Playin' around

I have lots of free time on my hands this weekend and we have a blue sky today!!! It's been kinda cloudy all weekend. Ok, I have to warn you...I don't look so great in this photo...with my running (red shirt) on..I never wear red!!!!! But it was free shirt and its good for running. But I wasn't about to go change just to test some photos out! This is just in our backyard...hence the California block wall!

So I wanted to try of camera flash with that super blue sky. I exposed to get the sky the way I wanted it then I put my flash on the light stand. Here's what I got. This is straight out of the camera.

Workshop!

I attended another photography workshop today. This time it was a wedding one. Thought I'd quickly share a photo or two. There will be more coming on my photography blog. Just keep in mind, I was one of 48 people, so I wasn't always in the best position for a great photo. I was trying to capture things, more so I would remember what we were doing throughout the day. But I am totally excited about going to WPPI. Not that I wasn't before, I'm just more excited now!

Cutie Pie!

I'm editing photos from my brothers wedding last month. I just think my cousin's kid is so cute! I love her hair! can't get enough of the photos I took of her...so cute!


So yesterday I shot engagement photos at the Getty Center....how cool! Seriously I think I could have shot photos there for hours! I had so many ideas, and we totally ran out of time. I've been there before, but have never shot portraits there . Loved it! Hope I get to go back some day for more. This was a couple that lives up here in Lancaster. They are getting married in the Spring in North Carolina, but needed some engagement photos. I had a ton of fun. When I got come, Dave and I went to dinner at Red Lobster, watched a movie, and shared a bottle of wine. It was a nice relaxing evening. Today....lots of photos editing!

Urban Workshop

I think my brain is completely on photography overload. I left the house at 6:30 yesterday to drive to Riverside for an urban photography workshop and I got home at about 11:30pm! What a day. But what an amazing day. This workshop helped me realize so much. Things I'm doing wrong, things I'm doing right, things I need to do better. OMG! And I got some of the best photos I have ever taken. Susan was a great teacher and the best part was there was only 5 of us so I felt like we all really knew each other by the end of the day. What a great experience. Now I just have a lot to think about. Check my photography blog a little later, I plan to post a few from the shoots yesterday . We pretty much did seniors and kids. But I realized on these shoots that I think I would really like to focus my efforts of shooting seniors.

A Weekend in San Diego

Since I have been so crazy busy lately with photography stuff, I decided that Dave and I should take Sat and Sun and do something fun together. Besides we LOVE to go places! So we got in the car sat morning and drove to the San Diego area. Dave really wanted to go to Del Mar for horse racing, but August is looking pretty full, so we didn't know how we would be able to make it down. So that is what we decide to do on Saturday. It was so crazy down there....tons of people. I knew that Del Mar was kind of a hard place to photograph the horses, so I rented a 100-400mm lens from Calumet. And I think I was able to get some pretty good shots from the second level. The 6th race was the "big race" o the day. Dave really liked this horse...Surf Cat (check out his tongue).

But unfortunately Surf Cat came in second and this horse won the race.
The last race we watched as a turf race so we went to the infield, where there were a lot less people.


After the races were over, we ate dinner in Del Mar overlooking the ocean at sunset. I'm not into the whole beachy thing, but I would say Del Mar and La Jolla are my top coastal southern cali locations. So beautiful! I wanted to take sunset photos, but my battery died after the last race and apparently my other battery didn't charge in the car like I thought it did.

We spent the night and took our time getting up/ready to go on Sunday. Then it was off to Temecula for a day of wine tasting. We ate lunch at Carol's restaurant at Baily's and it was a pretty good lunch! I had a pork loin sandwich with Cabernet barbecue sauce and Dave had a Reuben. We ended the day with a short visit to Pechanga Casino where Dave got to play some Let It Ride, but didn't come out as a big winner.

Seasons Change..

Very quickly! I'm sitting here in a sweatshirt and it's slmost June! I feel like we've had summer and winter in the same week! It was almost 100 degree on Monday and then on Friday it was 49! Our mountains even got some snow. We scrapped our plans to hike this weekend because we thought it would be to cold and even snowy! Crazy huh! Some weird May Cali weather!

So yesterday we traveled down to Santa Barbara to not only visit with my cousin and his family, but so I could do some mini sessions and build up my portfolio. I even took some of my cousin and his wife. A few of them are posted on my blog. We wandered out of the park onto the streets and got some great shots.

www.micheleschanker.wordpress.com.

Sometimes the small details make a difference!

I have fallen in love with WHCC (White House Custom Color, for all the non photographers). I ordered some "sample" prints on Linen texture paper this weekend and Gift Certificates for Photoshoots. I must have placed the order on Saturday and the order arrived on my doorstep today! Then every time I get a package from them I get a lollipop! Ha I feel like when I was a kid and would go to the bank with my mom and they'd give me a lollipop! I love that every time I get a package from WHCC I get a Tootsie Pop or a Blow Pop! How cool! Yeah, I'm a sucker for small details, huh! Oh the linen paper is awesome. I love it. I used a wedding photo to get it printed and I absolutely fell in love with it.

