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April30th

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Weekend Win: Watching Zack Arias on creativeLIVE!

Posted in: Blogging, Gear & Reviews, Links

This one’s for the photographers! If you haven’t been watching the FREE weekend classes from creativeLIVE the last year or so, you’ve been missing out! creativeLIVE is online classroom that hosts some of the world’s most innovative photographers and airs their courses live for free on the internet. They believe in peer to peer education and using each other’s knowledge to lift the industry as a whole and as someone who couldn’t stand the rigidness of art school, that’s a philosophy I can get behind 100%. I love sharing information and hope to do something like this someday, so I just love it so much.

Bummed you missed amazing classes with Zack, Jasmine Star, David duChemin, Jeremy Cowart, Bambi Cantrell and Tamara Lackey? No worries, you can buy the DVDs for around a hundred bucks…and they’re beyond worth it.

During the classes there’s tons of fun stuff like quote contests on Twitter and a flickr pool for shots of where viewers are currently watching the class.

Zack’s class this weekend is called Foundations of a Working Photographer and so far it’s been amazing. As I write this, Zack is about to start some outdoor portraits!

Yesterday was an overview of photography and lighting basics, but before you roll your eyes…this wasn’t the usual aperture-does-this type of explanation! Everything Zack talked about I technically *knew* but now I really feel like I GET. Zack was the first photographer to explain the inverse square law in a way I understood in his One Light DVD and his explanation on lens compression and distortion yesterday was equally clarifying.

Technically, I knew what a wide angle will do to a face and I knew that telephoto lenses compressed a background…but it wasn’t until I saw the staggering side-by-side photo examples that I really got how powerful something as simple as lens choice can be.

I also FINALLY feel like I can calculate reciprocal exposures on-demand whereas before it was still EEEP MATH. I suck at math.

I’d rave more, but Zack is getting going and I don’t want to miss anything! Catching this today or tomorrow? Tune in! http://creativelive.com/live
March23rd

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Happy Spring!

Posted in: Blogging, Domesticity, Project 365

Spring is all about new beginnings! I’ve been busy brainstorming and planning for the summer, my spring resolution (cause who can be motivated in the dead of winter for the New Year kind? not I!) is to shoot, shoot, shoot. No excuses, every day. I started my *cough*th attempt at a Project 365 on Sunday, 3/20/11. Album here. I’m putting zero pressure on myself to do anything other than take at least one photo every day, like a visual journal. The thought of pulling off a high-production/thought out photo every single day is a little much for me right now…that’s for next year! For now, I need to carry my camera all the time. Time to thaw out the mojo!

Since I started, having my camera next to me at all times is resulting in Aiden having his own personal paparazzi in the house. Not that he minds…
March3rd

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Out With The Old!

Posted in: Blogging, Project 365

In with the new! Spring Equinox is just around the corner, it’s a new year with new possibilities and I…dear reader…have finally gotten a new camera. I know, I know…”it’s not the camera, blah blah blah”…but I wanted an upgrade anyway! I’m now shooting with a full frame Canon 5D Mark II and I.love.this.camera.

The color!

The clarity!

The ISO!! (Taken @ ISO1000, hand-held)

It’s amazing what a new toy will do to breathe life into you after a long, cold, gray winter indoors. To further my new gear glee, I took friend and fellow ‘tog Sara Patton up on purchasing her Canon 50mm 1.4 lens to upgrade from the cheaper (but excellent) 50mm 1.8. This lens is slow as a beast to focus but otherwise, LOVE LOVE LOVE!

I’m super excited to use them at our upcoming wedding with Julie & John, next weekend in Salem, MA at The Lyceum. Historic salem, new gear and retro/jazz themed wedding? My gig is pretty sweet.

While we grow impatient waiting for Spring, my family and I have been snatching any opportunity to get out and about. We took Zoe to the RI Spring Flower Show to start teaching her how to use my Canon 20D Mary-Margaret was kind enough to give us.

