Monday, November 1, 2010

NaBloPoMo and a Big Ol' Happy Birthday to My Blog!

It's NaBloPoMo time again!  For those of you who aren't "in the know" like me (lol), that means "National Blog Posting Month".  Basically, the goal is to blog every day for a month.  I tried it last year and *almost* made it.  Totally forgot to blog one day around Thanksgiving and blew the whole thing, ugh!  I'm going to try again this year ~ we'll see how it goes!

And since it is November 1, that means that my blog has officially turned 1!!!  Happy Birthday, blog!  We've come a long way since those first few posts.  I've discovered my love of blogging, for one!  It's been a great outlet for me and I can pretty much guarantee that the girls and I read this blog and look at the pictures more than anyone else out there!  I've also discovered my love of photography and am really enjoying seeing my picture-taking (or picture-making, as my friend puts it!) evolve.  I've read a lot about photography, and the number one rule I've found from site after site, book after book, is take lots of pictures.  And then look at them, and take more.  Critique yourself, get feedback from friends, and then take more.  Challenge yourself to move away from shooting in "auto" mode (and I have to say, after I moved past the intimidation of shooting in "manual", I *really* saw a difference in my photos), and take more.  Never stop taking pictures and learning.  I have many many MANY more pictures on my computer than I post on my blog, and I love that.  I am by NO means a professional, or even an amateur really.  But I love to capture moments, and I'm starting to see that pay off.  Maya is soaking it up, too (seriously, the girl gets more comments than Michael and I combined!)!

Another thing I've learned about photos is that sometimes you have to relax your standards in order to capture the moment.  One of the "rules" of photography that I have just recently (in the last year) learned is that pictures turn out much better, much more realistic, without a flash (or at least a built-in flash ~ external flashes can do some amazing stuff).  But, neither of the first two pictures would have turned out at all without it ~ my equipment just isn't that fancy at this point.  But the girls sharing Mr. Potato Head?  That needed to be captured.  And of course, as Maya would say "Mommy doesn't play" so it was very important to catch me being silly so that I can prove to her when she gets older that I *do* in fact play...at least sometimes!



And this picture I just love :)  Shows off my studly man doing his studly man thang and raking the leaves for me :)

1 comment:

picturingtheordinary said...

That's a great post! I'm looking forward to a post-a-day!