Scavenger Hunt Sunday

kimmyskids — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 04:00:48 +0000

This week has been busy! I’m thankful to have captured all of this week’s prompts when I wondered how I would find the time. Somehow it all came together! These are my interpretations.

1. Smile

We met some good friends of ours for fro yo on my birthday. Their purple walls were a great backdrop!

2. Stand Alone

One afternoon I walked around my yard looking for something interesting to shoot. I found this sweet little ladybug. I love her.

3. Something Old

I guess this is more rusty than old. This is a monogrammed metal planter that hasn’t weathered the weather well.

4. Artificial

All I could find for this prompt was leftover artificial fall leaves from our craft stash.

5. Repeating Pattern

Afternoon sun in my boy’s room creates stripes from our blinds. It’s a great place to play for boys or lay if you are a cat. Wonder where she was this day?

Selfie P52

kimmyskids — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 01:06:09 +0000

This was HARD! Not only did I have to get over myself, but I really didn’t know how to tackle this. I must be a t-rex because I could not long arm these. The images were crazy close. I don’t have a remote yet, so that wasn’t an option…but I have a greater appreciation of my need for one. I suppose I could have set up the tripod and timer, but today was hectic and therefore not an option. I went with good old reflective surfaces…or the two mirrors in my room. On top of not knowing how I was going to pull a selfie off, I had a hair apointment today. I held out thinking it would be great to wait to do this when my hair just got did. In theory this would seem like a great day to take my own pictures. Well, not so much. My hair dresser did not flat-iron my hair. I went home curly and frizzy. So, I tried to flat iron it myself, but being a rainy day it was counter productive. I tried several things to get my unruly hair to behave. I’m not sure I tamed the beast, but here I am!

Check out the frizz on the right….

Maybe a ponytail?

Clip back the front? I dunno. What I do know is that this junk is hard! I’m glad that I am pushing myself to figure it out though. Maybe I’ll even smile when I stop gritting my teeth.

Instafun

kimmyskids — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:40:15 +0000

Of course one of the reasons I am excited about my new iPhone is for instagrams. One thing I find impressive is seeing great photographers use instagram and still rock the shot. Their shots go way beyond taking a crummy shot and slapping an action on them. It will be a fun challenge to apply what I know in essentially a digital Polaroid. It will be another avenue of terrorizing my kids, this I know. I’m only a day in the process, but it has been kind of fun.

Wordless Wednesday

kimmyskids — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:49:33 +0000

I’m the proud new owner…

366 rewind week 3

kimmyskids — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 03:30:49 +0000

I absolutely love doing the 366 project! I am being pushed creatively, in a good way, and I really feel like this year is going to be a HUGE benefit for me. Forcing myself to shoot every or almost every day is a growing experience. I’m enjoying be challenged and motivated by all the participants as well. I love mixing with people with similar passions. Without any more gushing, let’s see what I shot this week.

The first page of the Beth Moore Bible study I am doing this year. It is Living Beyond Yourself. It is a study of living out the Fruits of the Spirit. I know I can use more fruit.

My boys are sharing a moment together over a book. What is more precious?

This image has no real purpose except me being experimental with everyday objects around our house.

This is our Jasperman! I told him to fly.

My precious husband and friends conspired to host a surprise 40th birthday party for me this past Friday night! I was blown away by the love and planning that went into this night. We had a lovely dinner at a nice restaurant in our area. Decorations were brought in, lovingly made by my friends. In honor of my 8 years spent living in Thailand, these fans were made each containing an adjective that describes me. They were meant to be read aloud during a champagne toast, but the restaurant was so very loud so they gave me the fans to read to myself later. Still, I was deeply grateful and touched. The Lord is good to me.

Ok, so hi! My name is Kim. Welcome to my blog. This is my first selfie. I haven’t meant to be coy with who I am on a public blog. Honestly, of course self-consciousness plays a role. As much as I take pictures of everyone and everything else…I do not know how to do selfies. It is a skill, and as you can see I ain’t got that skill yet. I will not hand my camera over to anyone else. I hide from people with cameras that click indiscriminately. I do not look like THAT, do I? I have a growing conviction about getting more of myself on this blog. It’s my dang blog after all. AND…I feel that you lovelies need to know whose blog you are reading. I am going to work on learning to do self-portraits. I do not have a remote yet, so I will have to long arm and use reflective surfaces. Nice to meet you dear readers! I’m also just going to own that I will be 40 on Tuesday…there, I said it twice in this post. Oh, and I really have very naturally curly hair that I flat-iron when the mood strikes. Ok…all my confessions are out in the open. I feel better now.

I posted my foursome of the teas yesterday, but I wanted to share what capturing this image taught me. I made my cup of tea and put it down to take a quick shot. I got a few shots in, but I wasn’t overwhelmed. I just started moving around to some slightly different angles, and suddenly this reflection of the trees came into view. This taught me that looking isn’t always seeing. Truly seeing is more active. To see, you have to take in all the angles or you might just miss something. I’m sure we can come up with many applications for all aspects of our lives, but to just stick with photography for a minute, I learned that sometimes I need to be more investigative before pushing the shutter. I need to see, not just look.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

kimmyskids — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 04:00:44 +0000

I’m back for this week’s installment of Scavenger Hunt Sunday. I’ve been keeping a list of the prompts on my fridge to help me stay focused throughout the week as I attempt to cover each prompt. Being a homeschooling mom means I have to intentionally set aside time each afternoon to shoot. Some days this week were challenging due to all the gloomy weather we have had.

