Wordless Wednesday

Hands at I Heart Faces

I was thrilled to see that it is "Hands-On Fun" at I Heart Faces this week. I knew I wanted to take pictures of my one years old's sweet hands, but trying to get her to hold her hands still long enough for a picture is very difficult. However, I decided to give her my baby rattle (from my childhood) to hold. She thought it was pretty interesting (at least for a few minutes!).

Be sure to check out all the other hands this week!

Swingin'

For Ella's birthday, one of the presents we got her was a swing to hang from our tree in the backyard. We've had lots of cold and rainy weather, but the weather was finally nice enough today for us to put the swing up. Ella loved it!

Fix-It Friday #44

It is Friday which means it is Fix-It Friday at I Heart Faces! I made my changes with Adobe Lightroom (beta version).
Original:

Edit:

Be sure to check out the other great fixes this week!

Boots

Ella has been obsessed with putting items into different things. I think it might be her favorite activity right now. For example, she loves to put the shapes in her singing cookie jar. Ella also loves to put her shoes in the cookie jar, or her blocks in the dog food bowl, or her shapes in her dad's boots. That's right, she decided it would be fun to put her shapes in her dad's boots.

I can only hope that Ella's obsession with putting things into other things lasts until she's old enough for it to be useful. Like putting dirty clothes in the washer. Or dirty dishes in the dishwasher.

Homemade Lightscoop

If you follow my Project 365 blog, you've probably seen me mention a homemade "lightscoop" in my settings. A lightscoop is a nifty little device you can attach to most SLR cameras to bounce the light from your internal (or pop-up flash). You don't need one if you have a speedlite (which I really, really want!), but a lightscoop is a very cheap device that can help out if you don't have a speedlite. I read about the idea for a homemade lightscoop on another blog, and right now I can't seem to find the blog to link it. Once I find it, I'll link it! Basically, you take some sort of card (like an index card, or in my case an old credit card) and cover it with foil. You'll end up with a device like mine. I placed it on the Dr. Seuss book for some size perspective.

To use the homemade lightscoop, I have to hold it at about a 45 degree angle to the flash. It takes a little getting used to, but now it is very easy for me to figure out the placement (I don't even have to think about it anymore). So why do I even want to avoid using the pop-up flash in the first place? I'll let the pictures do the explaining. First, a picture of my assistant, Reeses, with the pop-up flash, followed by a picture of Reeses with the same settings using the pop-up flash with my homemade lightscoop. Both of these shots are straight out of the camera.

Although the second photo could use a bit of brightening, it is far better than the blown-out first picture. If I had played with my settings a bit more I probably could have gotten it bright enough without any need for post-processing.

Wordless Wednesday: From Dress to Shirt

August 2009:

February 2010: