Hannah will be performing with these girls this weekend at the Scera.

Come see the production of “Coppelia” at the Scera either Saturday night (May 22nd) or Monday night (May 24th).  Shows start at 7:30 PM.  Tickets $8 each.  Hannah is in act one, so be there on time!

To top if off, they are also fun to be around!  They are Hannah’s ballet teachers, so of course, they are celebrities around our house. She saw them star in the Nutcracker in December, so she’s been star struck by them for months.

I’m working on a final project for one of my classes and I knew I wanted to incorporate a theme around these girls (and a few more ballerinas. . . the project is still in progress . . .) so here are several images from our shoot.

I sketched out what I wanted them to do in this frame, and since my stick figure drawings were practically chicken scratches, I had do demonstrate what I had in mind.

Ahem.  Me.  The NON-BALLERINA.

I’m pretty sure they wanted to invite me to take Hannah’s ballet class since that would be about my skill level.  They obviously posed much more gracefully and beautifully than I did.  :)

They are both so photogenic, and beautiful, I think every frame could have been posted.  :)

See this one?  I told her to spot into the lens so I could capture her head still but the movement of her body.  Get this, I totally demonstrated a pirouette to her (please don’t ask me why since she is the professional!)  in my FIVE FINGER shoes and guess what?  It was the best pirouette I’ve done since I quit ballet in the eight grade.

And one more just for fun:

I love outtakes.  :)

Oh my.  It was so much fun!  There will be more images added to this shoot (as soon as I shoot them!) and I’m super excited!

It goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway, she’s VERY photogenic.

Photogenic people make great images.  :)  Not only that, but my time with her flew by and before we knew it we were starving!  (Which led to going out to lunch and chatting way too much!)

She showed up totally prepared.  We had one short conversation on the phone about what I envisioned and what I wanted her to wear, and she brought an entire wardrobe complete with tons of accessories to coordinate.

She was a dream to photograph I tell you.

She looked great in every image.  I could have edited EVERY STINKIN’ image from her shoot.  Honestly.

These are my favorites:

This reminds me of a movie still . . . I wonder who she’s looking for over there  . . .

This is image is just so soft and beautiful.

It’s equally beautiful in B&W.  I got this angle by sitting on top of the truck (see below) while she sat on the bumper.

I love this.  It’s like, “I’m cool, and I’m casual, and you wanna go for ride in my junker truck?”  Also, take note of her yellow shirt against the blue truck.  Do you like it?  (How happy was I that she brought so many clothing options!)  To make a color image really stand out, the colors should work together.  Yellow and blue are complimentary colors and anytime you use complimentary colors you will have visually dynamic color images.  To reproduce this on your own images, check out a color wheel to see which colors are complimentary. (They are directly across from each other on the color wheel.)

I love this head shot too.

And I like it in color.  :)

I love her facial expression here and her body language.

Take note of this image, I used my speed light (aka external flash unit) to properly expose this image.

The B&W is a beauty too.

Now, this is the point where I talk about using flash during the day.  Remember how I tried to explain that in a post earlier this week?  Well, I have better examples now.  :)

I shot this image WITHOUT a flash.  It’s OK, but do you see how dark her face is and how harsh the shadow is across her neck?

I used my flash for this image (it was the next frame) and look at the difference!  Her face isn’t dark!  The light is very smooth on her face and the shadow on her neck is soft and diffused.

I like this image so much, I wanted to share it with you in B&W as well.

I hope this post inspires some of you to go out and shoot someone!

It’s possible that I have one too many projects on my plate right now.

But I’m having fun.

Especially since I’m working on some exciting things with my brothers.

Ben (left) is a business mastermind who knows everyone. Brian (my twin on the right) is an artist and a master at product design and patent drawings. They are both well connected and brilliant, so I’m in good company. Check out Brian’s site here.

I’m only invited to this “all boys” project because I take pictures. Hopefully good ones.

They’re working on something really cool and hopefully you will see it (and be able to buy it for yourself!) in a Costco near you in 2011.

I’ll post more details later.

Wait, what?  Did you say something?  Because there are 400 other thoughts racing through my head right now and I do not have the capability to listen like a normal person.

The end of this week wraps up one crazy semester for me at AAU.  (Just for the crazy record, I started out the fall semester living in New York, then we moved back to Kansas City, and then we moved to Utah.   TWO OF THE MOVES WERE UNEXPECTED.  Nice, huh?)  And can I just say, that after all my final projects are turned in I will be able to breath a bit easier?

I have some fun projects in the works as well and I’m excited to focus more attention on them as soon as this week is over.

Deep breath . . .

To top off this craziness, David has been in and out, and back again, over and over to the point that it’s even confusing me.  Just last night I ran into some of my cousins (who happen to be deaf) at a concert, (which sounds bizarre after reading the aforementioned bit of info about them) and they were like, “Hey!  Where’s Dave?”

And you know, I was frantically signing apologizing for my sloppy and forgetful speech, while trying to remember State signs and grasping for words. I was like, at this moment, he is in Utah, but he’s only been here for 24 hours because he just got back from Denver, and Cheyenne, and tomorrow he will be in New York, but then he’ll be back, and he should be here for a few weeks, but then I don’t know where he will be and did I mention we’ve had FOUR major moves this year?

