focal length: 24 mm
shutter speed: 1/80
aperture: f/2.8
ISO: 640
flash: none

I mentioned in a previous post about photo-journaling as a way to document our lives and especially the lives of our precious little ones. As they say, “a picture is worth 1000 words”. Keeping that in mind may help us to be more conscious of the image we are creating. Photos aren’t just a split second frozen in time. They tell a story.

focal length: 27 mm
shutter speed: 1/80
aperture: f/2.8
ISO: 640
flash: none

What story do you have to share today?

Laura is a Vancouver portrait photographer. Visit Dolce Life Photography.

focal length: 42 mm
shutter speed: 1/2
aperture: f/2.8
ISO: 200
flash: none

Our tree is up and brightly lit so I thought I’d try a bit of light painting to capture the tree in a different way. Light painting is pretty easy to do but to master the technique will probably take some time. Basically all you need is a dark room and a camera that is capable of long exposures. For the photo above, I set the shutter speed to half a second, aimed at the tree, clicked and moved the camera in a tight circular motion. I think next time, I’ll keep the living room lamps off and use a smaller aperture to let in even less ambient light. This image is untouched for SOOC Saturday.

Have you tried light painting? Care to share your artwork?

UPDATE:
I just tried it again with all the lamps off and a smaller aperture. It took me about 20 tries to get a pattern I liked. Hearts!

focal length: 24 mm
shutter speed: 1/2
aperture: f/7.1
ISO: 200
flash: none
SOOC image

Laura is a Vancouver portrait photographer. Visit Dolce Life Photography.

focal length: 300 mm
shutter speed: 1/60
aperture: f/5.6
ISO: 250
flash: none

Two weeks ago, our street was taken over by a gang of crows. They have permanently ruined our lawn, which wasn’t so pretty to start with, but now it has to be totally redone. But as much as I loathe these creatures at the moment, instead of shooting them with something not-so-nice, I thought I’d shoot them with my camera instead. I tried to focus on the negative space with the composition here. I also warmed up and desaturated the birds a bit to soften their harsh blackness.

Happy thanksgiving to our friends down south and anyone else celebrating all the good that we have!

Laura is a Vancouver portrait photographer. Visit Dolce Life Photography.

focal length: 55 mm
shutter speed: 1/125
aperture: f/2.8
ISO: 640
flash: none

We finally got around to decorating our tree that had been standing bare for the last couple of days. Our little one is at that stage where she has to “help” out with everything so I handed her very first ornament to hang and ran to grab my camera. I love documenting these types of “firsts” in photos or video. Since I’m too lazy to keep a journal of all the little things she does, I take photos, which have a time and date stamp on them (in the EXIF). Handy!

Can we call it photo-journaling? I don’t even know how to spell that.

p.s. Don’t you just love her work? Nicely spaced out… as far up as she could reach.

Laura is a Vancouver portrait photographer. Visit Dolce Life Photography.

focal length: 105 mm
shutter speed: 1/640
aperture: f/2.8
ISO: 200
flash: none

We’re on week 21 of What’s Your Play. Amazing how time flies! Here’s another one for you to take and make your own. Click the image above to download the file and have a go at it.

Remember to link to your version by leaving a comment below. You are welcome to add any specifics about what you did in your processing (software used, adjusted values, cropping etc) to help us learn. Click here to get the complete details for What’s Your Play. Remember, all readers are invited to submit their own photos for manipulation by emailing a high res photo (preferably SOOC) to play [at] dolcepics [dot] com.

The snake and butterfly team from last week:

Laura is a Vancouver portrait photographer. Visit Dolce Life Photography.