Luau @ SeaWorld

Tonight we got the chance to go to a Luau at SeaWorld!

I have been wanting to go since we moved here, but it's $50 per person, but with Dustin's discount it would be $30 so we have planned on going but never came around doing it.

Well, my new visiting teacher owns the Luau and she got us in for FREE! I love her to death! Her and I just bonded at her first visit with me, as Anne in Anne of Green Gables says, we are "kindred spirits"! She is such a delight and it was so nice of her to get us in. 

We had a blast! The show was AMAZING! We didn't take that many pictures because we just wanted to enjoy the show,  but there were a lot of hula dancers, drums, music, and fire dancing, which was my favorite part, that guy was INCREDIBLE! 

I love experiencing other cultures and getting to know people from all over the world. Half of our ward is Polynesian, and they are the nicest people, and hard workers. 

Dustin and I keep saying how much we are going to miss Florida, we have been spoiled here with having so many rich experiences and opportunities, but we are excited for our next adventure, but while we are still here we are going to take advantage of it!

Thomas liked the show for the most part, sometimes he got scared because it was pretty loud, but most of the time he just sat there and watch.

Our Little Tornado

I have mentioned this before, but Thomas LOVES playing on our bed. 

I don't know why I make our bed because about time the day is through it looks like a tornado hit us. This kid loves to make little messes, I have made the conclusion I will not have a clean house for many years to come. 

These pictures were taken three separated days so you can see that this is an every day thing in this house.

I know understand why my mom never let us play on her bed.

PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS: Part 2

LIGHTING:


I can't stress enough the importance of good lighting. I don't even know where to begin because there are so many reasons why it's so important.

When I have good lighting in my pictures it's amazing how much better they look, the color is better, it's a sharper image, it's more flattering on the person, helps make the eyes pop more,  and makes editing that much easier. You can't fix bad lighting in photoshop, so a lot of times if it has bad lighting I don't even bother to try and fix it on PS.

EXAMPLES OF GOOD LIGHTING:

This picture was taken mid day outside.

This picture was taken on our bed, with plain wall in background, and I just had our screen door open to get good lighting. 

EXAMPLES OF BAD LIGHTING:
(Exclaimer: I still like these pictures, like the New York one is one of my favorite family pictures of us, but I'm just demonstrating what I'm talking about. Also I want to say do not take a picture because the lighting is bad and miss out an opportunity of a great picture for memories sake, I used to worry so much about getting "the perfect lighting" that I missed out on a lot of good pictures, and like I said I still like these pictures, but I'm just talking about how to get that more "professional" and flattering look.)

This picture Thomas and I are squinting so it's not the most flattering. 

This one isn't too bad, but there are weird shapes on Thomas' face. 

This one Thomas and I are squinting, and Dustin is a perfect example of what I call the  Raccoon eyes, I have it too, and you can see how big my nose is ;)

HOW TO GET GOOD LIGHTING INDOORS:
To get good light indoors can be tricky especially if you don't have a nice setup that professional photographers have. So OPEN those windows, and put your subject in front of that window so they are facing the window,that is the most flattering lighting, because it sort of flattens the persons face, and what do I mean by that? Let's say your model has a big nose, well that nose can cause a nice cast shadow and that will emphasize the nose. So having them face the window takes away all the shadows leaving a more flattering picture. You don't always have to have them face the window, you can have them to the side of the window, which can cause some shadow on one side, but that can be an interesting effect on the face.

This picture they were facing the window. 

The window is on the side, but still good lighting (for the most part).

I know I just said have your model facing the window and not away, but sometimes you can get away by breaking the rules. Here it was a well lit room, and with the camera I knew how to over expose so he wasn't a dark shape. 

Again facing the window.

HOW TO GET GOOD LIGHTING OUTDOORS:
The best time to take pictures outdoors is a few hours after sunrise or few hours before sunset, it's called the "magic hour" I once heard a photographer say, that's the best lighting because it's not too bright and it's even lighting which helps with the lighting on the face. But sometimes you don't have the option to do take pictures during "magic hour", most weddings are during the day, or other activities, so what do you do? You can have the model in the shade, so the sun is not blaring in their face making them squint and have dark shadows around their eyes. Some great places for shade are trees (but make sure there is not sunlight sneaking through the leaves causing weird shadow shapes on the models face), by buildings, or anything that causes shade.

