemption and healing. This photo speaks all of that -- and so much more -- to me.

* * *

Lessons Learned or Affirmed:

• In still shots like this one where you are setting things up, it pays to take my time and some extra thought setting it up, and to try a number of different arrangements -- even ones I don't think will work. The personal meaning and connection in this photo didn't strike me until after I had taken it and if it had, I might have set it up differently.