Baby Isabelle

My sister-in-law, Beth, recently framed and put up on her wall some photos from the shoot I did with them last summer, when she was almost 39 weeks pregnant. She realised that she didn't have any of her baby, Isabelle, so we decided to do a quick shoot with her yesterday. She was a bit tired, so when we next hang out, we'll do some another little photo shoot in order to get more of her cute little Isabelle expressions.

I have to admit, I enjoy taking photos of my family the most. And in particular, my nieces and nephews. We now have five nieces and four nephews, with another nephew on the way. We are so lucky to have such a large family, and we love that Sophie already has loads of cousins and will have even more cousins as our siblings and their spouses continue to procreate, if you will.

We head off to visit my older brother and his family next week. We're making the 8 or so hour drive up to Tacoma, WA, on Wednesday and I'm desperately hoping that my new Canon 5D arrives in the mail before we leave. My nieces and nephews are my best test subjects for new equipment and this next week will be perfect as I'm sure I'll be taking loads of photos anyway. We shall see, we shall see...

Here's some from Isabelle's shoot:

Snow Day in California

Two days ago, we got snow in California. I was pretty excited as I have been craving snow since we moved here. Growing up in England, we just never got a lot of snow. If we did, it would all melt by the next day. Every now and then we would get a decent dumping and one time I remember, it lasted a week. We had a blast! Any snow in England pretty much equals a snow day as we are totally unequipped to deal with it.

There's something about being all warm and cozy inside, drinking a hot chocolate, or tea, or a caramel latte, or any kind of hot beverage for that matter, and seeing flakes of snow falling from the sky. I just feel so peaceful and can sit for a while just watching the snow come down (which for me, is saying a lot, as I don't like to sit still for long). Moving to California, I knew that my chance of snow was small, but one can always hope.

And to my delight, after 3 weeks of over 70°F (20°C) way-too-early-for-spring-weather, we got one day. One glorious day of some snow (15 minutes in the morning and about an hour and a half in the afternoon). Surprisingly, it actually settled. Here's the snow we got in our back garden:


 

Winner!!

On Thursday afternoon, I successfully won an auction for a 5D. I was pretty buzzed. In the end, John and I were at the mall shopping for our niece's birthday, and we were able to put in a bid using my iPhone ebay app (love my iPhone). I was so happy to see that I had won. We got home and I promptly paid and am now anxiously waiting it's arrival in the mail. I also went ahead and ordered my first Canon lens. I can't wait to start taking photos with it next week.

I have a whole bunch of ideas to blog about, but our router is busted and has completely killed our upload capabilities so I can't upload any photos until it's fixed, which basically kills anything I might want to do on my blog or on my facebook page! Oh well. I feel like we're back in the dial-up modem ages and everything is taking years to load.

So I've been doing what I can do, which is to revamp my blog and add a flickr side-bar which will post my newly uploaded flickr photos. Check it out to the right.

Just did a mini-shoot this morning with my cutsie niece, Isabelle, and am excited to upload those photos too. Stay posted....

Canon 5D

I am about to become the proud owner of a Canon 5D. About a year ago, I began to see the limitations of my entry-level DSLR and yearned to upgrade. I wanted to save the money from my photo shoots to get a new camera. Sadly as my shoots are few and far between, I realised that I had to lower my budget. I figured I could work my way to save around $1000 here and there. I was unsure which camera was the best one in that price range, so I posted a question about it on Brookelyn Photography's formspring page. She recommended a used Canon 5D. After doing some research, and actually seeing the price lower on Amazon.com used Canon 5Ds from $1200 to $950, I realised that the camera was within my reach.

I have found even cheaper Canon 5Ds on ebay and so have been bidding on multiple auctions all week in the hopes of purchasing one. This morning, I sold one of my old lenses for $195 (which is amazing as we bought it for $50) and this will go towards a new lens for my Canon. I am selling my old DSLR with two lenses to my dad and this will also help me buy a new Canon lens. I am so close and impatient with the whole ebay bidding process. We are using a program called JBidWatcher hoping it will help me get in a final bid right at the end but so far we've been outbid each time. All in good time, all in good time. Good things come to those who wait. Etc. This is what I keep saying to myself to help with my impatience!

I feel like this camera will definitely increase my photo-taking, help me to really love photography even more and allow me to take higher quality pictures than I was able to with my entry-level DSLR. And so I continue to watch ebay, and continue to bid and continue to hope that today will be the day that I win. It will be mine, oh, yes, it will be mine.

Stay posted for new photos taken with my new Canon 5D.