Back after missing a few days!

My excuse would be that we didn't have an internet connection for a few days AND that I'm very busy with work and the kids. But I'm back and so is winter. On Wednesday morning I woke up to find lots of spider webs in the garden and they were all frozen. Not easy to take a good picture of its beauty. But here we go anyway! Thanks for looking!

Our Weekend!

Today, pictures of what we did this weekend, not necessarily photographically the best pictures ;-) but the weekend was fun! Saturday evening, we did this:

Quine! I'm not sure what it is called in English, bingo maybe? We went to this little village nearby that had organised a quine-evening, the four of us with Walter (BiL) and Maïté (his GF). Right from the start, W has announced to the people next to us that we were going for the beginners luck ;-) And we did! This is a little part of what we won:
We won 5 times: a back pack, a set of dishes, a ham (Walter), a chicken with a nice bread (not a living chicken) (Richard) and 6 bottles of Cahors wine (me). Good evening :-D We had good fun! the pictures of the ham and the bottles were taken today, because obviously we organised a lunch to enjoy all of it!

After that we played cards, I didn't take pictures of that, and that was the weekend! The weekend is always too short!! Thanks for looking!

My house

As I have had PSE (4) installed on my computer for ages, I have decided it was about time to try to learn to do something with it. With some help of PSE tutorials on the web, I took a try at a photo of my house, not easy and not the greatest of results, but I do want to show it anyway! You've gotta start somewhere huh!?!

First the original:

And the edited version, trying to make some sketch like picture :-D

Technology!?!

This weeks theme for the Photography challenge on Two Peas is Technology. After numerous photos of really no interest I came up with the following, which is obviously not really what the theme is meant to be about! But, once upon a time, this has been technology too :-)

We don't have a doorbell. We are still in the "knock knock who's there?" era! Every now and then, I hear this knocking that is really loud and very true, we actually don't need a bell, when we have this:

We also have another bell, which is barely used. It is a bell bought in a tourist shop in Amsterdam, one of those things you don't even look at when you walk around in your own country, even laugh at, but once you live "abroad", you suddenly like these typical things! I am from Holland and bought this when we had our first house in France with my French husband. And remember, once upun a time this was high technology. Well, yes, I know I'm totally off topice, but I actually like my pictures! The first is taken with my 18-55 lens:

And this is the same bell, taken with my new 50mm lens, I am quite proud of the (manual) focus, what do you think?Thanks for looking! It's Saturday, so hopefully lots of time and opportunity for photos today, even though the weather is BAD, lots, lots and lots of rain! Well, I'll just try to make the most of it!

Hairball

That's what we call her! I find it is quite hard to keep up with this during weekdays! No time to actually take pictures EVERY day, so I post pictures from last weekend. This is Scooby, our little hairball :-) She was adventuring in our neighbourhood. I post my pictures bigger now, someone made me notice that the small ones were quite difficult to really see. (thanks!)

Taken with my 70-200 lens (I believe that's what it is!) with wide aperture (A mode). Thanks for looking!!

Delicious!

Last night, Richard made us these Gougères au saumon, little cheese 'balls' with smoked salmon, they were delicious! A perfect opportunity to try some more with my new 50mm lens, playing with wide open aperture! thanks for looking

New lens

I received my new lens yesterday, a 50mm f/1.8 (Nikon) which I awaited impatiently! I tried some pictures right away... and it actually is not very easy! It doesn't have autofocus, so basically I suddenly have to be a "real" photographer!! Today I show you my first two portraits (out of 10 pictures, but the others were completely out of focus), these two are far from perfect, but the best ones. PLEASE give me your honest opinion and if possible some advice :-) Thanks!

lens: 50mm f/1.8

aperture: 2 (-ish)

shutterspeed auto

flash!

Little Musician

This is my son playing the piano - consider yourself lucky that pictures don't include sound!! :-)

Thanks for looking!

Just cute

I saw this in a garden nearby and thought it was really cute. So this is my POTD for today!

January 17

My contribution for today! I am kind of hoping this can count for "Texture", as I try to do

the challenge but this is a hard one! What do you think? Just a staircase, in the same village I showed in my post from yesterday (go take a look at where I live, if you haven't had a chance yesterday! post below) I love all the stone! Thank you for all your comments yesterday, I do realise I'm lucky to live here (although there are of course also desadvantages!) I hope to show you a lot more of my beautiful area!

