The Showroom

Yooohooooooooo!!!

Finally, finally found a COOL wall 2 mns away from my house. I've been moaning long enough about the lack of cool locations around here. I'm all for pretty stuff but I love the urban look. I was scouting locations for a session yesterday and got a tip re a big container. It's perfect. Some light graffitis to make it complete. And one of my favorte colors: blue.

So dragged the kids & friends and got this. Love it, love the texture... Don't mind the tongue sticking out on #2. I sure did not ask for that!

Hope everyone is having a great w/e!

Oh and today we bought this...LOL as you know I'm all colors!!!! Cushions by Kenzo. I'm so happy, had been eying this one since my trip to Paris in September...And today we just went to take a look (a bit out of our league..) but it looked so good and they had a 20% discount running....We've already told the kids, it's ours....Can't wait to lounge on it..

 

I love my blog!

Yes I do! But it's been totally neglected in the past 2 months or so. And as every time this happens, there is so much to tell, I will forget half of it or more.

It's vacation time here. For a little over a week. At the end of the first day I really thought we would not survive it. It's quite a change to the normal routine! Of course Nathan HAD to have pumpkins, to carve them and to soup them. And if you remember a similar post from a year ago, there is NO stopping him till it happens. So we did get some and carved them. Here...To prove it:

The weather has been good, cold but dry and mostly sunny so we took lots of cycle rides, looking for beautiful leaves and mushrooms. A trip to the zoo, to an attraction park.

The fear of the first day is long forgotten! Also they are just so chuffed about being able to read now that they spend a big part of the day with a book...A part I love: it's all quiet in the house...I'm still amazed at how well they picked it up. You have to realise that these were 2 kids that had NO interest in letters whatsoever till September when they started first grade (sums and stuff was more their thing). And I was expecting some difficulties challenges. Add to this the Montessori system where they must learn by themsleves. I had serious doubts how that would fit my kids, Nathan in particular. But well, don't ask me how, but it works, and it works well. Remind me to thank their teacher at our first meeting Monday!!!LOL.

Manouk is our little spitfire around he house, so happy to have company, so so fun! She loves having the boys around. I guess she's finally happy she order them around the whole day...She's our little house manager. Non stop talking, we often forget she's only 2.5.

Obviously Mr doudou follows her every step..

In between I'm trying to work on 3 of my big assignments for the academie: 1) self portrait 2) reportage of a co-student 3) street reportage (and of course all the weekly tech assignments I won't bore bore you with!!!). I'm aiming to have 1) and 2) finished by the end of the week (read Sunday). 3) is WIP.

Re: house refurbishement, it's been a disaster so won't bore you with this, just that it is more than a month that we are without a living rom. The end is in sight but as usual, it's full of challenges in that area too! Our bedroom is finished though and it looks great. I'm just looking for the perfect picture of the kids for a nice canvas!

That's it for now!!!

The other boy...

is not as cooperating, photo-wise. But at the end of finishing an assignment for school, I caught him..A few times! At least the emotions are genuine and he did all the posing himself!LOL!

Now some good news from school. Our weekly technical assignments are not normally graded. The creative ones (using some of the techniques) are. The "standard" (big ones) assignments (6 per half year) are too. You see, told you we were busy! I'm so happy we have a week (fall )vacation. So many things to do...

Last Tuesday we discussed our assignment "focus": use 3 techniques to bring the attention to one of the subjects in the picture 1) DOF 2) Blur/movement created by moving the camera or a moving object/person 3) Position/angle used by photographer. Well it was not as easy as it sounds (especially 3).

BUT the good news is that I got a 7 for 1) and 3). And 7 is considered a good grade...

I need to redo 2). Although technically the picture was fine, the attention was not brought to a specific person in the picture because of the blur. So blur or not, focus would have been on the same person.

I'm still finding hard to deal with all these assignments we are bombarded with every week but at least it lightened my spirit and gave me some confidence.

    

Celebrating fall...

And shooting for me..In a long time...

