The zoo that is my life

I was cleaning out a bookshelf in the kids' playroom the other day and found Dylan's (my oldest's) school journal from 2nd grade. He's had to journal every year since kindergarten (must be part of school curriculum - writing practice for the future MCAS tests, I'm sure). Anyway, in it was entry describing what he wanted to do when he grows up - a zookeeper. As I read, I thought, "WOW! He wants to be ME!!!"

In this picture, I'm not sure if he's praying that I let him back in the pond or trying to get the feeling back in his super raisin-y fingers (he and his sisters LOVE the water!). If you can't tell, I'm practicing photography using available/natural light (non-flash). I used to be an auto mode kinda girl...but enter in a little bit of my Virgo/Libra personality that needs to have some control over decision making and VOILA! - I have been converted to AV mode (where I can choose the aperture and let the camera choose the shutter speed)

We went to the birthday party of family friends - whom I credit for my children's love of water and ability to swim like fish - THANKS John and Rita!!! I didn't get too many pictures in today - just enjoyed the company and conversation - I love taking pictures, but sometimes you need to put the camera down and be an active participant in living...I did though stop long enough to take these two cool pictures...


This is John - I think he liked this picture of himself. When I showed it to him, he said that it looked like a picture that you get when you buy a frame....OOOOOKKKKAAAYYYY...still a good picture. This one was straight out of the camera (SOOC)
This is Brady - the birthday boy and his Grampy Joe. SOOC shot was near perfect - this is the edited version where I just lightened it up a tiny bit because I wanted a teeny bit more light and a shade less shadow on Joe's face.

All three photos were taken with my early birthday gift from mom and dad (one of them anyway - they also got me a Tamron 28-75mm) a Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens. Since I'm such a young photographer, I decided that this was a wiser purchase (price-wise @ $89.99) than it's sweet upgrade: Canon 50mm f/1.4 (just under $400.00). If you don't plan on taking that many pictures by candlelight, the 50mm f/1.8 should suffice. I'm in love with that lens...I could divorce Adam and marry my camera with just that lens on...

More photos to come...gotta work on organizing my scrap room.