The Water Table, Settings Snafu and Spot Metering! {Oh My!}

My mom bought Elias a water table that arrived last week and let me just say that this is about the greatest summer toy ever! He is so entertained by it for such a long time. He uses it outside, which is a good way to get out and play without getting into stuff he shouldn’t (the hose. the grill.) From our living room, we can easily see into the backyard, so I’ve opened the blinds and let him stay outside while keeping an eye on him. He is turning into such a big boy!

A Basic Snafu…

So, I was taking pictures of Elias and his new water table and somehow through an incorrect sequence of button mashing and wheel clicks (I was trying to fiddle with the flash settings and I never use the on-camera flash…) I somehow set my camera to shoot as JPEG Basic instead of Raw. Gasp! When I grabbed my camera the next night to take some more shots I thought it said it had 30 exposures left. But after shooting some incredibly beautiful sunset skies I looked down and it still indicated 30 exposures. Until I looked closer and it actually read 3.0k exposures. Oh no! I set it back to Raw, but it taught me a valuable lesson on looking at my camera’s display to confirm settings every time I pick it up.

I’m entering this photo in this week’s Skinned Knees Photo Challenge! The theme is, Splash! Click the link or icon and head on over to Skinned Knees to see this week’s awesome entries!

The next series of photos are submitted for Skywatch Friday! Please be sure to check out the site to view everyone’s really cool sky shots!

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Hot Fun in the Summer Sun

Mark’s parents got the boys a pool so we broke it out Monday when the temperatures broke 100 and had an absolute blast. Mark and I can fit into the pool with the boys, amazingly enough. Elias refused to sit down in the pool until we brought Noah out and plopped him down. To my surprise, Noah did not react negatively to being plopped into the cool water. He really loved splashing around. At one point, Mark was trying to get him to float on his back and accidentally dunked his face underwater! Noah was upset and sneezed several times, but he very quickly recovered. The only other time Noah got upset was when he was getting squirted in the face with water by Elias who was playing with the hose.

Noah and I are very fair skinned, while Elias and Mark are more olive in complexion and can take more sun. (Naturally, we were all wearing sunscreen.) After about 15-20 minutes, Noah was getting fed up with being splashed and squirted, so we got out of the pool and let Mark and Elias continue playing. Noah and I sat happily in the shade on the patio for another 20-30 minutes. It was a beautiful day and the pool was a really refreshing way to cool off! Elias kept getting in the water, sitting down and saying, “Ahh. That’s nice.”

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A Picture Kind of Day

Today started out well, as most Sundays do when it’s my turn to sleep in. I woke around 10am and Noah was already down for a nap, just moments earlier. Mark, Elias and coffee were waiting for me out in the main part of the house.

I quickly discovered I left out the mug I got Mark for Father’s Day when he thanked me for it. I am so upset at myself! I took it out of its hiding place to show my mom last night and then I forgot to put it back. The mug is full of photos of Mark and the boys and one photo of the two of us. (I don’t think we have any photos with all four of us.) I was so excited to give it to him for Father’s Day and I didn’t even get to see his face when he found it! I cried a little bit, how could I not?

Before long we all headed outside. It was already close to seven million degrees out there and it wasn’t even noon yet! Elias helped Mark water the plants, which is one of his favorite things to do since he gets to hold water or maybe the hose, if he’s lucky. Since it was so hot out, we decided to get Elias’ swim trunks on and he and Mark took turns squirting each other with the hose.

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Weekend Photo Focus: Headless Portraiture

Fuel Your Photography‘s Weekend Photo Focus was on Headless Portraiture. I was inspired by the photos in the article and wanted to take a stab at it. As usual, I’m a day and a half behind editing photos, so I wasn’t able to submit my results before the Weekend Photo Find was published, but it was still an interesting project.

I think I could have done a better job, especially if I gave myself more time to think through the shot. Once again, I fell victim to rushing myself to get shots in by the end of the day. I’d like to revisit this again before the end of the year, perhaps without using my kids as the subject. If you have any examples of headless portraiture you’d like to share, please give me a link in the comments!

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Photography Assignment: Fences [142/365]

This week’s Digital Photography School assignment (05/12-05/26) is Fences. I was excited for this simply because I knew it’d be easy enough for me to participate; I have a fence in my own back yard! (This may not seem like a big thing to you, but I haven’t had a fence in my backyard since I was 14.)

I lucked out in the morning as Mark took the boys outside to replant some flowers he bought last week. By the time I got outside with my camera, Noah had crawled across the yard to the fence. He was sitting beside it, eating grass and playing with sticks. Have I mentioned lately how much I love having a yard? I regret not renting a house from the time we had Elias because the whole family benefits greatly by having a nice space outdoors to call our own.

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