This picture was taken mid-day in bright sun, but I had Dustin and Thomas go by a building so they were in shade and also it gave a nice background. 

This picture was taken in mid-day and he's under a bunch of trees, and luckily he didn't have weird shadows on his face, so it worked out. 

Again, bright sunny day, but they were under an umbrella so there were no strange shadows in their faces.

GET TO KNOW YOUR CAMERA!:

This is a whole another subject, but I just want to say knowing how to use your camera, I'm more talking about DSLR cameras but all cameras can apply, is the best thing for you. When I first had our camera I barely knew how to use it, so when it was low lighting setting all my pictures were blurry and dark, but now I know how to set my camera so that doesn't happen.

This picture was taken at night, but knowing what settings to use on my camera , and a tripod it worked out!

HOW TO CREATE CREATIVE BACKGROUNDS:
There are many ways you can get creative with your backgrounds.  A lot of the time I just use a plain wall, and if I want to later I will add a pattern on the background in photoshop like I used here:
(I'm planning on posting on how to do this sometime, or you can check on pinterest, that's how I learned)

But a lot of times I like the plain solid color.

Another great spot is using the garage wall, because with the garage door open and a nice solid background you can get some good pictures really easy.

Look at your suroundings, when we first moved here in Orlando, I was doing Thomas' 7 month pictures and we had all these boxes, so I just plotted him in front of one of them and loved how it turned out: 

Instead of buying expensive backdrops, here are some ideas you can do and use:

The backdrop is wrapping paper from Walmart, $3 the most. 

• Shower curtains, you can get a nice sturdy one pretty cheap. (You get a nice black for cheap)
• wrapping paper, I've used this one, and it's dirt cheap, especially if you have extra just laying around.
• Create your own, I've seen people use newspapers, sticky notes, balloons.... I thought it would be fun to do old sheet music.
• Use a quilt. 

The ideas are endless. 

Anyway, I feel like I just touched a tip of an iceberg on these subjects, so if you want to know more, there is A TON of info on the web. I will sometime give some of my favorite sites that I read from.

Anyway there is my photography tips part 2.

Some subjects and techniques I will go over in the future are:

Plan Ahead, what's the story you want to tell?
Good composition, rule of thirds.
Photoshop vs Lightroom (I'm still looking into that, but this might be a cheaper route if you can't afford PS) 
How to Use Bridge on PS
How to use Lightroom
How to brighten eyes, and fix blemishes 
How to edit something out of a picture.
How to edit in general, make colors brighter, how to make it look vintage.
How to use PS actions.
How to add a patterned background or change background on PS.

and hopefully more if I don't get burned out!

Also if there is anything you want to know how to do, let me know and I will post something about it,

When Someone Didn't Take a Nap...

The other day, someone didn't take their nap,

they decided they were too busy...

Talking on the Phone:

Climbing on the coffee table eating some snacks:

And coloring pretty pictures: 

Which gives mommy no break, and makes a tiring day. 

Matchy-Match

So for some odd reason Thomas and I always seem to be color coordinated without me meaning to, just one week I notice that I did it, I think I just "feel" like a color one day and since I pick out both of ours clothes we end up matching. I told Dustin about it, and we kind of laughed about it, well the other day I put this shirt on and I was thinking "Hey, Thomas has a shirt similar to this one, I'm going to have him wear it so we can match" because for some reason it seemed funny to me, and I showed Dustin and said, "Look we are matchy-matching!" Yes, for some reason I thought it was hilarious, looking back it's not that funny but at the time I thought I was HILARIOUS! Anyway we took some pictures to show our AWESOMENESS!

This is Our Life

Sometimes I feel like our life is crazy trying to live our dream as artists. 

A lot of people ask me how do I find the time to do art and be a stay-home mom?

Well, I don't have a lot of time to do my art that's for sure, but I try to work on it at least once a day.

So here is kinda our schedule for a normal day:

Dustin's work schedule is not always the 9-5 sometimes it's 11-7 and anything in the between. But when he's not working at SeaWorld he's working on other art jobs at home.

