Ready, set, action...

Have you ever tried something and it didn't turn out quite as you expected?   You know, the whole "A for effort" deal but really it's back to the drawing board.  Well that basically sums up the challenge for this week.  We set out to capture motion.  And we did, it just didn't turn out as pretty as we expected.  The same thing usually happens when I try to bake from-scratch cookies.  lol  So here are our motion pics, blurry and all. 

On a brighter note, Take Two is spending the upcoming weekend together.  Holla!  So we are going to take our failing grade for this week and do a little homework.  Stay tuned, round 2 of motion is in the works!!




Pictures below from Erin:

 

I set out this week wanting to capture a picture of a moving subject that had one of those awesome motion trails behind them.  All the tutorials told me to slow the shutter speed, and move my camera with the moving subject.  Ugh!  What I ended up with were horrifically blurry, completely unusable shots.  And it wasn't for a lack of trying!!  The first one above of my son at his basketball game was definitely the best of the worst.  At least in this picture you can tell that it is him dribbling the basketball and get a sense of the motion.  But ultimately, I don't think that it looks creative enough to warrant all the work I went through to get it.  So, I am going to stick with freezing the motion, at least for my sports shots.  I do still love the light motion pictures...like the ones that show blurred car lights in a city scene or light painting like they do in weddings.  Maybe I will have to try those next time :-)

Picture below by Vicki:

Remember last week when I wrote about the when the stars align?  I was thinking that would happen this particular afternoon.  Beautiful backdrop, running horses, sunset.  What could go wrong?   For starters I clearly need a few more hours (read days/months/years) of practicing with my new camera.  My buttons are in new places, the functionality on the new camera is twice that of my old.  I have a small idea of what I'm doing here people.  That perfect moment doesn't generally happen twice and well you just can't get lucky every time.  :)  But that's cool.  We will just try this little challenge again until we get it right! 

I was all over the place with my settings on this series of images.  The shot above was taken at 1/1000 sec, ISO 400, and f/4.0.  For me it is grainy and the lighting is horrible.  My subject is backlit thanks to the sunset.  My external flash (which I wasn't using) might have helped brighten up the shot, but chances of it providing enough light are slim.  You would basically need a football field light for that not something powered by 4 AA batteries.  You see the motion in their tails but that's about it.  These are 2 of my parent's horses.  Next time I am back home I'll try shooting them from the fence line you see in the background.  I'll lose the sunflare effect, which I personally like, but might have a better chance of actually being able to see the horses. 

Have suggestions?  Want to follow along?  Send us your comments!  We would love to hear from you.  hautopblog@gmail.com

Get ready...

What happens when you put together some amazingly adorable kiddos in some absolutely awesome clothes?  The perfect photo shoot :-)  I had such a great time photographing all of these beautiful children for the new launch of the spitter spatter website.  This company is the brain child of my brother in law, Zach Schabot, and his business partner Angela Hollen and they make anti-microbial, stain resistant clothing for  children...genius! The new website should go live sometime soon so keep checking in and learn more.  

www.spitterspatter.com

Erin

Starting off 2013 on a high!

It's a moment we all live for, that one shot where all the "stars" align.  You know, happy kid, blue sky, gorgeous backdrop.   And on this very warm day in January I met my wonderful friends and their insanely cute son at the park for such a moment.  :)   We had so much fun enjoying the quiet morning and celebrating a very belated birthday for Mr. B!  I'm so glad we waited for the perfect day and I think you will agree.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Take Two is making this our best year yet!  Thanks so much Joe and Jenn for getting us started off right!

~VICKI~
hautopblog@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Sisters from a different Mister.....

