Mama Got a Rockin' New Camera...

and a pimp a$$ lens. OOPS!

I've always been kinda picture obsessed. I took about 1,000 photos of Belle per week when she was a baby. Ahhh, the 35mm days... And I still do take a TON of pictures of her, especially when it's warm outside.

I've had some pretty great point and shoot Canons since going el digitalo, including my muy bueno G9. My latest maternity leave took the incessant (annoying) photo taking to a new level since we had a pretty decent SLR camera and some lenses just sitting around rotting. It's more Kurt's camera than mine, since he has always used it on our vacations while I was in holy matrimony to my lil' Canon G9. I have no idea how many thousands of photos I took with that G9...I still love it!

ANYHOW, so I bought myself a bueno bday prize in the form of a rockin' camera (bday was Tuesday but I couldn't wait so I bought it on Monday). Then I decided I needed a pimpin' lens to go along with it. Again, oops. Oh well, what can I say...I'm getting old. Every other year I have bought myself a handbag for my bday. If I only had approximately $8,500+ more dollars to burn, I could buy the other three lenses I need (a.k.a. 'want reallllllllllly bad') and call it a day. Now you know why I will ALWAYS work!

So that's what I've been doing...trying to figure out how to use the freakin' camera. Hanging w/ le bebe and taking pics, pics and more pics...capturing the joy and whatnot. Taking lots and deleting lots. I cannot FREAKING WAIT for it to get nice out. Every summer I have taken tons of pics of Belle. I will post some blasts from the past here soon. And no girls, don't worry, I don't mean from The Stickma.n's, Halftime or Iowa City days...I mean of Belle when she was younger. lol. I think we all know the baby blog is no place for those kind of pics. haha.

This summer should be pretty fun since I'll have a baby that will be sitting up *sighs* *smiles* *hugs baby* and (DOESN'T COMPLAIN LIKE HIS SISTER) combined with the bueno backgrounds of our current digs. I also counseled Belle yesterday on the importance of me taking her pictures and her not complaining or being a B. :) She likes looking at pics when she was younger so HELLO, DRAMA QUEEN, obviously next year you'll like looking back to this years. Women! Ugh!

In a very short time I've learned two important things: PHOTOGRAPHY IS EFFING EXPENSIVE and THERE IS A LOT TO LEARN (including a lot more math than I imagined). I bought myself about 800 photography books, too. I can't believe how hard it is.

So here are some pics from the last week. These are all shot in manual mode (aka not "auto"). I didn't even realize before last week that there were other "modes" than auto. lol. My goal this week is to teach myself to shoot in RAW mode and/or how to use the external flash OR how to use Lightroom 2.6. We'll see how that goes. But here are the pics -

Ahhh, my baby boy!! He's soooooooooooooooooo sweet!!

And, finally, here he is showing his wild side:

The last picture was really funny because he's actually wearing a shirt with a guitar embroidered on it. I thought he was kind of showing me a "rock on" sign *lol* but I wasn't quick enough to get the vertical shot that would show the guitar!

As a side note, Belle wanted the short haircut and told our main man Brian to give her bangs. I was apprehensive. I'm still not a huge fan but they do look pretty good in pics. She looks so old! Argh!!

Mucho love to y'all...

I gotta get back to my lil guy here :) :) :)

Love,

Ann

PS - Those park pics and the last pic (rockin' guitar baby) are taken with the prior camera/lens combo. I am dying to get back the park with the new goodies. Too bad there is an inch of snow on the ground and I'm still not sure how to take pics in snow.