The Best Time of Year to Go to the Zoo March 31, 2010
Posted by Emily in : Daily Life, Family, Little Man Dallin, Princess Hannah, Thoughts, Utah , 2commentsWe took the kids to the zoo.
CUTEST. THING. EVER.
Dallin’s finger was always pointing at something. Always.
This is the baby elephant. I’m not sure how old it is, but is is DARLING. It’s worth making a trip to the zoo just to see this cute little (big) thing!
Baby and mama . . . seriously, it was so cute!
Hannah on a larger-than-life sized elephant . . .
This was one cute monkey . . .
At least Dallin thought so.
Did I mention there was a baby giraffe too?! GO TO THE ZOO! It was adorable too! It nursed and Hannah was super impressed.
The peacock showed off it’s feathers for us and shook his bum too!
Dallin and Hannah LOVED the carousel and the train ride SOOOOO MUCH. Basically, they thought they were at Disneyland.
Go the the zoo when the weather is a little cool but tolerable. The animals are so active! Normally, in the summer (the peak time people go to the zoo) the animals are hiding in the shade, lethargic, sleeping, or hiding in some obscure place to stay cool. If you go when the weather is a bit nippy, the animals are out and about! The lions, cougars, and tigers were all pacing in their cages. And the elephants and giraffes were playing around! Go while it’s cold! Go! Go!
(Just found out that the little baby giraffe DIED 24 hours after we saw it at the zoo! Check out the link here.)
Coloring Easter Eggs 2010 March 30, 2010
Posted by Emily in : Family, Holidays, Parenthood, Princess Hannah , 3commentsThe Easter Bunny arrived a week early for our family. (I know, it probably sounds lame, but let me explain . . . I was on Spring Break this last week, which meant I had ZERO projects to work on over the weekend. I didn’t have any extra shoots scheduled either, so that meant I had the WHOLE WEEKEND to spend with my family! Also, since next week is our church’s General Conference, I wanted Hannah to get her Easter dress early so she would have a chance to wear it before Easter. See, not so lame after all, right?)
Over the weekend, the kids woke up to Easter baskets (pails at our house this year) with fun goodies. We kicked off our festivities by coloring eggs. We tired both brown and white eggs to see which ones gave a better color. You’ll have to take a look and decide for yourself. :)
She’s an expert.
The white colored egg is on the left, and the brown colored egg on the right.
Again, the white is on the left, and the brown is on the right. Which one do you like better?
Happy Easter everyone!
Easter Egg Hunt 2010 March 29, 2010
Posted by Emily in : Holidays, Little Man Dallin, Princess Hannah , 3commentsHello internet. It’s nice to be connected again. It’s amazing how much I miss you, especially when you disappear for more than 24 hours with no explanation.
Now, on to the Easter festivities:
This was Dallin’s first Easter Egg hunt. He has no idea what he’s doing, but he likes his pail.
Hannah had to stop after picking up her first egg to check out the contents. No use continuing if the prizes in the eggs are lame.
Dallin caught on, and decided to peek in the eggs himself.
He dropped everything for a pink peep . . .
He’s out of the game. He simply cannot continue to hunt while eating his treat!
“Hey look Guys! Every egg has stuff in it!”
“Do you want some of my eggs?”
“Take me up on my offer now because after I turn two, I’ll figure out how NOT TO SHARE and next year you will be wishing you took advantage of my generosity!”
Born to Run March 26, 2010
Posted by David in : Exercise, Health, Sports , 2commentsGuest Post By David:
Emily asked me to write a post about my new-found passion. Running barefoot. While I was doing my Family Medicine rotation, I heard someone talking about a book called Born to Run
I’ll be the first to tell you I’ve said the following statement out loud, “Why would anyone want to run a marathon?” This is not the first time I have had to dine on my own speech. I’ve become quite accustomed to the taste of my own words. Anyway, I decided to get the book. I couldn’t put it down. It really spoke to me. Not because I’ve been a lifelong runner, (in fact, I have always hated long distance running) but because I’ve been looking for a way to maintain my health that I would continue to do for the rest of my life. I’m not interested in something I’ll only do for a month or 90 days. I’m interested in a life change that will have lifelong benefits. The best exercise in the world is the one you enjoy doing . . . you will end up continuing to do it. The best exercise is completely useless if it’s not done.