Crazy how this world works.  Are you one of those people that believe all things happen for a reason?  That by some devine intervention, timing of events and the goings-on in your life are meant to be exactly the way they are?  Whether positive or negative?  I am.  I have had a couple of random connections swirling around me the past few weeks.  So when Erin and I met this morning to create our post I nearly lost my coffee to find that we had taken (essentially) the EXACT same photos for this week!  This may not have been clear before but we do not discuss what we are shooting during these challenges.  We keep that part secret from one another and only discuss the category and parameters around editing.  We like that because it pushes us to be personally creative and makes for great discussion after the fact.  It is now clear to me that we are without a doubt Sisters from another Mister!  Either that or we are becoming incredibly insync with our passion for learning this trade.  Both of which make me smile.  :)  Continue reading and you'll see what I am talking about....



Pictures below from Vicki:

 

I love looking at black and white photography.  It seems to tell such a strong story and show a real sense of emotion.  But I am often torn when I have a photograph full of beautiful colors and try converting it to B/W.  So one of my "goals" this year is to learn more about B/W images.  What makes them so telling and how to properly take an image and convert it over.  All week long I was debating over what I wanted these pictures to look like.  I couldn't really find anything that suited me....until Friday.  Friday was the most dreary, nasty day we have had in a while here in Charlotte.  The kind that makes your hair all crazy and everything slippery for no reason!  As I'm pulling into my driveway that afternoon Tiny Hautop #1 says "Mommy this looks like the misty forest."  One of her fav Backyardagains episodes.   She is so right.  The fog was so thick that it had sucked all of the color out of the trees and sky.  And suddenly my B/W challenge had begun!  Big hair and all I grabbed the camera and decided to start snapping.   The two tree images are from my yard that day.  And are straight out of the camera.  Taken at 1/25, f4.5, and ISO 400.  You know I love trees from previous blogs.  :)  I found the stark contrast of the sky and the trees to be perfect!  After some thought however it seemed like I had cheated on the challenge.  I mean the whole point to was to convert an image.  And I had a great B/W pic but had not technically converted it.  So for good measure I threw in a pic from my trip to the park early Sunday morning.  I met some great friends and their insanely cute 1yr old son for a session.  You'll see them later this week in a post.  During that time I actually found a blooming tree!!  Now these blooms were a soft pink and absolutely gorgeous.  I teared up a bit converting the image but I've always been a rule follower.  So I changed it to B/W and completed my homework assignment.  lol  I actually like it.  I think the change really shows off the details in the petals.  This image was shot at 1/400, f2.8, ISO 400.    That's all for this week.  I will probably revisit this challenge in a few weeks.  Practice makes perfect!

Images below from Erin:

 

This week, I was forced to step out of my comfort zone when my first plan for this challenge did not pan out.  I have learned over this journey that my joy is photographing people, and more than that, photographing people doing things they love.  I have a hard time with posed photography too because it feels so forced and I would rather let people be themselves and stand back to capture their true selves.  I suppose that's why I enjoy sports and playtime family sessions most of all.  So, my original plan had been to take pictures at my son's basketball game.  If you know me at all, you know that I have my camera with me at any and all sporting events that my kids are involved in playing.  On top of that, I am the team photographer for many of their sports.  Sadly, basketball has stopped me dead in my tracks!  Why you ask?  The lighting is absolutely terrible to the point where my only option is to raise my ISO (film speed in the days of film) so high that all the shots are incredibly grainy.  I was so sad because I LOVE the game of basketball and to add to it, Brett (my husband) is coaching and I thought it would be fun to have lots of pictures from the season.  I took the camera to the first game and was so discouraged that I have not taken it with me since.  When Vicki suggested B&W for this week, I immediately thought that maybe switching the pictures to B&W might take some of the focus off of the grain.  Sadly,  life simply got in the way on Saturday and I was not able to take the pictures as planned. So, that left me one day to figure out what would be my new focus!  Luck would have it that I woke up Sunday morning to everything covered in a fairly dense fog.  Looking out my window I thought that maybe the fog and nature would be a fun thing to photograph for the challenge.  So, I forced myself out of bed and into the car to the park in the neighborhood with a cute little pond.  Since I was up early the water was completely calm and made for some great reflections.  Although I felt like a "real" photographer up early with all of my gear and in the "elements" with nothing but me and my camera, I think I will leave this type of photography to someone else and stick with what I love :-)  

 

 

And there you have it folks.  Great minds do think alike!  For next week we both have some fun session images to post.  So our weekly challenge is going to be 2 weeks out.  We will be capturing motion.  Get ready to crank up those shutter speeds!  Send us a shout out if you would like to follow along or submit your fav black and white photo!  We would LOVE to hear from you!

