Since she has lost quite a few teeth, we have four different smiles for Satori to use when getting her picture taken. Here’s #1 smile (pleasant smile, no teeth).

And here’s she’s escalated to the full-blown, all-out, #4 smile – all teeth showing in a typical Satori laugh.

Satori loves her Crocs so much, it was a challenge to get her to wear these super cute shoes.

And just so you know that Satori isn’t always all “smiles”, here’s a picture of a glum Satori. (Due to being forced to wear aforementioned shoes for this picture).

Not to end her photo shoot on a negative note, here’s a smiley Satori once again.

David asked me to take his portrait this weekend as well, so I’m adding his new LinkedIn photo. We wanted to take advantage of the aspens turning colors which we just noticed starting yesterday.

The excavation of our driveway leaves a nice rocky background for a portrait.

Good ole’ Maddie loves her David.

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I always like to play with Photoshop actions, the following are combinations of Totally Rad Actions and Kevin Kubota.

And then back to my favorite for portraits, Black & White.

We took the above photos last night right before our family went to the Boulder Dinner Theater to see Peter Pan. We were all dressed up, and it was time for a Not-Back-to-School School Portrait anyway!

Stay tuned tomorrow for a post on our free Homeschool ID card and how (and why) you can get one too!

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I’m partial to black and white for special photos for some reason…

Yes, these photos are bigger than I normally post!

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Satori picked two entries out of the hat, and the winners are Heather and Carrie! Congratulations!!!

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Holiday Preparations

It’s been quite a busy past few days, as we’ve done all our Christmas shopping in just 24 hours. Mostly online, with Amazon’s Prime memberships free 2-day shipping. Almost all of Satori’s presents are going to be educational. But fun educational! My parents (Grandma and Grandpa) are here in Colorado now and we’re looking forward to their visit up to our mountain home if the winter storm (predicted to hit tonight through Thursday morning) will let them.

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Photography Talk

Since I can hardly stand to write a post without pictures, here’s a few photos I took with one of my prime lenses I sold last week to make fast money for Christmas. My Nikon 50mm 1.4 lens is super fast but I rarely used it. (I prefer my 24-70mm zoom lenses so I can adjust the zoom to fit the picture. ) This 50mm 1.4 lens I just sold is good for professional photographers who shoot in low-light situations that you cannot use flash, like at a wedding or a performance in a dark theater.

The problem with opening this lens up all the way to 1.4 aperture is that the depth of field is so very small (which is so very cool as well), that you could possibly have the camera focus on one of Satori’s long eyelashes and have her eye out of focus! It’s a challenge to get both eyes in focus at the same time. Of the dozen photos I took of my wiggly daughter, only a few turned out sharp in the eyes. I’m sure all I need is more practice with it, but I’m too addicted to my 24-70mm 2.8 lens, I never use anything else anymore.

The next two photos are completed  unedited aside from  cropping. If you click on them to see them bigger, you can see how Satori’s eyes are sharp, but the sides of her face are getting blurry. Her outfit is blurred even more. And the TV and cabinet behind her are barely recognizable.

And one of our Bengal cats… As you can see,  Kashi’s neck fades into blurriness, but his face is sharp.

For those that want to learn photography, depth of field is one of the things that photographers know how to control. You’ll need to learn about aperture and how your shutter speed and ISO can affect aperture. You’ll also need a good lens to take the best advantage of depth of field. Normally in portraits you want the person’s face in focus, and the background out-of-focus, so your subject person is what catches the eye. In landscape, you may want the foreground (the flowers at your feet) all the way to the distant mountains all in focus, so you’d want the most depth of field to see everything. To shoot something flat hanging up on the wall, you’ll want depth of field right in the middle, where your lens will take its sharpest picture.

I only started learning photography fall of 2008, but I love to talk about it now. I even started up a photography website for mama photographers.

I won’t really miss this lens though, as I can get the lens known as the Nifty 50 but 1.8 aperture for just a third of the price ($100).

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She asked why the Christmas lights looked like sticker circles, hehe. I said I was trying to achieve that, and it’s called bokeh.

As I was preparing these images for this blog post, Satori made me a letter, and I just had to share…

As you can see, we are to the point where no intensive-parent-translations are needed. Just a mild effort is needed to read her letters. This letter tonight says:

i have the bestest mom ever

We get letters like this all the time. Every now and then I can’t resist sharing.

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