davejenbarnes

I never announced it, but the inspiration for taking pictures everyday this week was the a week in the life challenge, though only the taking pictures part.  I did not keep a written journal.  I did not collect things from our daily lives to add to a book.  I am not scrapbooking any of it.  That’s what the blog is for, right?  Post it and be done with it?  The reason I never really said why I was doing what I was doing was in case I fell off the bandwagon early-on.  This is the last day, so I feel it’s safe.  I might keep up the style of photos but probably won’t post as many every single day as I have in the last week.

I don’t know how I will get along without the camera at my side around the house… or if the house will stay as clean as its been… but I have had a lot of fun documenting this past week in our lives.  I missed a lot, but that always does happen.  Just when you think it’s safe to go cameraless, some really amazing moments happen!

Some camera/photo-nerdish things I have learned…

• The house is amazingly full of light when I want it to be, despite the walls being painted darkish colors.
• I don’t really need a tripod around the house but to get sharp pictures, set the camera down and use the timer or a remote.
• 800 & 1600 are necessary and useful ISO speeds
• I didn’t use the flash one single time and still got a lot of pictures I’m really pleased with
• The focus selection and ISO selection on the 400D really frustrate me; I haven’t figured out everything yet…
• I can open pictures in photoshop off the CF card and only save the edited jpegs which saves me tons of memory space BUT does not give me the security of having the “original” “just-in-case.”
• Quality lenses are much easier to work with than crap-for-crap lenses that come with the camera body.  Upgrade your lens early-on.
• Cropping in-frame was the best lesson I learned at the UT photographer camp the summer before my Junior year of high school.  Hardly any of the photos I took this week needed additional cropping.

Some family things I have learned…

• James does not like having his picture taken every day
• Lowell just wants the camera
• I get a lot more done, the house stays cleaner, and I have more knitting time when the computer is completely turned off during the day (as opposed to the compy just being asleep)
• Taking pictures of yourself with the timer mode turned on feels very, very strange
• I do more around here than I give myself credit for — David works longer hours than I’d ever realized and doesn’t get to see his boys very much over a whole week.
• “Put things away when you’re done with them” doesn’t work of its own accord; you actually have to do work to get it to work.
• Setting the example for the boys works (as far as cleaning up goes this week)
• I am not nearly as ready as I thought I was to have this baby.
• David doing the grocery shopping is the biggest blessing of my life.
• Drop-spinning yarn is the most calming thing I’ve ever done.

This red scratch greeted us in the parking lot.  OOOoooo I was so mad!

This is the BFL fiber that the girls gave me last night.  I have a feeling it will get spun up before the Colonial on the smaller spindle… it’s just so FLUFFY.

And here are the BG 3.0’s … LOVE LOVE LOVE them.  Colors are great (go Bears go!) and the best part - they’ll fit until this kiddo potty trains!

I’m going to go ahead and hit “Publish” and come back tonight to upload/update from the afternoon on the bottom half of this post.  I have two sick kids and am sick myself so I don’t know when I’ll have another chance at the computer.

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After-dinner pics…

I’ve been trying to capture Lowell signing “cold” for about 6 months now and this is the best picture so far even though he’s done the sign so much better…

I did.  I lasted a good long while.  I lost it at bedtime, though.  at 10:15 and they were still not in bed — lost it.  Absolutely went crazy and I feel horrible.  (edit to add we didn’t get home from Small Group until 9:30, so it’s not like I just let them run wild until 10:15!)

Today David is at/went to State Marching competition in San Antonio at the Alamo Dome.  Here is a sneak peek into our day, though I didn’t think about doing this until 3 pm.  So you missed the morning of running around North Austin trying to track down a parking garage toy.  We found one at Toys R Us but I don’t think it will last very long.  Anyhow, to the pictures, once I thought about it and started taking pictures:

I know that picture looks bad.  Really.  Come on?  The computer?  I really should have been attacking the mess that is taking over (the storage tub on the couch — it’s full of yarn for David’s sweater — the kids’ clothes on the arm of the couch, the mess of receipts and scissors under the monitor, the yarn everywhere, the couch pillows on the rocking chair (along with a cloth I use to cover the TV) the vacuum, the mess on top of the armoire) playing with James… but but but but this was during “naptime” and I’m in the habit of a quick mid-day email check.  James doesn’t nap at the same time as Lowell anymore.  He naps about 2 hours later.  SO, with the above picture in mind, I will return to my old habit of turning off the computer during the day.  Most of the day.

