Day 30 Zack Arias inspired head shot

I am spending the weekend glued to my computer to learn everything I can possibly soak in from the Zack Arias workshop.  He inspired me to try something new for head shots so I bribed James to sit as my model :)  The pictures turned out great so I am going to use the color version of this photo on his Confirmation invitations.  Now if I could only bribe him to get his hair cut...

Day 29 Best game yet

James had his best game yet tonight!  2 hits, 2 stolen bases and an RBI.  James sliding into third on a successful steal attempt :)

Day 28 First official Hit!

James got his first official hit of the baseball season today!  FINALLY :)  They even won the game 7-6!  This is James rounding second, safe at third!

Day 27 Published

I had the opportunity to take some photos for a local company.  They needed to update the photos for their advertising and website.  When I checked the mail the other day, what did I see?  My picture on the front page of the Stewie Satellite :)  It was also in the Stewie Star last week.  Another photo was published in several ads as well, including on a billboard.  It should be up, but I haven't seen it yet :)

Day 26 Unusual Home

This duck decided to make its nest in a planter on the sidewalk in downtown Rochester.  I thought it was fake then it growled at me....yes, growled at me!

Day 25 Glorious Sky!

What a gorgeous sky!

Day 24 Easter Sunday

James was up nice and early this morning searching for his eggs.  Now that he is older, I hide them in more difficult spots.  I am happy to report that this Easter bunny stumped him!  He only found 90 of the 108...LOL!  I gave him clues to the rest so he found most of them before we headed off to church.

It was a great Easter service followed by a nice family dinner at my aunt's house.  The older kids hid Easter eggs all over and then helped the younger kids search for them.  It was so cute :)  Someone had the great idea to buy kites as well so the kids and parents scattered the yard and enjoyed the beautiful sunny day that we were blessed with.

Here's a photo of the cousins (minus a couple of the oldest ones) after the egg hunt.

Day 23 Eggs!

108 Easter eggs stuffed and ready to go!  This has been our tradition since James was little.  I hide the eggs all over the house and when James wakes up on Easter morning, he gets to try and find them before we head off to church.  Every year I would increase our plastic egg collection so now that he is 14, we have way more eggs than needed for one kid, but James just isn't ready to give up the tradition yet :)

Day 22 Good Friday

Appropriate weather for a somber day like Good Friday.

Day 21 Baseball vs Lake City

We suffered two losses in our double header today.  The first game started out terrible, but the boys made a major comeback to lose by only a few runs.  The second game was a heart breaker.  We were up going into the bottom of the last inning, but couldn't keep the lead.

Day 20 Killebrew Root Beer

Apparently Harmon Killebrew has his own root beer.  We got this bottle from Brian's day.  It will make another nice addition to our Twins/Baseball collection :)

Please Vote!

If you are a member of Love That Shot, I would appreciate if you would vote for my flower photo from Day 18 posted below!  You can find the link up to vote here:   http://lovethatshot.com/lts/love-your-shot/link-up-spring-fever

I am number #24!  Also, if you are not a member, you can sign up for free :)  Not only do they have fun contests and giveaways, tutorials and other great information but it's also a great forum to converse with other people that love photography too!  Thanks!

Day 19 Mother Nature's Evil Trick

Seriously, doesn't mother nature know that it is the middle of April?!

Day 18 Sad looking flowers

Yes, it's spring, but you can't tell.  Our flowers are looking rather pathetic after the bit of snow we received over the weekend.  Just wait until the snow hits tomorrow :(  I thought I would try my hand again with a texture overlay.  Very rare for me, but I do like the way this one turned out.







ETA:  If you are a member of Love That Shot please vote for this as your favorite spring fever photo.  You can get to their site by clicking the button above, then click on LINK UP at the menu on the top of the page.  I am #24 :)  Thanks!

Day 17 Siblings

Brian's parents hosted an early Easter dinner for the family today since they will be out of town next weekend.  All of the kids were able to make it and their grandma was even there too :)  We had a wonderful dinner and Easter egg hunt (thanks to the beautiful weather.)  Brian's mom is a woman after my own heart.  She loves taking pictures and just purchased a new camera!  It was a great opportunity to get the kids together for a picture!