We took Aiden to Newport Creamery for lunch and ice cream…

I’ve taken a LOT of pictures of Aiden. He mostly tolerates it.

I’ve been tugging along the camera to try and get mentally prepared for my fourth? fifth? attempt at a 365 project. I plan to start on the Spring Equinox and Jameswill be starting along with me! We’ve vowed to keep each other on track!

One of my Spring Equinox Resolutions is to blog more on here. I get caught up in Altared Visions work and forget to blog for myself as well!
January1st

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365.1 – Happy New Year!

Posted in: Blogging, Wedding

Happy New Year to all of you, I hope 2011 brings you happiness, love and all that snazzy stuff.

It’s time for attempt #3 at a 365! Third time’s the charm, right? I rang in the New Year doing what I love for a living and 2011 is all uphill from here.
January1st

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Our Happy Holidays

Posted in: Blogging

Holidays 2010 at The Pod <3
January1st

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December is for celebration!

Posted in: Blogging

(Reposted from AV blog)

December is always a hectic but fun month here. My brother’s birthday, our family Christmas party, my son Aiden’s birthday and then Christmas and the New year roll through one after another and I’ve barely cleaned the cake pan between use. (Alright, my dishwasher has barely cleaned the pan…)

Sometimes I forget to use my camera for me. One of my personal resolutions for the new year is to finally conquer a 365 project. I’ve gotten my hands on a Canon 20D body I will probably tow around in my purse to help keep me going. James wants to do one as well…we’ve got a lot of plans!

To practice, I’ve been using my camera for me all week. It was a good week to start with my family celebrating my daughter Zoe’s 11th birthday, the kids decorating the tree and my son in his brand new (gently used, rescued from storage by James) racecar big boy bed. I can hardly wait to wake up to a juice cup being thrust in my face and I will miss him calling “Goooooood Mooooorrrnnning!” from his crib at 7:30am sharp.

Somewhere along the line, my baby became a boy and my little girl became a tween. Woah. Happy Birthday Zoe, please have mercy on me over the next decade.
October5th

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Michelle’s DIY Lightbox!

Posted in: Articles, Blogging, DIY Gear, Links

Remember my DIY Lightbox tutorial? Well Michelle, a fellow knitter, wrote me saying she was going to try it out and I asked her to let me know how it went.

Well she did and she kind blew my mind experimenting with backgrounds by putting stuff between the light and tissue…genius!! Look!

Have you made a DIY Lightbox with my tute? Let me know and I’ll link your post! Which reminds me…I should post some more DIY photography stuff! Wedding season is winding down and there’ll be a lot more time for blogging, knitting, blogging about knitting (look, I closed my knitting blog so you non-knitting readers…all 3 of you…will just have to deal!) and best of all…photography for the hell of it.
September5th

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Upcoming CSN Stores Product Review!

Posted in: Blogging, Domesticity, Gear & Reviews

Having a blog has a lot of perks, one of which is sometimes you get to give away or review products that your readers might be into. Well, a lot of my readers are photographers and if there’s one things photographers need to survive, it’s COFFEE!

I’ve recently become a real French press snob, it’s the only coffee maker I will use because the machines just taste like crap to me now. I recently busted my flimsy IKEA job so it’s time to test-run a new french press from CSN. I will report back with the review and of course copious photographs!

If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been, you can find me located under a mountain of work for the Altared Visions business, and I couldn’t be happier!
July15th

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Happy 2nd birthday Aiden, Love Mom

Posted in: Blogging, Childhood

Today is my son’s 2nd birthday…I can’t believe it’s been 2 years already. Happy birthday, baby loo. I got my first digital SLR camera just before he was born, so I can watch him AND my photos grow up looking back!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY BOY! You and your sister are amazing. <3
June27th

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Working away!

Posted in: Blogging

Thought I’d post a little smattering of the pile of work I’m plowing through, both personal and professional. Each will get their own post as I finish the processing but I haven’t posted recently and would like some physical evidence that I’ve been working my butt off over here! Enjoy!

(clicking images will bring you to the image page on my flickr!)