Show and Tell Time

Just thought I'd share a few photos from last weekend.

We spent last weekend in San Diego with 2 friends from Maryland

View from our hotel room

Shells on the rocks

Our friends enjoying the view in La Jolla

Walking in the water at La Jolla, and wishing I had put my bathing suit on


The View from the park at the top of the hill (I forgot the name, it's soledad or something like that)

Lost and Found Vacation (and photos)

Dave and I have decided today on the way home to nickname this trip the "Lost and Found trip".

On Monday we woke up to very overcast gray clouds! We knew the snow was on the way. The morning wasn't to bad, just gray. Which is tough when your skiing because it is very hard to see all the bumps and moguls when the light is that flat. About noon or so the snow started and didn't stop all day. So the visibility got worse, but we still had a good time. I was pretty much forced to ski the "easier"( double blues, etc..) stuff all day because I couldn't see very well. I did do a few black mogul trails, but it was very tough to see them. We only made it up on Sublett Lift once, because the wind was horrendous. By the end of the day we had some nice powder for our last few runs.

So now for the real reason of the nick name of this trip. After lunch we decided to take the gondola up the mountain. We got up there and put our skis on and Dave realizes he doesn't have his poles! He left them in the gondola! Ooopss! So the lift people said they'd call down to the bottom and have them hold the poles for us. So Dave has to ski down the hill with no poles. Which isn't to big of a deal, its just hard to get used to. We get to the gondola...and no poles! So we go back up again...still no poles. So we figure maybe someone took them or something. Dave got a rental pair for the rest of the day. About 3pm we decided to take the gondola one more time. Guess what...they were there. So we managed to lose and find a ski then lose and find ski poles all in the same trip! Pretty crazy huh.

So I know I've totally slacked on posting photos. Ski trips for us are so busy. I hardly find time to even take photos. As I won't ski with a camera, since I'm a bit daring on skis. So my photography is limited to on and off the slopes time only. I haven't gone through them all yet, so I haven't picked out my favorites. But here's a few that I quickly picked out :

Dave on the sleigh ride ( I tried to get a candid shot, but he noticed the camera and turned and looked at me, oh well. It's still cute. )

Some Elk at the Reserve

More Elk

At the elk reserve... the bird in the tree is a Bald Eagle

Moose Crossing

The Snake River

One of the moose who frequented our condo complex

Sunrise light on the mountains behind our condo complex (It was -2 degrees when I took this photo at ~7:45am)

Hope you enjoyed some of the photos. Check the smugmug site soon for more.

Happy Hour

I made this drink at home just to take some photos with my 5D. (I'm totally like a kid in a candy store with my new camera). I just can't get enough of shooting with this camera! and I wanted to practice using back button focus. Of course I got to enjoy the drink when I was done. The bad news was I broke the glass as I was putting it in the dishwasher.

Skiing in SLC Rocks!

The annual Salt Lake City trip rocked, as always! It's just so amazing I mean where else can you stay in a city and have the convenience of 10 or more ski resorts within a half hour drive!

Recap and review of the trip:

We stayed at the Homewood Suites in Downtown. Awesome! This hotel was pretty modern, flat screen tvs, nice bed, nice pillows, and the rooms are basically layed out like apartments. The hot breakfast was decent. Although I think I liked last year's breakfast at the Residence inn better. The location was great. About two blocks from the Gateway Center and 3 blocks from PF Changs, Bucca De Pepo, and Squatters.

The first day we skied at Deer Valley. Well, I certainly can't complain. Great snow and only skiers! Snowboarders are not allowed here. So its nice for us skiers. The resort had lots of varying terrain. So lots of greens, blues, and blacks. Which worked out well for when Dave wanted something a bit easier while I challenged myself on the moguls. The opening time was 9am, which was nice because we didn't have to get up insanely early for first tracks.

The second day we skied at Snowbird. Now this place is more challenging. Not for beginners! When they say its for intermediate and expert skiers, they mean it. Lots of blue and blacks so we pushed ourselves the entire day. Lots of great powder especially in Mineral Basin. The cool part about this place is there is a 600 foot tunnel that can take you to the backside (Mineral Basin). There were some really big moguls to on some of the trails. I really liked it here, but I love to challenge myself. The day we were here we had great weather. When we went up to the top, you could see the mountains and SLC. What a view.

Lately I've been pushing myself a lot harder with skiing. Doing more moguls, etc.. So it seems that I have a trend now of falling down! I used to never fall. I had some nasty ones this trip. At Deer Valley I was going down a diamond and somehow caught powder and fell and slide a ways down the hill with my skis still attached. How embarrassing. But I popped back up and went on my merry way. Then at Snowbird Dave and I were going down a mogul run and again I caught powder. Although this time I face planted in the snow and my ski became buried while still attached to my boot! Dave apparently yelled "women down". I think he loves/gets a kick out of watching me fall because for so long I would never fall. (he missed the fall at Deer Valley).

