Busy and loving it!!!

I am the first to admit I was beyond excited when I realized I would have NO school work this past weekend since I finished up my classes and my next doesn’t start till the 28th. However, I was just as busy, if not busier. Here is the recap so far starting with Thursday night.

After work on Thursday I got to take pictures of the adorable little Miss K. I knew I had to get them edited that night so I didn’t fall too far behind.



Then late Thursday night I got a call from one of the fabulous youth in my ward who was looking for another adult driver for a trip to Dorney Park they were taking. Notice I didn’t say they were looking for a chaperone cause clearly despite the age on my driver’s license I do NOT act that age. So I quickly made a mental list of things I needed to rearrange so I could do it and told him sure I would be happy to help out. Plus I love me some roller coasters. (stayed tuned for a blog just about that trip)



Then Saturday Morning I got to sleep in since my early morning session had to cancel.

After that I had a session with my friend Missy who I convinced to let me take her pictures. She is a good sport about things.



There was also a mini pet session. Even with one eye this guy is a cutie.



I then got to meet up with one of the women from a photography message board I am a part of and do maternity pictures of, Hello beautiful!!



Then Sunday I had two Family sessions. First up was the Perry's who could not have looked cuter. And we won't talk about the small incident with the car, keys and kids all in one location and the locked doors. (My Bad)



Then that afternoon I got to click some pics of the Marostica family!!




Make sure you swing by my Photography Blog over the next couple of days to see more pictures from the sessions I did and will be doing this weekend.

Would you like some Preparation H with your Birthday cake?

If you were visit the home of my foster brother Chris and his wife Donna you would not be offered ice cream to go with your birthday cake, nope they would ask you if you would like a little Preparation H to go with your cake. But with Chris and Donna this is not a complete shock to hear something so random. When you hear it is because their son refers to “Ice cream” as “Ass Cream” it makes perfect sense, does it not. Yep this is just one of the fun tidbits I learned yesterday when I went to meet the newest member of the Sam Mautz clan, Aaron. He was born on Wednesday evening and I went down to VA to take some baby pictures and of course visit for a bit. Oh the stories that can be told when this family gets together.

Here are a few pictures I took of the baby while I was there. I have not had a chance to really edit them yet but wanted to share what I have.






Here is Aaron letting me know.. "Enough with the pictures already, I am only 3 days old for crying out loud, cut me some slack."

Hannah being the super mommy that she is wanted to help make the transition of being an only child to being a big sister for Erica a bit more exciting. So she asked her mom to bake a cake for Baby Aaron’s 0 birthday. We sang Happy Birthday 3 times and Erica and Daddy got to blow out the candles 2 times for baby Aaron and of course Erica got to open presents.





Erica had a really good day. She loves her Aunt Marit who plays with her


And Aunt Chell brought her Play-Doh, don't worry I made sure it was okay to give it to her ahead of time.


As I was reminded in some great talks today in Church Family is very important. For me my family needs a bit of a road map to follow and my family comes in many flavors and styles, but I love them all and am thankful for them all in my life and the joy each part brings. It was good to see some of the family that really was instrumental in making me feel like I belonged to a family and that loved me for me, quirks and all.

Christmas Party Season

It's December so that means it is time for the holiday parties to hit in a big way. I have decided to once again skip the big SEI holiday party but we will have several smaller ones at work which I will be part of, it is all part of that mandatory fun we do at work.
However the first party to hit this holiday season was the ward Christmas party. Being on the activities committee it was a given I would be there. So aside from helping out in the kitchen and beign in charge of decorations, and set up I also brought my camera along so I could get a few shots for a bigger project I will be working on over the next year for the Activities committee.
The night was a good one and the program was fun since it got people involved singing hymns, even if one of the wisemen had further to travel than the others and was a little late to shower his gifts on the Christ child.

So here are a few of the pictures I took during the night.

Submitting for an artwork show at work......

Okay readers I need your assistance. The company I work for recently sent out an email asking for all serious hobby artists to submit jpeg’s of their artworks for consideration in an upcoming exhibition “SEI Artists” in the SEI Gallery. Works can be paintings, drawings, photographs, printmaking, wood works, craft pieces, etc.. A focused series of work and commitment to the medium is necessary for consideration. What they are concerned with interesting images, interesting content, etc.

Well I have decided to submit some of my photography and decided to do a nature series specifically flowers. Below are the pictures I have narrowed it down to but I need your help to pick out the top 5 favorites. (I got it down from 62 to 27) So please look below and leave me a comment letting me know which 5 you like the best and think I should submit… Help me pick the most interesting images. Let me know if there are any you do not find interesting at all. I will probably do something in addition to the flowers if I can figure out what I want that to be…. Feel free to add any suggestions you might have.

Thanks and I will let you know which ones I submit and if I get chosen or not. With as many people that work here I am guessing there will be a lot of people submitting things.

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Okay let me know your favorites, if you can't just pick 5 keep it to no more than 10.