Being back at school and being swamped with assignments every week, I actually lost the need to go out and shoot for myself. What I like. What makes me happy. It's so intensive that I actually long for something else whenever I get some free time. That's the hard part I find: working only towards assignments and grades to reach the next year. It's really stretching me. I have actually put myself on leave and will not take any sessions until after Xmas (except for the odd ones, simply working on my business side of things and a couple of projects). No time, and I hate doing things on the fly.

Anyway Sunday was a glorious day and Nathan and I went cycling to the nearby park and catch the sun falling on the beautiful fall colors. Blurry, yellow and all, these are some of my favs in a long time.  Probably not for everyone but it just sums it up for him, for me, our life as a family right now (even if only DS is showing) and my photography. I find it tough to break away from the "commercial" assignments we are asked to do every week. I know I will learn tons but getting these was just such a relief in what's been a tough month photography wise. Ok sorry for the novel, I guess it just needed to get out....Thanks for looking.

And again thanks to Dee and Deb who really took all my fears away of shooting in the sun...I really love it. I can really recommend their workshop. I just got so much out of it.

This kid has such an energy and is just so fun to be around.

 

      

Mum, why can't you run faster?

Ok I hate running on my own...No strike that..I HATE running, stop. On my own, I hate it even more. There is no pleasure in running, it hurts, I'm out of breath, red cheeked, yeah very attractive! But well I know it feels good afterwards. Plus, it's good for you - physically and mentally - blablabla..So I do it.

Early September I joined a running group on Saturday morning. For the motivation: no hiding, no stopping, you MUST go on, group dynamics and rule. And I like it, it's kind of fun to meet all these people like me, trying to get a better condition...The problem is: we get "housework"....Twice a week!!!! They told us that's the only way to really get better...Ok...Whatever..

So Monday, I really pushed myself HARD and get out there, ON MY VERY OWN...I made sure I got a bit out of my neigbourhood. Did not really want anybody to see me sticking my tongue out, reaching for air, and in a constant state of near collapsing. I look quite fit you see, well actually I am, just not when I run...I did it and was proud...Training #1 could be ticked off.

Yesterday, training #2 was planned. I was tired, there was no way I could just get myself to go....sigh..But 45mns before end of school, I put my running gear on and went for the door.........Saved by the bell, a friend just came round for a chit chat: "were you going out?", me looking very surprised..."noooooooooooo, come on in, I'll make us some coffee". I'm so weak, people, it's not funny at my age....

15:00, went to pick up the boys when a genuis idea (at the time) striked me. I will set the boys on their bike and will go together...Nice..NOT! These little buggers tormented me the whole time...

Mum, come on, hurry!

Mum!!!!!!!!! Can you please hurry, we're waiting for you..

MUM, can't you just go a little faster???

Mum, why are you breathing so heavily??

Mum, shall we stop so that you can rest?

Honnestly!!! Is it worse than I thought? Better keep going on with the training...

I took them byour garage to shoot a few pictures. I was trying some panning stuff but either my SS was too high or they were too slow but it did not work out. Will try again today.

50mm and some action

50mm and mocking me ( I was still pretty red)

135mm (what a lens) +garage light = amazing combination..These are nearly sooc. I barely edited them. I really need to set my garage as a natural light studio. It is facing a long row of garages with white doors, so amazing reflection (sun/light is behind our garage)

Wanted some flare but that did not happen. These little turds were on to something. Won't share here....

We had lots of fun, and despite the ugly comments, I think I'm taking them again for a run.

      

No more pictures!!!!

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Updated to add:

I was tagged by Jamie and Tracie. Don't want them to feel that I ignored them (yes Tracie I read your blog every day!), but really it's getting harder and harder to find another 8 things, so I'll merge these into one set, and I will make it photography related too.

1) I shoot exclusively raw (even my holiday snapshots, I'm pretty anal about this)

2) I never defog anymore because I have a preset in raw that sets the right contrast/lightness for me, and does the trick.

3) I sharpen for print using Smart Sharpen with settings going from 10, 1 to 20, 1 for portraits. For landscape I may go up to 35,1. I hate too sharpened print because it screams "digital". I just love film because it's never too sharpened.

4) You should not be sitting next to me when I'm converting to b&w, because it causes me to curse quite a bit. It's a frusrating event. So you know why I do 90% color.