I KNOW I’m not supposed to scoop the kitty litter.  But a pregnant woman with the nose of a superhero can only take So. Much.  And, Dave, once a week is NOT ENOUGH by a long shot.

**cross posted on my photoblog**

Every year, our church has what they call a Concert of Praise.  It’s an evening service held with all of the Hill Country Bible Churches in the association.  This year, there were so many churches (due to church planting!) that the concert had to be split between “East side - West side” with two concerts occurring simultaneously.  It was pretty amazing.  Over 5,000 decisions for Christ were made in the last few months as a result of the Backyard Bible clubs, GO Trips, and various other ministry efforts.  What a joyous occasion to celebrate!

I do feel like I completely missed it, though.  I mean, I was there and all… but I had two DSLRs (with different lenses, so I didn’t have to switch lenses in the dark) between me and the “action” and I was continually looking for good angles and “the next shot.”  This was my first time shooting dark stage shots without the calming prescence of my brother and I was praying that I’d get an acceptable number of photos for the Worship Team.  I’d done the sermon shots on August 3rd… but the house lights were up for those.

Not a good pic at all (bad point of view) but here’s Dave.  He was “working,” too, see?

James was there.  He sat in the audience and reports from the parents I had him sitting with were very good.  We have a very well behaved 3 year old, apparently.  Go James!  Woo!

Here are some of my favorites from Sunday night:

That one with the balloons waaaaay up high, in the upper left hand corner is my favorite.  I just love the foreshadowing!

I shot with my brother’s Canon 400D and my Canon 300D.  I had the XTi set to save in RAW mode and the 300D to save in jpg mode (because I have lost my other 2Gig memory card) and I have to say… … … …I was blown away with the jpgs that came off of the 300D.  I was so blown away with them that I didn’t even bother opening them in CS3.  The thing that amazes me is that you probably can’t tell which ones were the unprocessed jpgs off of the 300D or the processed ones off the 400D unless you knew which lenses I had on which camera.  Heh.

This is cross posted (no pun intended) over in my photoblog. I just wanted to post it here in case y’all don’t visit over there regularly. There are tons more pictures going up tomorrow on the photoblog after I get them processed and uploaded to flickr.

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My brother joined me for picture-taking at the Good Friday service tonight. Here’s a few pictures of the crosses. We had all three of our cameras out, from the 5D Jerry just bought to the old 300D I’m currently using (but desperately need to upgrade). I had the two rebels and Jer had the 5D.

They were all over. The crosses filled the Deep End.

They were even outside and in the gym.

Hey! You! Yeah, you! Go check out my new photo blog. I’m taking pictures for my church’s worship team now and I had a gig Friday night. I’ll be posting some amazing photos over there, so check it out by using the link above or just click on the delicious cake below. (cake by Scott over at The Cake Plate)

Yay! I wasn’t pregnant and miserable this year! Summerfest 2005 was on James’ due date and, yes, we went and I sat in the 100º heat just to listen to the band (plus, my doctor was there and there’s no better place for a pregnant woman to be on her due date than the same place as her doctor, right?) and Summerfest 2006 we had just found out we were pregnant with Lowell.

I tried getting some pictures today. Tried. Not much success going on there these days. I have begun wearing Lowell in the mei tai a lot more when we’re out and the camera, well, it … yeah, I hate to admit it, but the camera kinda hits Lowell in the head when I put it up to my eye. It’s the battery grip. I love the battery grip but when it comes to taking pictures while babywearing, I need a shorter (less tall?) camera body (i.e. take off the grip but then the camera doesn’t work because I don’t have the battery compartment cover with me at all times to put back on the camera) or I just need to start toting around the elph again. Le sigh… the SLR has really spoiled me though… or, no, Jer’s lens has really spoiled me though.

So until I get better at wearing Lowell on my back and tying the mei tai that way, don’t expect a lot of pictures when we’re out and about! Ooo… or maybe someone else could start wearing the baby?

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These pictures were the first few that we took on our bluebonnet picture day. Well, I still had the manual settings in full manual mode set up for indoor photography and the sun, she is a bright bright thing and overexposed about half a dozen or so photographs including these two. Here and here are the originals. The thing that bugged me so much about this is that James stopped smiling after I noticed and fixed the settings on the camera. I bet he perceived my aggravation. That boy is so observant and perceptive.

Well, in a mutual agreement, Dave and I gave each other some money to spend however we wanted. I’d been eyeing the 52 actions set (previously only 40 actions) at ittybittyactions.com so I got ‘em. And this is the result of just one of those actions. I used urban intensify on these after adjusting the exposure in photoshop’s RAW converter. I love it! I’m having so much fun!