Girls Camp 2007

So this year I only went to camp for 1 day instead of the whole week like I have done the prior three years. I still went as the photographer though and took about 700 pictures when all was said and done for the day. Camp was at a different time and location this year. The best thing about the new location was how much closer it was to home, so I could actually just go for the day. The worst thing was the food. The girls started to feel like they were at fat camp since the portions were so timy, not to mention the quality was no where near what they were used to. Luckily they did not have to worry about bears at this camp so they could bring candy and other snacks with them.

It seemed like a very calm year compared to some previous years. No where the drama that we have seen in the past. the girls all seemed to be having fun and enjoying camp as much as they would allow themselves to enjoy it. The crafts this year were really fun, the sports were diffferent and challenging for the girls, and there was a pool instead of swimming on the lake. The bad thing was the boats they had for boating had holes in them.. The cbins had bathrooms in them and there were not as many GIGANTIC spiders as seen in the past. I have included just a sampling of the pictures I took this year.

Scanning in old negatives....

Most people have boxes, envelopes bags, etc… full of old pictures, negatives and slides. Now there are a few out there that do not dread tackling the task of organizing this mess, I am not one of those. I have all of my pictures sorted and categorized and some are even labeled but I have 3 boxes of negatives that I had no idea what to do with. I looked into getting a negative scanner but the cost was high and then there is the time it would take to scan everything in. So the next thing I did was start looking for services that scan them for you and put them on CD/DVD. At first I was not able to find one that was reasonably priced enough to want to use for the volume of negatives I have to get scanned.

Then I came across www.scancafe.com and not only was their price the lowest but they offer a few things I did not find on other sites. The most important being you only have to pay for the ones you choose to keep after they scanned (You have to keep at least 50% but that is very reasonable for what you get) So that made it even easier to use since I would not have to sort though all the negatives trying to find the ones I wanted to have scanned. I just grabbed a pile of about 900 and sent it in and got to sort through them online after they were all scanned. I kept 80% of what was scanned. I just got my DVD’s of photos today in the mail and decided to post some of them online since they are pretty funny. See if anyone looks familiar to you in the pictures…



Now I am packing up my second order which will be between 2000 -2500 negatives and includes all of my medium format negatives since they just started offering the service to scan those. It takes about 6-7 weeks from when you send your items off till you have the DVD with your scans and your originals back in hand so I figure it will take me about 1 year to get all the negatives scanned that I want to have scanned. Then I will move onto old pictures that I didn’t have the negatives for. Once I get all that done I will see if my grandmother (Yes the same one who said “shut-up fatty” to me on my mom’s birthday) wants to have her slides/pictures/negatives scanned and work with her to get that done. She has large boxes filled with pictures and slides. It would be great to get them scanned so that the rest of the family could have copies of everything. Especially the stuff from when my grandfather was still alive and racing cars.

So if you have been looking for a way to preserve your memories digitally you should definitely look into scancafe and see if it meets your needs. I am really happy with it so far. Now I have to start organizing all my scans but that is going to be fun since I will get to look through some fun old pictures.

Not much new here this week....

Ahh time for another blog. This one will probably be on the shorter side since there is not much new to report here. I am busy with my second semester at school, and all the reading is kicking my butt. So I will not be reading the new Harry Potter book as soon as it comes out. I will have to wait till August when I am back do only having class once a week….

So I have gotten a couple of questions about the digital back I am thinking about buying for my camera, It is not available in the US yet but here is a link to what it is.
http://www.mamiya.com/cameras.asp?id=1&id2=2127


Also for those of you trying to guess which other friend of mine I think would like the school I mentioned wanting to go to it is Paul…. He is currently in Iraq working but still gets a chance to take some pictures from time to time… Check out the website he has been building.. It is still a work in progress so check back from time to time…. http://www.cprambo.com/ He has some real talent and enjoys photography….

Well that’s all for now. If you haven't done so already don't forget to Vote on my poll....

Random thoughts and pictures

So I just got back from a short bike ride, about 15 miles. I had to go retrieve my phone from my friend's house where i left it Thursday evening. It was a great night for a ride. perfect weather and the trail was virtually empty. I think I passed 6 other bikers, 2 people roller blading and about 6 or so walkers. There was a family of geese and about 1 million gnats......

I thought a bike ride would clear my mind and leave me feeling more motivated to come home and finish my homework for the weekend but that was not the case. I did however get a chance to do some thinking. It really is a beautiful trail, maybe next time I head out I will grab and take a long my point and shoot camera and post some pictures on here. Anyway I realized a few things while I was out riding. The first is the most obvious, I am out of shape... The other things I thought about were more about what is important to me and the things that make me smile. It helps keep things in perspective. So I decided to post a few pictures of those things. This is just a small representation..

Oh take a look at my survey on the side. I am trying to decide which big purchase I should make next year. Laser Eye surgery so I can ditch my glasses, or a digital back for my medium format camera so I can do more professional level photography work. Let me know what you think....