Rule of Thirds?

Those who have ever read a photography book or taken a class have come across this 'golden rule' of photography. This week's assignment for my photography class was to look through our photos for examples of this rule --- I honestly thought I was fairly decent with composition aspect of photography(the rest...aperture, shutter speed, etc I have some issues) until this assignment. I looked through lots of photos and decided to take these...



I loved these photos long before I knew they were following a composition rule. It's nice to know why. I was a little intimidated...there are people in the class with some serious gear --- thousands of dollars worth, and I've often thought what are you doing in this class...why would you spend so much money before you knew how to use things. I guess some people are just able to buy 'the best', lucky them. The refreshing reminder was that for the most part their photos weren't any better than mine and even in the digital age of cameras and 'anything is possible' photoshop there is still a place for the creative photographer with a knack for getting just the right shot. I hope I can continue to develop my skills to become such a photographer.

On a humorous note...do you notice anything similar with the portrait pics? Perhaps that they're all profiles with one eye showing...thanks to my fab and amazingly talented instructors (check them out) I have a new nickname 'one eyed girl'; we all had a good laugh about my potential market and clientele.

Do you ever...

finish a layout and are suprised (in a good way) with the results? That was the case last night when I finished this layout.
It was if all the pieces fell together effortlessly, it came together so quickly and turned out better than I could have ever planned. I guess there is a reason for leaving scraps out in the open.

The cutie in the pic is my youngest nephew Connor. Can you feel another lesson on my family coming on?

Connor belongs to the baby of the family, my brother John and his beautiful wife Lisa. Sorry I couldn't find any recent pictures of them together. They are just about the cutest couple you will ever meet and are great parents. Julie and Shelley take credit for this, saying they helped John get in touch with his femine side as a child. They tormented the poor kid, 'dress'ed him up and put makeup on him frequently(sorry all evidence of those days has mysteriously disappeared). I, of course, was an innocent bystander. I can still remember the first time we met John and Julie, when the blend started. He was just 6(he could barely tie his shoes) and the plan was to go see a movie together. His first words to use were...'there's one, where's the other girl?' We went to see the 'Care Bears' movie, great for John, for me at 12...not so much, I was mortified. (if you think I'm moody now, you should have seen me at 12) John has always been the cute one and as siblings we all took advantage. If we wanted to go somewhere fun, have pizza or needed money from the parents for something...we would always send John...and it always worked. He lucked out and met Lisa in highschool or maybe just after, I can't remember. Together they are the outside junkies of the family and are usually talking about a hike or making plans to get back to Juneau where they went to school.

Cute Pics...Mia Familia Part 1

I took these pics of Sienna last week and just found the fun effects you can do on Shutterfly. I'm currently in love with the soft focus and blur edge. I splurged on some prints, I hope they turn out as cute as the look on the screen. This was her first time in a dress and tights --- way to big tights.

I've been harassed by those that didn't know how many brothers and sisters I had, and I tried to rememdy by posting a couple of pics last week --- or the week before. Time flies at 35. The problem? I only posted two siblings and they were holding Sienna. I promise I'm not biased, I am totally grateful for all of my family.

So here's the first in a series of posts about my wonderful siblings and their families. We are the perfect example of how great a blended family can turn out to be. After 20 years, the term 'step' has vanished from all of our vocabularies.

This pic is my older sister and her family, we call them Team O'Brian. My sister is Rhonda and she married Patrick about 2 weeks after I graduated from high school.

The tall creatures are the OGs(original grandchildren) of the family. Nolan and Shane are twins and are totally eleven year old boys. They live in sunny California, clearly not pictured here. Nolan and Shane are the most caring and loving boys you will ever meet. They bring joy and light wherever they go. They are a reminder to all in our family that miracles can and do happen everyday. I know that every healthy birth is a miracle, but these guys are extra special. Rhonda is a DES baby, DES was a drug mothers took in the late 60's to prevent miscarriages. Sounds great, except 1 in 100,000 of these babies developed cancer --- uterian cancer. Rhonda is the 1 in 100,000 and at 19 had to say goodbye to the dream of carrying her own children. Enter modern science(invetro) and a spiritual force(clearly God's hand at work), fertilized eggs were placed in Rhonda's 50 year old mom(yes the one who took the miscarriage drug in the 60s) and not quite 9 months later Nolan and Shane were born. It's hard to imagine it now, looking at these gangly rowdy boys, that they were once smaller than Sienna.

A few random things...

From the I didn't think it was possible file... Thunder, lightening and snow all at the same time?

I thought I was losing my mind last night when I was working on a couple of layouts when I saw lightening flash in the window. Then I heard the thunder...of course there is some fancy meterological term for this, I just thought it was strange.

Speaking of layouts...We just received some great new goodies from Making Memories. I have been waiting for these to come since I went to the Memory Trends show with MaryKay in September --- that's a long time. I wasted no time to make samples starring the fabulous Sienna. It's hard to tell in pics, but the paper has cutouts.

Still trying to make sense of the Presidential race? Chosing a candidate it tough, especially when they all seem the same. I found this great website...www.selectsmart.com. You can complete a survey and how your ideal candidate would feel on the issues and rate the issues of importance. It cross references your answers and comes up with a list of candidates whose views are closest to your own. I thought it was kind of fun and found the answers interesting, but not suprising.