Stephani, TJ, Jena and Brian (L to R)

Day 16 Freestyle

Folkstyle is the traditional type of wrestling that the high school kids compete at.  I have been around this style of wrestling since I was in high school...many, many years ago :)  After the traditional high school season is over, some of the kids wrestle Greco Roman or Freestyle wrestling.  Completely different rules and objectives for these styles.  Before he started his high school coaching career, Brian used to run a freestyle/greco program in his home town.  I would go with to cheer on his kids, even though I was completely lost when it came to the scoring.  Well, it's been at least 5-6 years since I've been to a tourney so I decided to tag along with Brian to cheer on some of the kids that wrestle for his high school program.  It's fun to see them wrestle a completely different style and it's great seeing them keep up with some sort of wrestling in the off season.

This is Timmy (in the red singlet.)  He's been stricken with injury and illness the past couple of high school seasons, but he has committed to getting on the mat in the off season and it is paying off.  He has been dominating his competition in greco and freestyle, winning several tourneys already!



This is Nick (facing the camera.)  Nick committed to putting in a ton of off season wrestling last year so when he came into the high school season this year he was clearly our most improved and best wrestler on the team.  I love the dedication you see in these kids.  Nick not only wrestles, but he also plays baseball right now too!

Day 15 Froggy

It's one of those rainy cruddy days today.  James' baseball double header was cancelled and we're stuck in doors.  To top it off, they are talking snow!  YUCK!  Mother Nature needs a gentle reminder that it is April :)  This is Spotty's "baby," Froggy.  He loves to drag him around.  It's so cute when he uses him as a pillow.  Froggy is well loved.



In other news, the plumber came to our house today.  Our house has settled and it settled right onto one of our pipes causing a rather large crack.  They've patched it for now, but if it doesn't hold, we are looking at ripping apart the bathroom for them to replace it.  Keep your fingers crossed for us that this patch works!

Day 14 Distracting Birds

I was trying to work (on photography stuff at home) today, but I kept getting distracted by something outside my window.  Apparently, our neighbor's bush is home to a nest of baby birds.  This is the mama bird flying in to feed her babies.  Just out of camera view was the proud papa bird.  He held a constant watch and chased away any birds that got too close.  It was so distracting that I found myself watching the birds more than I was watching my computer.  I finally decided to get my camera set up on the tripod with my 70-200 2.8 lens and capture their routine :)

Day 13 The Joys of Home Ownership

First our computer died, then our basement flooded after our sump pump died and we had to rip out most of our carpet in the basement, then our new sump pump failed and our basement flooded again...now we have a major leak coming from our sink in the upstairs bathroom.  We noticed it coming through the ceiling in the laundry room in the basement.  Ugh. will it ever end?  Hopefully the damage isn't too severe.

Day 12 Baseball, Backlighting and a little Bug Bokeh

We traveled to Winona this evening for my son's baseball game.  It was an absolutely beautiful evening!  We were sitting on the side of the field facing the sun, but it gave me a chance to get a completely different look than what I normally shoot.  We had this dreamy, hazy back lighting during golden hour!  I was getting such gorgeous lens flare in my photos too.    How perfect.  Too bad the game didn't have the same results, we lost 2-1.

My son far right.  The coloring completely reminds me of strawberry lemonade.



Beautiful backlit bug bokeh :)

Day 11 Business Fun

I was approached by Family Tree Landscape Nursery to take some group photos for their marketing and new head shots for their website.  It was fun to see one of my photos on the online edition of the Post Bulletin, our newspaper for Rochester, MN (population just over 100,000 people)  The photo will also be featured on a billboard, in local news print ads and in a local magazine!



While I am on the topic of business stuff, I didn't get a chance to share my marketing kit that was designed by the fabulous Kim at Madilu Designs.  www.madiludesigns.com  She was absolutely wonderful to work with :)



The blog header and background you can see live here  www.nicolemathison.com/blog

I had my business cards made up awhile ago too and have been meaning to post a picture of them.  They turned out great.  I had them printed with the pearl paper...LOVE that finish!



