My very first wedding...

I was digging thru pictures the other day in an effort to organize and found these. This was our first try at wedding photography. We weren't the official photographers but rather the camera crazed cousins with high end equipment they had no idea on how to use!

We definitely lucked out on a bunch of shots! So much so that many of these (and others) are posted on the walls of my cousins house! There's something to say about being free!!:) Still, it's an honor to have our images grace her walls!

This was my (and Mark's) first experience with indoor photography and didn't have a flash (nor did I want to use one during the service). I knew a little about ISO and aperture so with that I just tried lots of stuff! Some the images looked better after post processing but some, like the one above, actually were okay right out of the camera!

I definitely learned alot that day and the following months and weeks as we explored our camera further and did a lot of trial and error. I know i'm still learning with every shot I take and now understand how 20 years of experience is really needed to truly be an expert. For now, I'm just an amature.

Although, funny story, I delivered the DVD for the wedding we just did and forgot to give the bride a release for the photos. I guess Sam's club thought they looked good enough to require one before she could take them home (after they printed them...go figure...).

Oooo...My Turn...

So I took my turn at the macro extender tubes and I'm hooked! These things are great! I took the camera on Macie's lunch time walk and shot a few of these.

I put the 12mm extender on my 50mm prime lens. Dropped the ISO to 100 and selected shutter priority (since the tiny focal length almost gurantees good bokeh - hope I spelled that right)

It was high noon when I took these but I think it actually adds to the shot. I usually hate taking in such harsh sunlight.

I was on the hunt for as many textures as I could find - the concrete broadband box was actually a great place to catch a few!

Alas, I had to cut my fun short as I had to get back to my day job:) I thought I'd post these for everyone's enjoyment - gosh I love Picasa, it makes quick blogs like these totally possible!

Macro fun...

Mark bought me a new set of extender tubes for my lenses so that I can do some macro photography. Unfortunatley, I went out of town right after I got them and didn't get to play - but he did!!

These things are pretty cool! They're different from an actual macro lens because all they really do is extend the current lens you have to alter the focal length. The result is pretty neat! You can get closer to the image and capture more detail.

One of the side effects though is that the focal area is very small in some cases (catching only one stamen or grain of pollen).

Here you can see Macie's foot - you can see the detail of each little hair on her foot (and a fuzzy that was stuck to her nail!)

The tubes he got me were made by Kenko. They come in three sizes and combined can give you about 9 different focal lenghts. I've been attaching it to my 50mm but want to try it on the L-series lense next.

Phew...

This weekend we had the pleasure of hosting my brother and his girlfriend and their dog, Buckley. You've seen Buckley before on here and I thought I'd show you all what our weekend was like with two adolescent dogs.

This play fighting continued most of the weekend - I don't know that either of them slept more than 10 min at a stretch, even at night!

Their crates had to be separated because they refused to stop talking to one another in the middle of the night (2am guys...not cool!)

Tim and Melissa's Wedding

So it's taken me a while but I finally finished all of Tim and Melissa's wedding pics and got their permissions to post it on my website! So here, for you to enjoy, are the highlights from their special day. I'm trying out slide show programs and Slide is my first try. Image quality is a little low but it helps them load faster.

Weddings...

Mark and I had the opportunity to shoot our first wedding this past weekend (yes, I'm a little late on the update - it's been a crazy week). Needless to say, we had a blast! Melissa and Tim were a beautiful couple with a great story and an even more beautiful little girl, Zoey. I've spent my week sorting thru the some 1200 pictures we'd taken and I'm only about 1/2 the way through - boy oh boy!

A friend of ours was kind enough to lend us his camera kit so that we had two cameras on the shoot. I think that made all the difference. I don't know how one photographer can do it -seriously! After almost 12 hours on my feet (why do girls have to start getting ready so early?!) I was ready to crash.

I'll post some pics as soon as I get thru them all:)

Stats for the day:

2 cameras

2 flashes

6 lenses

20 AA batteries (next time i'm buying stock in Duracell before the wedding!)

11 GB of memory

1200 images

1 cake from Michigan

2 exhausted photographers

and a partridge in a pear tree...