Here’s what I did:

1. Sunset

Confession….I am pulling this one out of archives from last October. I could not get a sunset in rainy weather.

2. Black and White

This is Jasper in the morning relaxing in his bed.

3. Day in the life

My boys are pretty good friends and playmates, most of the time. Here they are sharing a Star Wars picture book while Jasper drives his Lego creation across the page. I set my camera to manual focus for intentional blur.

4. Four

I made a collage of four edits of the reflection in my afternoon tea. I enjoyed playing!

5. Colorful

I have a jar of buttons for kid crafts that are colorful. Here they are!

I dreamed a dream

kimmyskids — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 01:13:14 +0000

This week’s P52 prompt had me stumped for most of the week. I had no idea how I would capture this idea of dreaming in a meaningful way. I thought of a few things that really just did not work out as I attempted to shoot the concept. I will go back and revist the ideas, but for this prompt I needed to keep it simple. And, I wanted to be true in reflecting a real dream of mine…something I really work at with ferver and passion to make a reality. I know this won’t be unique, and I know many of you will share my enthusiasm.

The dream I dream right now is that I will really and deeply learn the art of photography. Sure, I want to succeed in a buisness one day. At the very same time, if I never get paid another dime, it will be okay. I love learning. I love striving to take a great image. I am praying every day that I would learn to be a great photographer for the beauty and the art. I pray that somehow I will capture the beauty of the world and people around me, that it would be a small glimpse of our creator and the joy He must have felt in creating. As I find myself frustrated by the depth of knowledge and skill needed, I will keep shooting. I recognize that the simple part is dropping money on equipment, but the real test is in hours and hours of hard work. I’m not discouraged because this is the dream I am willing to work for.

Wordless Wednesday…with words!

kimmyskids — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:00:56 +0000

First, a photo.

Who doesn’t love a cuppa tea in the Winter? I find that sitting down with a cup of tea relaxes and makes me feel a little indulged, especially when served in my best china.

In other news…I am finally getting around to getting a big girl, custom designed blog! I’m so very excited! I’m in the queue for early March, so bear with me a few more weeks. I have also purchased a domain name and will be announcing it when the time is right. I certainly don’t want to lose readers to confusion. Stay tuned! I stumbled upon Elizabeth from The Mustard Ceiling in last week’s P52 submissions. She will be designing my blog, which will be what I choose to spend any birthday I get month on! Go check out her services.

366-chilly

kimmyskids — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 05:00:59 +0000

I’m back for my 2nd week of linking up with Project 366 Rewind! This week our prompt is chilly. Our weather has been quite warm for the season, but we did experience brief chilly weather this past week. We are warming back up, so I am not counting on having any snowy shots this month. Even so, let’s take a look at my attempts for chilly.

Winter in Bananagrams.

Another version of Yankee Candle toppers for Winter fragrances.

Repeat warning! How could I not use this again? It fits so perfectly. Lego man ice cubes! You can get the mold at Lego.com.

Starbucks is great on a chilly night. Wednesday night is my Starbucks indulgence while my children are at choir. I may use this time to drink coffee and catch up on blogs, check facebook, or read. I also may meet a friend sometimes to catch up. I look forward to Wednesday nights. It is a sanity keeper.

This week in preschool homeschooling was all about mittens. One story we read was The Mitten by Jan Brett. Her illustrations are gorgeous. Our snack was a mitten with animals squeezing in to warm themselves like the book. Take a half pita (your mitten) and fill it with animal crackers and a few mini marshmallows (a little snow). It was hard to compose this picture with a wiggly, hungry kid. Not crazy about the compostion of this, but you get the idea.

A warm, foggy, and cloudy winter night…with lots of contrasting.

Not so much representative of chill, but I’ll include this as I am working on macro photography this winter. I’m walking around with my macro lens taking shots of anything and everything to see what it looks like. This is a crunchy granola cluster that caught my eye. Weird, I know.

See you next week for Start of the Day!

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

kimmyskids — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 16:00:36 +0000

I have enjoyed challenging myself to find these items and photograph them this week. Some of these were a challenge and I was shooting down to the wire to get all the prompts. Here are my interpretations for the week:

1. Stacked up

I bought these heart shaped bowls at Target for Valentine’s Day for my littlest Valentines. They will be fun cereal bowls when I finally decide it is time to feel Valentiney.

2. Winter Wonderland

This is the closest we have gotten to a winter wonderland in the south. It has been unseasonably mild lately. This is part of a Yankee Candle topper.

3. Sweet

A macro shot of the mini peanut butter cups I pilfered from my kid. I only ate one.

4. Hole

These wooden beads have holes in them. A loose interpretation.

5. Frozen

Lego man ice cubes! Aren’t these fun? I wish I free transformed the top of the image, so ignore that part.