Throughout the book, everything just made sense. After finishing the book, I have discovered an entire “underground” community/movement of barefoot running. The stories are countless and sound very similar. People with chronic running injuries have been finding relief while running. All they had to do was kick off the shoes!
Obviously, there are risks in running barefoot. Stepping on glass, a jagged rock, or a hypodermic needle . . . it could ruin your day. The first thing to remember is to start slow. ”Listen” to your feet. There’s a reason we have so much sensation on the soles of our feet. Many of the muscles in our feet and lower legs have atrophied because they have been rendered useless by our shoes. It’ll take some time to get them back. You’ll feel them getting stronger the more you work them. I’ve only been doing this for about a week, but I have already experienced noticeable benefit. My posture has improved, my lower back stopped hurting, and I feel lighter on my feet.
Check out this video:
I don’t know about you, but I’m a lifelong convert. There are many websites out there that talk about the benefits of barefoot running . . . check them out!
UPDATE
For a little help on the transition from heel striking to “barefoot” running, check out the following page.
We Go WAY Back . . . (And Now I Feel Old) March 25, 2010
Posted by Emily in : Friends, Photography , 1 comment so farThese are some of my favorite people:
When I first met these guys, David and I were just newlyweds and they were six, four, and two!
Spending time with my favorite peeps is such a great way to spend the day.
PINK! March 24, 2010
Posted by Emily in : Friends, Photography , 4commentsMy friend Cami had a baby GIRL.
I think I may have been as shocked as she was!
This is their sweet little girl Camryn.
I would just like to point out that Cami DID INDEED give birth the same day I visited her in the hospital. Why do I feel the need to point that out? Because she looked AMAZING.
She actually had makeup on.
MAKEUP.
Standing next to Cami, I pointed out my very makeup free face to her husband and said, “What is wrong with this picture? She did just have major surgery, right?”
Lesson learned: just because you’ve been gutted like a deer (this was her fourth c-section) doesn’t mean you need to look like it.
Ahem. I should put makeup on more often. My kids probably wouldn’t recognize me. They might think that every day is Sunday actually! :)
I love smelling newborns, and taking their pictures.
It’s nice to get a “newborn” fix every once in a while, but I’m just not ready for another one yet. :)
Pregnant Cami + Her Boys March 23, 2010
Posted by Emily in : Friends, Photography , 1 comment so farHallelujah! I got my colors to display properly!
This is a high school friend of mine, Cami. I photographed her over the weekend, documenting her last two days of pregnancy, and her first few hours after labor and delivery. I’ll post her newborn baby pics tomorrow. 
Cami is a rare find . . . because she actually WAITED to find out the sex of her baby in the delivery room! I don’t know about you, but I can’t even wait until I’m 17 + weeks along to find out the sex of my babies!
I’m going to point out the not-so-obvious here . . . see the kid riding the two wheel bike without training wheels? HE IS TWO YEARS OLD.
Go ahead and re-read that. If you still aren’t impressed, you should probably brush up on your knowledge of child development. Just know that it is TOTALLY NOT TYPICAL for a TWO YEAR OLD to ride a bike without training wheels. Heck, some two year olds can’t even ride their tricycles!
Cami has three boys already, so naturally, she thought she might be having another boy . . .
Wanna know what she had?
Find out tomorrow!
Color, Color, Why Must You Give Me Problems? March 23, 2010
Posted by Emily in : Friends, Photography, Thoughts , 1 comment so farThis is my friend Cami.
She just delivered her fourth baby on Monday!
I have lots of great images to share with you from her shoot on Saturday (very pregnant) and Monday (with her newborn) but I’m having some color management issues with Photoshop with posting images online. I re-installed Photoshop (and when I say “I” re-installed Photoshop, I really mean David did . . .) recently, and I’m afraid I don’t have all my settings correct. I have a date with the manual for the next couple of nights. Lucky me, right?
