So it's time for the random...

Often photography guides will tell you to get on a child's level, don't look down on the kids but I say "PishPosh" or whatever polite way I can think of to disagree.  When a child is trying to get your attention and you look down and see this cute face, well you just want to capture it as is.  So here is some bigheaded kid happiness of one of my favorite non grandkid kids.

To make this just about the Tay-ster, I eliminated the busy background (with the lasso tool/delete), selected the area around her and on another Photoshop layer, painted it white then gave it a good strong gaussian blur.  It's like she's lookin' right at you, isn't it.  I'm pretty sure she's askin' for something and I gotta tell her to ask her mom and dad...I just wanna give it to her but she'll get a big hug and a tickle right away instead.  This smile should get you through the week, consider yourself hugged and tickled.

...so it's April Fools and March's Best Face!

and as they say, there's no fool like an old fool.  I have been furiously working on orders, projects and a website so I was caught unawares with the shenanigans that is April Fools Day.  I got caught up in an email prank, I was totally thrown off by Iheartfaces.com's goofy post for a new "Photography Posing Guide book"  and editing Photo Booth pictures just made me realize that today is no day for serious work.  So here is an image from one of our Photo Booths that will make you laugh.  Heeeeeere's Johnny!

For more April Fool's pranks to tickle your funnybone, go here! ...or here for another photography joke!

In all seriousness, this was a test for a basic photobooth with a plain white background where the faces of those being photographed are the focus.  The images can be fun with props or people can use the photobooth as a DIY portrait session.  I've been meaning to capture Johnny's faces before he outgrows his goofy stage and won't do them anymore so this is my favorite face for March.  You can see more at Iheartfaces.com

...SOOC Seascape too beautiful for words, an adventure!

I went to Portland Oregon for a few days to join my beloved on a business trip and decided to drive here, a place I didn't know anything about other than it would be worth the drive and it had big dramatic rocks.  My husband and I drove down during a heavy downpour (tsunami warnings from Japan's quake kept us from going on a nicer day weather wise).  Our GPS took us the most roundabout way possible so we got there very late in the day, almost sundown.  But it was totally worth the drive to get this shot!  

We walked down to the beach between some houses with my tripod in a freezing wind and the clouds parted for just a moment .  Everything went from blue/grey to natural sepia sand tones and I was fumbling like crazy with my settings...since manual is still new for me.  The light kept changing and so did my settings...this is my favorite shot, I can still hardly believe I got it!  We drove a total of 6 hours to see this...oh, and our dinner was amazing as well...we drove back to Portland happy with our adventure although a little nervous on a dark unknown road in the rain!  I feel like a real photographer now.

...so it's wednesday and that means a little something I call...

It's just a little something today of favorite things.  I wish I could still wear shoes like these!  I snuck into Samantha's room and took a photograph of a couple of her favorite things.  Then I had a little fun taking more photos of her closet but you'll have to jump over to flickr to see those! 

...sometimes a photograph inspires the art

I decided to reinstate hump day happiness to get you through the week even though somebody creeped me out with what it means to them, the sicko.  For those of you that toil away at work or at home longing to get through the week or be somewhere else or following your dream, I offer a little inspiration.

Have I mentioned my daughter is a photographer?  Okay, I'm a proud mama.  It's exciting to see her blossom as an artistic person and to see that her work inspires others makes me very proud.  Recently she was going through her tumblr and unexpectedly found a sketch inspired by one of her photographs.  It was drawn by another talented young woman in Chile.  Her flickr stream is all sketches based on the photographs she finds in tumblr.  Some of her sketches would take you to the kittens if they were photographs probably as NSFW but I love the simple sketch she created from Samantha's very innocent photograph.  (I'm an old lady and since many of my blogreaders are children's photographers, I thought I would just give a little warning but I want her mama to be proud she is getting exposure too!)  

Here is her pretty little sketch...


Here is Samantha's photograph that inspired it...

I can't tell you how excited I was when my favorite blog from the writer of a favorite decorating book The Paris Apartment used one of her photographs in this post.  We live in a small town on the way to nowhere and Samantha would like to do commercial/fashion work.  As she finishes her schooling and continues to photograph, we hope the internet exposure is a good thing.  We'll see won't we?
Note:  The cat in the photograph (Neal) has been missing for a few days with the recent cold storms.  We are hoping his sweet nature captivated another family and not the coyotes, owls or hawks.  We miss him dearly as does his brother.