January 16 - our neighbour village

Ooooh, I missed a day! :-( I hope to make up for that today by posting several photos, I took the kids to our neighbour village for a walk and some pictures and thought I'd show you some, so that you can see what France looks like, or at least, the part of France I live in.

First a little overview of what you see when you're at the entrance of the village. It's an old, stone village, quite cute actually. And a closer look at what I think must be main street, or one of them :-)
Just outside the village I saw this "barrage" in a tiny stream, I'm not really sure how to call this. It might be where the women washed the clothes, once upon a time? (not sure at all!)

Next is just a cute spot in the village, I imagine it looks better in summer, with flowers, but isn't that true for almost anywhere?
And the last picture is one of a tree with red flowerish things in it, I was so happy to see some colour in a tree ;-)

Thanks for looking, I hope you liked the little I show you of my part of the world :-)

January 14 - a photo that makes me happy!

This picture is taken in the bathroom with the flash, because in the bathroom, even with the lights on, there is NO light! I haven't done anything to this picture, besides cropping it a little, simple because I don't know how to do that! ;-) Thanks for looking!

January 13, a tree and a blue sky!

For some reason, I love seeing trees against a blue sky. Don't really know why, just like it :-)

So that's todays picture, the tree was too big to actually fit in the photo, but let's say I'm trying things! Thanks for looking!

January 12 - a walk with my son

The weather was nice this weekend, a little cold but sunny with beautiful blue skies. I went for a walk in our little village with my son. I, of course, took my camera and my four year old told me that I was reaaallly annoying him with my photos! A little later, at home, he told me he wanted to go outside and that I could take as much photos as I wanted, which was bribery to just get me outside so that he could ride his bike! No way, the sun had gone and it was freezing cold.

Just one simple picture of my sun during our walk, to show you my environment in wintertime!

January 11, my scrapcorner!

We moved to a new house almost 3 months ago (that long!?) and I finally took some time to photograph my new scrapcorner, an important part of my home, for me anyway. We share a study, I took over one corner and put all my *stuff* in its place, quite efficiently, in my opinion. For the Ikea fans, they will recognize quite some items in here, I love Ikea! First a view of my deskspace. I have a transparent worktable and on the wall infront of me I put Ikea kitchen accessories to avoid having too much on the table. Then there is the wall that is just right to me when I sit at the table. It holds my favorite cabinet (not Ikea!), my little embellishment drawers (the black ones, Ikea), my albums and on top my magazines. The big white cover is actually covering my sewing machine, not very goodlooking in pictures with the cover on! Right next to it is the door.
Next picture is an overview of the first two, so that it makes sense where everything is with regards to my chair (love my pink *ikea* chair!)
Then a little peek into my drawers, or some of them anyway. I have a drawer for alphabets, one for stamps, one for Cuttlebug, one for the Bind it All etc etc. The smaller drawers are being used to, for some more stamps, my ATC Holder cards and accessories, my flowers...

And last but certainly not least, my paper. This is all I have :-), It is not much in compairison to what we sometimes see on the net but it is enough to last me quite a while!! And yes, there is an unemptied moving box behind it :-) The last one I believe!

Well, this was my contribution for January 11th. Maybe not very interesting for those who don't scrap :-) but it's a part of my life that I really like so it should be on my POTD! Thanks for looking!

January 10, a nice present!

Yesterday I picked up my son from school, and he was all excited because he had a present for mom in his bag. Well, he was actually all excited because he thought the present was for him but when we opened the package he soon realised it was for me and that was OK too! I just love the little present he made for me, a 2009 calendar with his picture, a photo that happens to be too cute! I just love kindergarden teachers that have great ideas!!! the picture of the present is not the best, but will do :-)I am also quite happy with the fact that my kids are FINALLY starting to like apples! And it is so cute to see them eat them:

And finally, what I really like about photography is that while trying to take *the perfect picture* or while just documenting life, you sometimes just catch expressions that are cute, silly, typical or priceless. This one would be labeled "silly". But cute too! ;-)

The good news is that it is Saturday!! After a week at work, I'll finally be able to go out and take picture during daylight hours again! Yep, I'm hooked ;-) Thanks for looking and I loooove comments!!

POTD January 9

This is our game-cabinet, full of things we can do on cold Wednesdays or weekends! And still, I do hear them say "I'm bored, I've got nothing to do". Well, they are children! :-) As far as photography is concerned, I gave "nature" a try. It's a ridiculous picture, but for some reason, I quite like it anyway! As you can see, I am still trying the BOKEH :-)
Thanks for looking!

