I've moved!!

I moved my photoblog to http://www.carolynbrandtphotography.com!

Dewdrop

It's raining here in LA! I love it :)

 

Today was the first of many Art Days! Devyn and Benji had so much fun. The cleanup was no small feat, so maybe Art Day will happen once every couple weeks? :D

Peeking!

Drivin'

Backyard light

Macro fun!

Arch

Finally asleep

Fever? Nope!

I kinda love this..

My niece was kneeling on the found when I snapped this. I kinda love it! I just love the movement and texture in her gorgeous hair.
 

Mischief

Tight squeeze

Big Ole Tooth!

Sleepy

My first love...

...is NOT the iPad, but reading! I was doing some DOF test shots on my iPad tonight and realized that I really really miss reading. I used to devour books like crazy! Since having Ben, photography has since taken its place and I've realized that I miss it. I miss getting lost in an amazing book. I think I'm try to start reading before bed again. To try and step away from forums, guidebooks, workshop readings, and read some fiction, dammit! I've started The Imperfectionists now and so far so good!

Such a Pretty Girl

Sweet Molly

The "Eyelashes Shot"

My niece has such beautiful eyelashes so, of course, I wanted to get a shot of them. Only thing is though, this shot doesn't do them justice! My angle must have been a bit off, because they're so much more long than they look! But I'd take these ones any day anyway!

Window Light

Getting used to the added weight of the D700 is more difficult than I thought! Ben was a little squirmy, but on my D90 I *might* have been able to get this one at, maybe, 1/160? I closed my aperture more than I did normally in order to get used to the weight. To tell you the truth, I've been a bit discouraged the last few days with this new camera. My images were no where near "tack-sharp" like you often see with a D700/50mm combo. I thought I bought a full frame camera prematurely, that I had more to learn on my crop camera. So, I went back to basics and closed down that ap! I also micro-adjusted my lenses to the body (they were a bit off, but not terribly). And since I have the D700, noise at 1600 wasn't really an issue.

 Here is a photo from the FIRST set of images that actually came out the way I wanted them to! When I loaded them onto my computer and opened them up in Bridge and magnified them to 100%, I actually sighed, closed my eye and grinned. Dare I say, I almost got a bit teary-eyed? I was so frustrated before, but now I know I'm on the right track to conquering this beast!! I should have known it wasn't going to be easy.
  1/250, f/3.2, ISO 1600

Gazing out

Molly is usually pretty leery of her biggest fan (Ben!) but he's actually petting her now instead of grabbing/pinching/pulling. Molly doesn't head for the hills as much as she used to.

:)

My little Sweetie on Valentine's Day

Here's last year's Valentine's Day!

Pensive toddler

1/180, f/1.8, ISO 3200

Unbeknownst to me, this photo (and the ones I took during this "shoot") is the last picture I would take of my baby boy Ben with my Nikon D90. I'm upgrading my camera body on Monday (woot woot!). I sold it to a good friend who loves photography and will put it to good work. I was pretty sad for a couple of days about the loss of this camera...BUT I'M NOT NOW!! YAHHHH BABYY!!! Get that D700 here STAT!

Musician

When I was pregnant a psychic friend told me my son would be musical. If this comes true, I will be over the moon! He even put it away! (GASP!)

2 Months?!

Wow. I haven't blogged since December 7th. And even in THAT post I say how busy I am. I guess there goes THAT commitment! But, hey, nothing wrong with trying again, right?

Here's a rundown of the last few months that I would really love to share :)

A few days before Thanksgiving was my baby's FIRST birthday celebration! I never really got the formal cake smash session that I really wanted to do, but I'm glad I got these...






BEFORE:



AFTER: hahaa!!


In 2011, Ben's birthday was ON Thanksgiving. Here's a photo of us in the hospital when Ben's was one day old. And here he was this Thanksgiving one year old. :) :)

I really wanted to do a formal cake smash shoot with him, but it just didn't happen. Thanksgiving (and his actual birthday) was a few days after this, and the day after Thanksgiving I went to Mexico to shoot a cousin's wedding!

Here are a few from their day. I have to say the lighting during the wedding was a challenge! The sun was super bright even at sunset and then BAM! it was dark. My ISO was pumped up so high on a lot of them that I just needed to embrace the grain!









My cousin wanted the posed photos to have more of a vintage feel to them.



(My fave!)


And a few landscape shots. The beach was gorgeous at sunrise!













Are you still with me? Okay....

And then after that was Christmas. Surprisingly, I decided NOT to shoot anything on Christmas but instead let my husband videotape it. I did get some great photos of us picking out a tree with my niece though!























Here's my try at a "Twinkle Lights" photo for Ben's holiday picture:



I wasn't totally happy with it, but it was the best shot I got!

And his Christmas card...lol!



Here in LA, Christmas Day was beautifu! Before heading over to the In-Laws, we took a pit stop at the park!


I'm in one! Yay!







WOW..this has been a total overshare! But I really feel like I HAD to catch up. My whole purpose for this blog in the beginning was to journal our life with Ben. So this is really for him...and I feel like I kind of owe it to him ;-)