I'm lucky most days, Dustin will get Thomas in the morning while I get ready for the day (yes I'm one lucky girl).

After I get ready I usually take Thomas out to do something because this kid goes crazy if he doesn't get out of the house at least once a day. Usually it's SeaWorld and we go see a show or 2 and about half the animals, some days I take him to Aquatica water park, or the park, the mall, the library, and some days this is when I do my grocery shopping. 

This works great a lot of the time because Dustin is working on art and it's hard to stay focus when Thomas is at home because we don't really have a studio that Dustin can work in. 

Then we come home, have lunch, I give him milk and rock him (this is when I read), then nap time.

THAT'S when I do art. 

If  I'm lucky I get 2 hours in, and that's it, so I have to work quickly.

After Thomas wakes up, he wants to sit on my lap and watch a movie while he is still waking up. That's when I do my blogging, editing pictures, research anything about photography and editing. 

After 15 minutes Thomas is ready to play, so I play with him, but he's also good at entertaining himself so this is when I will clean, and sometimes I try to lift weights and do workouts but that's usually a fail because he thinks it's a game. This is when I will do editing if he's playing by himself.

Usually before dinner I will take Thomas for a walk, then when I prepare dinner I will have him finish his movie while he drinks some juice. 

After dinner, if Dustin is home he will play and wrestle with Thomas, give him a bath, while I pick up and do dishes. 

Then read books, prayers, bedtime. If we are on schedule he's down by 8.

We finish picking up, and Dustin is back on the computer painting. 

This is when I would read, browse online, and relax. 

Recently though we started this thing where I would read to Dustin and he would listen while he was working on art. I love doing this because we used to read books together but we kinda stopped, and also I felt like I never had time with Dustin because he was always working. We always have Friday nights be our "date night" but I'm little selfish and I want more time with my husband. So this works great for me, I love it because we talk more and we discuss about the books we are reading. Right now we are on the 3rd Hunger Games book, I've already read them last year but since the movie came out I wanted to re-read them. Next book we are going to read is Timeline from Michael Crichton, again I have read that one before but I think Dustin will like it too. 

On Dustin's day off, sometimes we do something as a family, but most days I take Thomas out of the apartment the WHOLE day so Dustin can work. Thomas loves it, I get worn out by the end, trying to entertain an 18 month-old can be tiresome. We are looking forward to the future when we have a studio so it's easier for both Dustin and I

So what are your days like? How do you and your spouse cope with crazy life and find time for each other?


*A little side note, you know how we had a fire in our complex three weeks ago, well EXACTLY 2 weeks later, same time in the morning, 1:30 to be exact, there was another fire! This time the alarm woke up Dustin, and this time Dustin was the one that said we should get out when I was thinking it was probably a prank, well it wasn't, it was another fire. This time it was about 6 doors down from us, and below us instead of 2 doors down like last time.  I was more calm this time, while Dustin was getting our external drive so we wouldn't lose all our files, this round I smelt smoke quicker because we had to pass the apartment to get to the parking lot, but this fire was WAY smaller. There was only 1 fire truck instead of 3, and we were back in our apartment in half hour. I told Dustin if there is a third fire it's time to move. Now they are saying these fires have been on purpose so they are trying to find out whose doing them, because both apartments were vacant. 

Thomas at 18 Months!

I finally got the pictures I wanted!

 I wasn't planning on taking pictures today but it worked out anyway!

The wrapping paper was still on the wall by our bed when Thomas climbed up the bed and sat there, playing and having a good time, so I saw an opportunity and took the camera out. 

Also Dustin wasn't at work yet, and when he came in the bedroom he got Thomas laughing his head off and distracted him while I was shooting like a mad women. 

So here's Thomas as 18 months:

He loves bubbles, 

I've regretted buying him a huge thing of bubbles because that's all he wants me to do.

He loves playing outside, going on walks, to the park and SeaWorld

His favorite animal in SeaWorld at the moment is Jelly Fish, he could stare at them all day.

He loves to sword fight with any kind stick or spoon.

He loves being read to.

"mom" is his favorite word, or the one he uses the most.

He likes nursery (so far).

He's not a big eater.

He's showing more interest in coloring.

Loves playing in the water.

And he is one happy boy.