While in SLC I just couldn't miss the UMD Terps game. So we immediately headed to a sports bar in the gateway center. The people there were great. They put us at a table right in front of a tv and turned on the MD game. Sweet! Oh and yeah, MD won again. Beating NC State by 14 points. Next is Duke this Wednesday.

Oh an I totally have to give some props to Dave for his awesome Mogul skiing this weekend. I told him he can no longer tell me that he can't ski moguls! He has improved so much, and I am so proud of him. It's been great watching him go from a total non skier (4 years ago) to skiing black diamonds filled with moguls.

So the trip was great. Great weather, great snow, and lots of fun! Can't wait to do it again next year.

I'll leave you with a view from our hotel room. I tried my best at long shutter speeds, without my tripod!

And one of the mountains near Snowbird.

A little more pop

Just thought I'd post some before and after photos. I used some lightroom presets on these. What a difference.

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Photos from last year

So I really should be doing stuff around the house...painting, cleaning, etc... But instead I've been playing around with photos from last year when we went to go play in the snow near our house. Working on saturation and more color. Anyway here's a few of the things I've played around with today.



Kevin and Ashley - Don't know if you read this blog or not, but I played around with some of your photos too.

Photography updates and more photos

I posted photos form the birthday party I photographed on Saturday. Check them out!. I love shooting photojournalistically. So much fun! My new lens really helped. I was able to stand pretty far away and get photos that some people didn’t even know I took. Well at least until the flash went off! I managed to do pretty well with bouncing the flash to. I didn’t even use my new softbox this time around. I really was enjoying bouncing the flash of walls, ceilings, etc… I love photography so much. I do these shoots every so often and I truly have fun. It’s not even like a second job or anything. I just love it! It’s kinda like a challenge to me to (how to make things unique and interesting). So last night I ordered new business cards. These ones have my new email and website on them. They go right along with the theme of the website and I went with a blue and brown color scheme. I really like them, so I hope they turn out good. I’ve also designed some 4x6 photo advertisements. Now I just have to figure out where and how to advertise. I keep thinking this would be so much easier if we actually had kids. I’d know where to go. But since we don’t have kids I really don’t know where to go.

So our weather out here in the desert looks kinda wacky this week. We have 4 or 5 days with a chance or either rain or snow! Come on snow! How awesome would that be? We defiantly need the rain though. It was pretty chilly yesterday, about 46 with a wind chill.

So this weekend I think Dave and I are going to go down to Santa Anita. I want to try out the new lens at the horse track and Dave obviously wants to go see the races. I want to play around with panning with the horses and some slower shutter speeds. I’m hoping we’ll end up in Pasadena for dinner and shopping afterwards! And then on Sunday is the MD vs Duke basketball game at UMD! GO TERPS!

Finalist again!

So I'm a finalist again in this online photo contest. This time I'm a finalist twice...once in two different categories.

Flower Photo (Lily)

City Photo (Eiffel Tower)View Blog

Now If I could just win! I'd love the prize money. Of course it would just go to my new camera!

So Here's a before and after from a photo I took a couple of years ago in venice.

Original Photo

With about 30 seconds of editing in Lightroom

Kinda cool photos

I keep playing around with lightroom presets to get a better feel for them. Here's a photo I took at Brenda's wedding. I love the vignetting. It's so funny that for a year now I've been wanting to do this, but didn't know how. Stupid me! It's so simple! The coloring is much brighter than the original photo. Is it over the top? Look at his kilt and the grass.
Well if not, this one is over the top. But kinda cool. The pool is aqua!

More Photography Stuff

So I ended up staying up late last night, because I was so excited about some new photography stuff. A while back I had emailed this photographer that took photos of Dave and I about a year ago. I wanted some advice as to how to improve my photography and I figured who better to ask than someone I have actually met before and totally admire. Her work is just awesome! So anyway I got some great advice from her, mostly about post production stuff. I was so excited to try some things out and downloaded some presets for adobe lightroom and started playing around. Yeah, what an improvement over the original file! So I went back through Tracy and Jakes photos since I haven't given them to them yet. Wow, I have so much to learn still. But baby steps right. I' getting there.

So lately I've been reading rumors of a new 5D! I also read a rumor of 16MP! What an upgrade that would be from my XT. I think Dave and I have decided that were going to suck it up and get a new camera. So I'm waiting for the announcement to see what this new camera offers. Meanwhile the original 5D is really coming down in price.

Anyway I'll be taking more photos this weekend. This time for my cousin and his family. Then I get a couple weekend off before I do the birthday party and some engagement photos.

Lightroom Fun

Okay, so I am brand new to Adobe Lightroom, but I think I have fell in love with it.

I downloaded the 30 day trial the other week and have been playing around ever since I didn't know if I would like the aged photo preset that lightroom included, but I decided to check it out. I used some of Brenda's wedding photos. Here are some examples. I actually really like it. I think I see another purchase in the near future! Lightroom is just so easy to use.