Day 17: Technology

In the 30 Day Photo Challenge series ...

Kyrie

Anna

We have way too much technology.

Day 16: Long Exposure

In the 30 Day Photo Challenge series ...

Kyrie

Anna

I showed Kyrie this long exposure picture to give her an idea of what "long exposure" meant, and she pretty much just wanted to duplicate it. 

I didn't end up with any good shots of the kids moving around, because we have too much background clutter, so I went with getting a shot of the snow. It's not much of a long exposure, because I discovered that if you try to take a long exposure when it's not entirely dark out, you get a very very white picture. This was as long of an exposure as I could manage and still have things be somewhat clear. 

Really, this whole getting-good-pictures thing is a lot of work.

DAY 15: Silhouette

In the 30 Day Photo Challenge series ...

Kyrie

Anna

I learned that, in order to get a silhouette photo, you not only have to have your subject standing right in front of a light source, you also have to turn off all the other lights in the area.

I also learned that Kyrie is losing steam on this photo project; she was much more interested in the video game the kids were playing than in getting a good photo.

(Savi, on the other hand, keeps begging me to let her take 10 or 5 or however many pictures of different things, too.)

Day 14: Eyes

In the 30 Day Photo Challenge series ...

Kyrie

Anna

If she was paying attention, Kyrie learned how to crop pictures on my laptop. I "learned", what I already knew, that my camera has focusing issues with things that close up. I believe that I had to use the manual focus to convince my camera to take this shot. 

Although she liked the picture of Jubal better, Kyrie actually got a couple shots of Elijah's eyes by having the lower half of his face hiding behind a solid chair. I thought it made for a very cute "eyes" shot, and wished I had thought to try that.*

*But not enough to actually try that.

Day 13: Yourself with 13 Things

In the 30 Day Photo Challenge series ...

Kyrie

Anna

13 toys for Kyrie. 13 books on my reading list. (Although, really, that little yellow book called Radical Optimism is one I've read several times and probably not going to re-read again soon. But it's sort of holding the place for another book that I am going to order.)

Let's see... did I learn anything? I learned that my hair is really frizzy and I don't care for the way I usually look. (Well, ok, I already knew that.) I learned that my reading list is only 13 books, which somehow sounds a lot more manageable than I was imagining it to be. I learned that the red-eye flash doesn't really get rid of red-eye. I learned that when I'm on the short end of sleep, I don't really care enough to arrange everything just perfect for a picture. So there you go.

Day 12: Sunset

In the 30 Day Photo Challenge series ...

Kyrie

Anna

All I can say is... it's really hard to get a picture of the sunset when there's a hedge to the west that's taller than you are. (Even standing on a chair, it's taller than my eye level.) Also, it was freezing* and impossible to see because the wind, the crazy crazy wind we're having right now kept blowing my hair in my face. 

Seriously, I had to stand on the tallest stool we have and then hold the camera up as high as I could and try to point it in the right direction, to get my photo. I lifted Kyrie part way onto my shoulder to get hers. 

Since I spent the whole day obsessively trying to finish three photobooks so that I could order them before Shutterfly's sale ends today, I forgot to ask Kyrie which of those two photos she preferred before she went to bed. So I'm including them both. (If she picks one tomorrow, I might remove the other. Or not.)

*I realize that to my family and friends in the Midwest, it does not count as "freezing" when it is not even below the literal freezing point (It's 36 right now), but for us Pacific Northwesterners, that wind makes it really cold.

Day 11: Something Blue

In the 30 Day Photo Challenge series ...

Kyrie

Anna

I'm not sure I learned anything specific today. Or I'm just too exhausted to know it. But I think I'm slowly making progress.