I Have a Thing for Fences, Apparently

Despite battling a cold, Jason and I took a day trip to Chappell Hill (up Hwy. 290 towards Austin) yesterday so he could bike the hills around Washington County and I could test some of the features on my camera. I can take only so many pictures of Radar and the plants in our garden.

The tiny town had a cute little Main Street, but unfortunately many of the storefronts had no-picture policies. They claimed it was for insurance purposes, but who knows. So, I ended up with a lot of pictures of fences. Unless they were particularly protective about their fences, I figured I was okay.

Country fence.

Wrought iron fence.

White picket fence.

I drove up to the Chappell Hill Lavender farm. They had a quaint little gift shop, and they said I could "most certainly" take pictures of the lavender.

Sign from the street.

Rows of lavender.

My last stop was the historic Masonic Cemetery. I figured the deceased wouldn't object to my picture taking. It was actually a very peaceful and serene cemetery. The fence theme carried out here as well.

Old wrought iron fence.

Gate into one of the family plots.


One of the ole Chappell's themselves.

I first took this picture because I thought it was interesting how the stone had broken. When I was later going through my pictures, I realized how sad this was. The grave is of a baby who just reached their 2nd birthday. The engravings read "Oh how can we render so soon to God the precious gift he gave." Sad.

More headstones.

After our stop in Chappell Hill, we headed to Brenham to have lunch with Jason's youngest brother. It was a nice day trip, but I wish I would have felt better. I'm still battling this dang cold. The crazy wind & cold doesn't help today either.

Focus is Hard to Achieve

Oh, the title of this post could relate to so many things, but I'm actually referring to focus in terms of photography. So I've spent a lot, probably too much, time over the past two days reading about aperture, shutter speeds, exposure, focus, composition, etc.

With a fancy camera now, I almost feel like it is cheating if I use the auto settings, so I've spent the last two days exploring the manual functions on my camera, especially in terms of aperture vs. shutter speeds. My lenses typically only achieve a 3.5 on the aperture side of things, and I would love to add a lens that gets down to at least 1.8. (The lower the aperture setting, the more shallow depth of field you can achieve - in layman terms, that means you can more easily blur the backgrounds.)

Also, I'm finding that you have to be ridiculously steady to achieve good focus. Seriously, the minutest movement ruins the whole picture.

It's kinda funny... usually when you shop for digital cameras, you focus on mega pixels and zoom capabilities. With an SLR, it's all about aperture and shutter speeds. And really, it's the lenses that achieve that, not the camera itself. Looks like I'll need to put myself on a lens budget.

So I came across this blog today and I have to say, I love her photography style. So whimsical. I was seriously intrigued for hours reading about her and her husband adventures and admiring her photography. I would love to achieve photos half as good as hers.

Anyhoo, here are a couple shots from today I'm halfway pleased with. All straight out of the camera for now.

This is probably my best shot of the day. I like how the tree lights reflect in the window.

This shot would be more interesting if the ornament wasn't in the middle of the pic.

Radar's cute, but this picture needs brighter exposure.

No, I didn't mean to focus in on "The Act of Marriage," but I'm overall pleased with the exposure and composition of this picture.

Oh goodness, this hobby is going to take a long time to perfect. I guess, in the end, what I really want is to be able to take decent photos to preserve family memories. This journey should be interesting.

New Camera :)

Merry Christmas to me! So I bought myself a new camera for Christmas. I've been toying with the idea for a while, mostly because I've been thinking that I need a hobby. Jason has his soccer, biking, a now darts, and I haven't really had a hobby for awhile. Plus, I need a creative outlet to help balance my stressful work life.

I went with the Canon Rebel T1i with both an 18-55mm lens and a 55-250mm lens. It's one of the nicer entry level DSLR cameras, and I think it will be a good compromise between auto settings and enough manual "creative" functions for me to grow into. I'm looking into local photography courses to get me up to speed with some photography basics.

Here are a few pictures I took this afternoon. These are all straight out of the camera pictures with no editing.

Jason as a Photography Subject

Views from Ferryn & Steve's Backyard

Name that Plant

Let's play name that plant. All of these plants are located in our backyard. How many can you get right?

Thanksgiving 2010

We headed down South to spend Thanksgiving with our family. Like every year, we did two Thanksgiving meals on Thursday. First at my parents' house, then at Jason's.

Our day started pretty early with the girls in the kitchen...

Momma making the gravy.

Melanie helping wash the dishes.

While the boys relaxed in the den...

Jason & Trey.

Justin and Dad.

Once the rest of the family arrived, we headed out to the porch for lunch...

Part of the spread.

Some of the fam.

Some more of the fam.

Jackson family pic.

This will be the last Thanksgiving pic with just the six of us. Next year, there will be a son/ grandson/ nephew in the mix. :)

Then we headed to Jason's for lunch #2 and games...

Jason setting up the game.

Me and Jase.

Kelley and Jared.

Debbie cutting out names for our Christmas drawing.

Jared and Jordan providing entertainment.

Jason "playing" with Michael and Preston.

The boys playing washers.

And football.

And finally, we headed back to my parents' house to watch the Aggie game. Everyone was pretty pooped...

One tired pooch.

Overall, a very nice, relaxing Thanksgiving. Only three more weeks until Christmas. I love this time of year. :)