January 8, Beauty and the Cat

Hello all,

I'm in a hurry this morning, so not much text! Just a couple of pictures of my girl and the cat! Taken with the 70-200 lens, priority aperture.

And no, the cat is not necessarily comfortable in the pictures, except for in the last one ;)

Thanks for looking!

POTD January 7 - Portraits!

Oooooh, I missed a day, and am late posting on this day :-O It's really hard to keep up with POTD every day now that I'm back at work, I don't have any daylight to take picture in because I leave home before sunrise and come back home when night already starts, like most people :) So for today, some more portraits taken in the house in the evening. Pictures taken with my 70-200mm lens, aperture around 5 to get the bokeh.

Alban playing with his new Lego, he loves it! He's making an airplane here, which is finished in the next photo:
His mouth is not dirty, it's actually irritated :-(
And finally a picture of Naomi, who is seriously tired after a day at school, and to be honest, maybe a little fed up with pictures :-O But she's still my beautiful little girl!

I don't work on Wednesdays, so that I can stay with the children who don't have school on Wednesdays, Yay! This means that some serious playing will be done today, as some "serious" photography of course! Thanks for stopping by at my blog!

January 5th

We did nothing special today, the children got dressed at about 3 pm, that says it all :-) A nice, lazy Sunday, typical last-day-of-the-holidays! We did go to a playground for a little while, but were really cold so we didn't stay too long. The weather was gray, not good at all for my pictures, I had a hard time taking any good ones. Besides that, there is NO color in town, or at least I didn't find any, so I had a hard time finding any good subjects for pictures too ;-) But I did manage to get this shot of my son, he was kind of hiding behind his hat (the hiding for the camera is beginning!!!) and I liked that I took the picture just when he was peeking under it to see if I was looking.

There's also this moment that I liked today, the picture is not very good, but the moment WAS. My son (in his pyjama's) and I playing Monopoly (his sister already gave up), I think he's so cute when we're playing Monopoly! And as not all photos need to be masterpieces (yay!), here's a picture of my son in action!Thanks for looking!

January 4

Yesterday morning, their was a beautiful light coming in from the window next to my Christmas tree, falling just on some ornaments that I like a lot. So I decided to take some pictures with this light only, not easy a 7.30 in the morning in winter! I quite like the result! Aperture mode. The first ornament is the one my daughter received for her first christmas, from my parents, the second ornament is from my son's first christmas, the third one is actually without any special meaning for us, let's say it's a cheapy one ;-)

I quite like the lighting on these, please tell me honestly what you think of it, help me improve!

Thanks for all your comments!! They are very much appreciated!

Bad light day! POTD January 3

Hello all! I've been reading Bryan Paterson (Understanding Exposure) these last day, carry it around as a bible actually ;-) and somehow he makes it look easy! But I discovered yesterday that is isn't!!! After the WB problem, I struggled yesterday with... light! I went outside to take my pictures (I prefer outdoor lighting!! or so I though), took my son and my camera to town and started playing tourist! Technically spoken I am a tourist around here, so I might as well act like one too ;-) We had beautiful weather, the temperatures were OK but the sun was totally saying "spring!). So I discovered that too much sun is, well, too much. In the afternoon my son had a little friend over at our house, they played in the garden but I don't have any good photos of it, because they turn either their back at me (often) or the sun is just too much (shadows in the faces). Here are the two better pictures (not perfect!) that I picked for POTD (I'm not gonna show you all my failures!!):

That is my son in the playground, climbing. I cut out the slides itself, ugly colors (you can still see a little yellow!). As you can see, the lighting is not correct (the exposure) but it is one of the best from yesterday...

Next one doesn't show a face, only (dirty) shoes. I wanted to show you some history of my town, these are my sons shoes on the Rosetta stone, a copy obviously (he's standing on the hieroglyphs part), that is on the most famous little square in town. It is terrible to take pictures of because it is a tiny square surrounded on 4 sides by building totally blocking the light!! When I took the photo I didn't actually realise the floor was that dirty :-) Disappointment there too!!

And to show you another one anyway, this is my son running on that same square and I am disappointed with this picture because my son is not at all well exposed and it could have been a really cute photo.
Well what I can I say? Any CC would be welcome! Oh, and don't worry, I'm not giving up on this, I'll get there!!!

**edit: I shot my pictures either in A mode or S mode, no full manual today!**