And it all comes out like a big run-on sentence like that.  With no breaths.

It is a bit embarrassing to tell our story because we really are gypsy’s.

He is constantly on the move and it is no wonder why this little guy’s favorite word is “GO!”

What do you call a car?  GO.  What do you call a ball?  GO.  What do you call Grandpa?  GO.  What do you call mommy?  GO.

GO.  GO.  GO.

He has YET to say mommy.

He’s working on it.

I think.

Wish my husband luck at his interview in New York!  This is Hannah’s location pick for residency.  She asked TWICE this week when we were moving back to New York.  Along with the rest of his interviews, I REALLY hope they fall in love with my husband!

Well, not fall in love with him because that would be weird . . . but you know . . . I hope they really, really like him and decide they HAVE TO HAVE him for their program.

I have been anxiously engaged with school, being a mom, wife, dog lover, chef, and maid.  On top of all this, I am working on my website.

In just a few short days (or longer, who knows . . . I’m waiting on my logo) I will launch my photography website and business.

I will be offering my skills to photograph families.  I will have prints for purchase.

The fun part of putting my site together is complete (the good stuff like picture galleries) but I’m still working out some details which means: The very, very, boring, nitty gritty needs to be done.

This is the short list:

• The LDS Bookstore in town here expressed interest in selling some of my images as prints in their store.  Go ahead and re-read that sentence, digest that, and then if you have to ask me if I’m excited, you should probably get to know me better. 
• I’ve been busy looking for the right printing company to print these images as postcards and larger format prints for the right price and resolution.  Maybe when you visit this quaint little town, you’ll end up buying one of my prints?  PLEASE DO!
• This weekend, we are going to Niagara Falls.  Again, ask me if I’m excited!
• Hannah and David have a date tomorrow morning.  They are going to the Lowe’s Build and Grow Workshop.
• We love this area.  I might even be able to deal with the harsh winters if we lived here.  I’m just sayin’.
• Christmas arrived for our family yesterday when we got a huge box of clothes for David and Dallin from David’s brother.  Thank you for hand-me-downs that fit.
• This weekend is the Lumber Jack Festival and next weekend is Canal Town Days.  We live in the middle of it all.  We’ll be attending all the festivities with bells on. 

I have no pictures for this post.

Gasp.

I. KNOW.

But, I’m happy to share a couple of unrelated random images with you:

This very public bathroom is in the vacant Masonic Temple upstairs in our building.  I’m sure it had walls around it once.  I mean, I hope it did.  I wake up from nightmares like this . . . needing to use the bathroom and every bathroom I find is very public toilet.

Trust me, it’s a nightmare.

And this:

This alley is adjacent to a small patch of grass where I take Paris to the bathroom.  During daylight hours, this alley is friendly.  After the sun goes down, it’s a completely different story.  I try to avoid this spot and use another patch of grass in the parking lot, but sometimes I forget.

It freaks me out.

I’m not into Sci-Fi, and I certainly hated watching the X-Files, and this alley looks like something straight out of that show.

Go ahead and shiver.  I just did.

Have an exciting weekend!

I’m the boss of my family.

I can make my mom and dad do almost anything when I smile.

And when I stare really hard, they think I’m cute.

See this here?  It’s my arm.  My “chub-a-lub” arm to be exact.

I’ve got it made.

I’m one adorable baby.

What more could I want?

Our neighbor has the same camera we do, but different lenses.

I borrowed the Nikkor 50mm.

I think I want it.

Ahem . . .

I think I need it.

It’s great for portrait shots with a shallow depth of field.

It’s great at blurring the foreground and background and leaving your subject in focus.  It’s also great for low light setting because it has a quick shutter speed.

I shot some newly knitted hats with it.

I may have gone a little crazy making hats . . .  (I only photographed a small portion of what I’ve made.  David kind of makes fun of me for knitting so many hats, and I kind of pretend I can’t hear him when he tells me I’ve gone overboard.)

And shooting hats . . .

And when my knitting and photography hobbies collide, this is what you get.

Any other hobby suggestions?

but I have to get it off my chest.

I would hate for any of you to think I’m more crafty than I am.

Here’s the truth . . .

Knitting on a knitting loom is EASY.

Do you actually think I would embrace a new hobby that required me to think?

Honestly.

I don’t like to think unless absolutely necessary!

Here’s a secret, you can do it too!  Go buy yourself a knitting loom, follow the instructions on the back of the packaging, and start you’re own knitting factory!  (You of course, being the only factory worker.  But still . . .)

It’s so easy and quite a conversation piece.  Once you knit in public, (public meaning your font porch while watching your child draw with chalk) all closet knitters come out and knock on your door.

Three of my neighbors (ages 10, 11, 12) have come over to knit with me on my porch.

True story.

Welcome to Kansas, home to all closet knitters.

Everyone.

Everywhere.

Anywhere.

Once, while David was driving, he called to tell me he saw a bumper sticker that said, “I’d rather be knitting.”

I decided to see what all the fuss was about.

I purchased some knitting looms, yarn, and went to town.

When the hats turned out so cute . . .

I made a few.

And by a few, I mean a lot.

Having a baby?  Just had a baby?  Thinking of having a baby?

You know what you’re getting from me.