Until then, enjoy these black and white images of her. :)
She is just as beautiful in color. Trust me. :)
The Conversation Piece March 22, 2010
Posted by Emily in : Exercise, My Handsome Husband , 2commentsWhen David arrived home this weekend the kids and I practically tackled him to the ground. Let’s just say, it feels like he’s been gone a lot longer than five days. We only have NINE more weeks of him being gone all week and only seeing him on the weekends. Can you believe it? :)
Guess what he came home sporting?
Yep.
They are quite the conversation starter if you know what I mean.
David is in love with them, and within 24 hours of being home, he convinced his dad to buy a pair of his own. I’ll be getting a pair just as soon as they’re available in my size at the ONLY store that sells them within 60 miles of my house.
They are in pretty high demand, and they’re not available at many places.
It’s not recommended that you buy them online, because you really have to try them on to get the right fit. (You know me, I prefer to buy everything online from the comfort of my basement, so I was a little bummed that I actually have to GET MY BODY out the door and DRIVE to a store to buy them.)
Before you know it, David will convince you too. Read this book
We also had a great time meeting up with friends this weekend and I had some fun shoots.
I think we’re going to miss Utah when we leave here in a few months. ;)
Photographing Still Life Tutorial March 19, 2010
Posted by Emily in : Photography, School , 3commentsI’ve never been drawn to photographing “things.” So far, it’s just not my thing.
But . . . that doesn’t mean I don’t want to learn how . . .
So here goes my tutorial on photographing still life with two flood lights: a key light and a back light.
This was my first attempt at shooting this lovely toffee. (It was really hard not to eat it, by the way.) Notice how white the background is in this image . . . you might be surprised at what it looks like when the lights are pointing different directions.
This was the set up shot for this image above:
Notice how I’m using two lights for this subject. I am using two 500 watt tungsten bulbs with beauty dishes (the round dishes around my bulbs) to channel and reflect my light in a controlled direction. I placed my key light (the main light in front) high above my subject to avoid nasty harsh shadows and blown out highlights. There is not an absolute rule as to where to place the lights because every subject is different. You have to manually move your light around, paying close attention to the shadows and highlights to determine where to place it. I placed the second light in the back shining on my very high tech white sheet that I taped to the wall. (I know, so classy. Call me lazy, but I seriously did not have the energy to put together my background stand when I set this up.) Lighting the white sheet made the background very bright (white) and the overhead light lit up my subject. Remember to move your subject about five feet AWAY from your background to avoid photographing wrinkles and lint. A shallow depth of field (F3.5 to F1.4 will do the trick) will also throw the background out of focus, eliminating such distractions in your image.
This was the second lighting set-up I tried. Look at how grey the background is! I still have the white sheet up, but I turned the back light (the one that was lighting the white sheet) around and faced it directly onto my subject. No light = dark background.
This is an overhead shot with the same set-up as above. Do you notice the shadow? What a bummer, I know.
This is how the set up looked for the two images above. I turned the light around, and placed both lights at the same height to light my subject evenly. It worked nice, but seemed to be missing one thing . . . so I tried one last set up . . .
This is it! The shadow is gone! Both lights are set up at the same height, evenly lighting my subject, but I added a diffuser.
Ideally, I probably should have diffused both lights, but I was happy with the results.
What do you think? Do you want to shoot still life now? I have to admit, it’s really relaxing to shoot inanimate objects because there is no pressure to hurry up the shoot (like with kids!), and you can try as many lighting scenarios as you want without feeling like you’re wasting their time (like with adults), and you’re only dealing with ONE variable: YOU! Instead of many variables: you, kids, parents, pets, the weather, etc.
It was a lot more fun that I expected (probably because I was so relaxed) and I might start experimenting with this more. :)
I have a really fun project in the works I hope I can share with you (if my subject my obliges), so cross your fingers because it’s going to be good! :)