Thanks for letting me share :)

Day 10 Focus Issues

I have been noticing some focus issues lately in my pictures so I decided to test it out.  This was a photo that I took of my son.  I had focused on the inner corner of the eye on the left, but it looks light the eye on the right is actually the one in focus.  (Notice the eyelashes on the left are blurry, but tack sharp on the right side.)  This is pretty consistent across the board.  Not sure why it is focusing to one side.  I am going to play around more with it and I am probably due to adjust my diopter as well.  The focus is off when I use my 70-200 as well.

My settings taken with my 50 1.4
SS 1/100
ISO 800
F 3.2

I could have lowered my ISO a bit, but I wasn't shooting wide open so I am not sure why the focal plane was so narrow?  What do you think?

Day 9 Spotty

This is our dog, Spotty.  He loves being outside and he loves playing catch with his ball :)  With the weather today he was definitely in his glory.  I cherish days like these.  Poor Spotty had a bad seizure while we were on vacation.  It was incredibly scary to imagine what our life would be like without him.  Thankfully he is doing much better now.

Day 8 Stolen Base

James taking a deep breath after his first stolen base of the season.  His team won 11-6 and James was 0-1 on the day.  He reached on an error and the runner also scored from third.  James scored a run for his team as well.  All in all another good game :)

Day 7 New Toy

We stood in line for several hours, but we were lucky enough to get the ipad 2 the day it came out.  We really wanted it for our vacation.  It worked perfectly!  Now we still just love using it at home :)

This year I will be offering in person ordering sessions and I will be using the ipad to show the photos.  Photos look so beautiful on this thing.  

Day 6 My Gear

I've had lots of people ask me what I shoot with and what lenses I use.  Here's my gear.  I have 4 lenses I shoot with (one is attached to the body of my camera) and use a Canon T1i.  I am hoping to do an in depth look at some of my lenses in the future on my business blog.  If you want to check out that blog go to www.nicolemathison.com/blog.  

Day 5 Baseball!

Today was James' first baseball game of the season.  The won 10-0 over Hayfield.  James went 0-1 on the day with a walk.  Here's James running from 2nd to 3rd.

Day 4 Baby you can drive my car

Today my baby signed up for driver's training.  By the end of the month he will be in class and that means behind the wheel soon!  ACK!

Day 3 Editing some vacation photos

Just sitting down to edit some of the photos from our vacation.  Nearly every year we travel to Fy Myers, FL to watch MN Twins Spring Training.  This year we were celebrating Brian's 30th birthday.  He shares his birthday with his college friend, Mike.  Mike and his girlfriend, Katie, joined us on our trip :)

Beautiful Hammond Stadium, the MN Twins spring training complex.


Brian enjoying a cold one on a hot day.


Our 2011 fountain photo.


Brian, Katie and Mike checking out a game at the minor league complex.


With my boyfriend, Twins closer Joe Nathan!


Brian and I behind home plate after the last spring training game of the season.  It was extremely hot so the people left and we were lucky to score some sweet seats here in the third row for the last couple of innings of the game.

Day 2 Wish I Could Go Back

Just going through our vacation photos.  This was our last day at Ft Myers Beach, FL.

Day 1 When it rains, it pours...literally!

So we had this wonderful 30th birthday party for Brian.  It was the first time in four years of home ownership that we actually used our basement for entertaining.  We were very excited about using our basement for more than just a play room.  Then a few days later our sump pump failed and it flooded :(  It happened in the middle of the night, but luckily I saw the water coming in and was able to wake up the members of our family to get everything of value up off the floor.  We had our sump pump replaced the next day, but we had to rip out a majority of the carpet in our basement.  We bought fans and a shop vac to clean up the mess before we were to leave the next day for a vacation to Florida.  The next day the brand new sump pump failed and we flooded again!  Luckily my sister was house sitting and was able to clean it up for us.  This is the mess we returned home to.  We just keep thinking that it could have been worse!