5) I crop about 90% of my pictures in PS. Some swear by in camera crop because it saves time. I never really unerstood the argument because cropping really takes about 2 seconds. Ok maybe they batch a folder full of sooc's?

6) I have never used a tripod. I just bought one (required by the fotoacademie) but it's still in the box

7) I have used my flash once (bought it 2 years ago)

8) My 5D settings are all set to under 0 (-1 or something), I like to do everything in raw

Guess that's it!

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That's what they seem to tell me..No words but one lok at them and you should get the message. My fun bunch, all ganged up against me....

The princess (she was actually stuffing a cookie in her mouth, taking advantage of mommy snapping pictures as usual).

The pouter...

The smirker...

   

The weekend...

in images..Well that was Saturday actually. Busy 2 days, but beautiful so spent lots of time outside. Got some opportnity to take some catwalk shots at the Bambini Fashion European event in Amsterdam. Gee the buildings were beautiful there, would make some amazing studio! (Wester Gas Fabriek). Got plenty of tips from a pro who had 3 cameras round his neck...Yo know the big Canon pro ones....But I still saw him drooling about my 85mm and he did ask about it.

The show was fun and for a while I just pretended I was THE photographer of the event! Here are a couple...I had to battle some serious casts. Flashing colored lights did this!!!!lol. Nothing like shooting raw.

And the kids....

Going home....

             

Still life..

Really not my specialty!!!lol.

One of the assignments for next Tuesday is to photograph 9 white scenes (90% of the scene is white) and 9 black scenes. Twice. Once with a grey card (first time I used one) and once using our camera's automatic setting (that was a very long time I switched that on..).

Here are the sooc's. Speak for themselves!

Sooc auto:

Sooc with grey card metering:

So maybe I should start using my grey card!

Have a great w/e everyone!   

Loose wires..

Notice the s. You'd normally say he's got  (or she) a loose wire..When I wake up with a killing migraine, those that makes you wish you could go on the other side (the dark one) so that the pain stops, well that's how it feels: all my wires are loose, I'm just a waste of space and one that hurts too.

Sorry for the vent, if you don't feel like it, well just scroll down to the picture down below. But today was such a bad day that I just need to get it out of my chest. I just HATE these migraines, I can't take them anymore. I have had them all my life sio I think I've paid my dues. Can I get some relief, please? You could say I'm lucky enough that they're only bothering me 3/4 times a month now. Till I stopped working it was 3/4 times a fortnight. Considering they last for a good 2/3 days, that's basically full time..You could also tell me to shut up and go back to my preventive treatment. Thae one given to long term sufferers like me with only few days of respite in between. Got that in Feb when it all became to much. I stopped in September...Because yes the migraines are less but you walk around like a zombie everyday, so tired, the only thing you long for is a bed. NIce life, huh?

I'm done with them, anybody a taker??

Ok enough of this negativity. I've been around, obviously not on this blog. Around and enoying really evey minute of my time with the kids. When I left BHPB, I really tought it was going to be hard. Well every morning I have to pinch myself to really make sure I'm awake and enjoying not going to work. I haven't been bored for a minute and really haven't regretted for a second my decision. I'm the first surprised about this. I still can't grasp it. I'm begining to think I'm actually lazy!!!! Because so far I have no desire to work again. Ok I miss one thing: the $$$ but honnestly, the time I spend with my 3 are worth all these $$$ and more...

I missed so much of my boys growing up. Manouk is lucky, I live with her, I smell her, I breathe her. Sounds cheesy but it's just so true. I lived next to the boys, my au-pair lived with them. Now, I'm not saying every mom should stay at home....I'm just saying that after working nearly FT till September that's the BEST decision I have made for myself and my family in a long time. Ask DH, he even gets his dinner every night...

It also gave me the opportunity to meet other people. I was scared it would narrow my horizons but to the contrary, they just widened. I met a great photographer, I'm getting to spend a lot of time with a neighbour that just makes me laugh and I have joined a great group of photographers at the Foto Academie. So ok, I'm stuck here, but life's good! Oh I can hear DH's sigh of relief!!!LOL.

And I owe it to them. They made me take this decision...Excuse the color cast, this is sooc just resized, I'm in no state of editing!