 

Erin and Vicki

hautopblog@gmail.com

The Pursuit of Happyness....

....man that was a good movie.   I love to watch inspirational movies at the beginning of the year.  It's like a personal pep talk that comes with my all time favorite snack, popcorn!  Like many of you, Erin and I have resolutions, goals, dreams (whatever you wanna call it) for 2013.  We won't go into listing them all out here.  That's a whole different type of blog.  :)  But we did decide to take on the most popular topic when it comes to new year resolutions, food!  I read somewhere that instead of writing down everything you eat in a food diary you could also try taking a picture of what you are about to eat.  Then look at the picture and decide what you could do without.  Interesting angle I suppose.  But what in the world would you do with all those pictures??  My iphone is already full with radomness.  However, I thought it was intriguing enough to try with my real (and brand spanking new!) camera and Erin agreed.  So off we went to photograph food this week.  Thrilling, really exciting.  lol 

Here's what we came up with.


Pictures below by Vicki....

 

Food photography is not as easy as it seems.   So the first few pictures I snapped were simply horrible.  Then I decided to take a slightly more serious approach and things started looking up.  Oh and I made myself a cup of coffee in my new favorite coffee cup!  I managed to capture the steamy goodness that came from my coffee maker as it was brewing.  Score!  But I don't think I achieved the same effect from the meal.  I did move closer to the window for this shot and the natural light really brightened things up.  I am moving towards a more natural light/less flash shooting philosophy in general.  Thanks to my trusty side-kick.  And I must say I like the results!  Anyhow, these are my foodie pics.  And in case you are wondering, I did review the image and decide to eat the whole plate.  I'll leave something behind at dinner.....maybe.



Picture below by Erin.....

It’s a happy New Year and time to usher in lots of new fun and energy. There are lots of changes around our house but the biggest one is easily seen in our fridge and pantry. We have finally decided now is the time to figure out what is ailing our poor bodies. So, we have taken on the challenge of an elimination diet! I thought that we were pretty healthy eaters already, but I have to admit that I don’t even recognize our dinner plates right now. No wheat, no dairy, no soy, no peanuts, no alcohol (goodness that was a biggie :), no caffeine, no corn or tomatoes, no shellfish, and very little sugar or sugar substitutes! Just lean (preferably organic) turkey and chicken, certain fish, fresh fruit (except citrus), fresh veggies, non-gluten grains (like brown rice and quinoa), good old fashioned water, and then we decided we would allow ourselves to eat some nuts. My husband, poor thing, had to laugh at what he was eating while trying to watch football. Staring at his plate of fresh veggies, hummus, rice crackers and almond milk all he could say was…”This sucks!” In the end, we are definitely hoping to find out that food is not our problem so that we can continue to enjoy our all our wonderfully unhealthy foods. However, it would be nice to also learn to love some foods that we may have never tried before doing this challenge. Like Kale chips! Believe it or not, they are actually pretty good and really easy to make! So here is to our healthy diet for the month and to the start of a great year!


Here's to your own pursuit of happyness, whatever that might be!  Thanks for spending a few minutes ignoring work and checking out the blog.  Next week's topic is Black and White.  We will be bringing it to you minus all of our special color filters.  Until next time, if anyone out there has a weekly challenge suggestion or wants to submit a photo just send us an email. hautopblog@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you!