Weekly Header Challenge -- Recent Photos

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Fishing Guy 

Kathy 

Imac 

Lew

I'm joining in the group above for this weekly challenge.

Click on the other participants' blogs to see

what they've come up with!

Theme ~ Recent Photos

Chosen by all of us.

This week is a "bye" week, meaning that in the absence of fellow Headbanger Craver, we decided on the theme of Recent Photos.  We're guaranteed to get a wide variety of images this week, I think!

My header image was taken about ten days ago; my garden harvest has slowed down significantly even since then.

The rest of my images today have all been taken in the past week.  Here we go!

Yes, this is our car.  Yes, it is a BMW.  We purchased her in April, but since I wanted to blog about how we came to be her owner, I took these recent pictures.  If you want to read about how this classy lady came to be ours given our incredible journey these past few years, visit this post on our personal family blog.

Back to my garden harvest, my friend Becki taught me how to preserve veggies by fermenting them in Fido (pronounced fee-doh) jars; I took that newly acquired knowledge and have been "going to town" experimenting with my garden veggies!

We attended a wedding last week!  I took only a few pictures--I mostly wanted to get some pictures of Fernando and me since we were dressed up--but here are two that I took of the bride and groom.

Sending them off with birdseed!

My final images are the most recent, taken for a client just a few days ago.  I was hired to do photography for a high school football team's home games, and this was the first game of the season.  I'm sharing three images from that day; be thankful it's only three--the client gallery has 300+!!

My Danny is in the middle--the trio sang the National Anthem!

One action shot, in the rain--we're the team in the blue.

I'll be off to visit you shortly; please leave a comment for me!!

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Weekly Header Challenge - Celebration

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Craver VII 

Fishing Guy 

Katney 

Imac 

Lew
Tom W 

I'm joining in the group above for this weekly challenge.

Click on the other participants' blogs to see

what they've come up with!

Theme ~ Celebration

Chosen by Tom FG.

Perfect theme; thanks, Tom!!  We've been celebrating lots of things lately, but this one is the biggest:  Our son Jacob graduated from college!  That's him in the header, which was taken right as the graduates walked to their seats and were still standing.  My 70-300mm lens was focused on Jacob, and I was ready to snap away when he looked over and up at us.  It ended up being a perfect shot!

Rather than lots of words, and since I love to tell a story with my images, here's our weekend of celebration.

Friday - The Honors Convocation

Jacob received two medallions--one for completing Honors College requirements,

and one for graduating Magna Cum Laude.

Saturday - The Graduation

Driving from our hotel to the WIU campus; greeted by purple and gold banners!

Jacob spent the night in his old dorm with some buddies.

Taken by Fernando--Jacob gave me several names of friends to take pics of!

The full image of my header.

Moving the tassel--that's Jacob's friend Corey's triumphant face!

Hug from his proud dad.

Sunday - The Celebration

Just a couple of images from our afternoon/evening party!

A celebration must-have--I made two cakes!

Brothers and friends (and a photobomb!) celebrate together.

Can't wait to visit your blogs and celebrate with you!


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Weekly Header Challenge ~ Almost Perfect

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Craver VII 

Fishing Guy 

Katney 

Imac 

Lew 

I'm joining in the group above for this weekly challenge.

Click on the other participants' blogs to see

what they've come up with!

Theme ~ Almost Perfect

It was my turn to pick the theme, and I took a chance this time.  Almost Perfect means an image that is beautiful, that I love, that captures a special moment--but there's something about it that's not quite right.  This isn't the easiest theme to find images for, either, since most of my "Fail!" images get deleted.  But since I do have quite a few (doesn't everyone?), I managed to find some samples for you.  ;)

I was able to edit some of the images, which you'll see below.  Others I ended up keeping just because of the moment--that one you'll never get back again, and it's the only image you have.

We'll start with my header image, which I preface with this one so you get the context.  Walking through the Jardin des Tuileries (The Tulip Garden) in Paris, we stopped at a fountain for a break and to enjoy the view.  All these pigeons--and a few gulls--were flocking, so I snapped a few images.  In the below, I caught a jogger breaking up the flock.  I took these shots in burst mode, so you can see the birds just beginning to fly, then flying right at me.  I ended up loving the shots, and kept them.

The full image of my header.

The most recent images I have were taken just a few weeks ago at a wedding in Texas (one weekend of 70-degree weather, woohoo!!).  I shot the rehearsal, and captured a candid of the bride.  Of course, after I downloaded the images, I noticed the lovely plastic bag right there.  Stephanie loved the image, though, and wanted me to keep it.  I do love her candid expression, smiling with her friends as she prepares for her wedding day.

At the actual wedding, Stephanie and David had unity sand instead of a unity candle.  I had never heard of this, but they actually bought the kit at Bed, Bath & Beyond.  Wow.  It was pretty neat--each took turns pouring his/her colored sand into the glass bottle until it was full.  The blue and white was beautiful!  I was sitting in the second row to capture everything at the altar; but the bride had her sister's friend snapping candids.  And this friend was positioned behind the altar.  She ended up being in almost every shot I took.  I do have several shots of the unity sand, and managed to crop her out of most (I couldn't zoom since I had my 50mm fixed lens on).

Lightroom is not the best at editing out things you don't want in your image, but little by little I managed to do it.  Fifteen painstaking minutes later, I had a beautiful image of a beautiful moment.  Whew!

One of my first epic fails as a photographer was during a shoot for a fife and drum group.  Lightroom could handle turning these images into somewhat faded, dreamy prints, but I didn't know if it could handle the fisherman walking through my shot:

I couldn't believe I had done the above!  I was about to set up the shot, when this guy came up to the trail so we let him pass by.  I spent the next several seconds setting up the shot and positioning myself, and I was so excited about it I didn't notice that the guy was still in the shot.  Duh.

I loved the image so much I ended up working on it until the fisherman had disappeared.  The client ended up loving the image and ordering prints!  It was only after the prints were delivered that I told them about my "duh" moment.  :)

On to my son's and his friend's graduation!  No bleacher seats meant we had to try to look through the sea of mortarboards to find Jacob and Bryan.  Here's one I managed to get of Bryan; the fuzzy stuff on the left and right are people's heads.

Bryan knew where we were sitting, and I caught him looking back once.  That's better!

Oh, and then I caught my son.  Snap!  Right.  Just love his expression, and the non-focus of the camera.  I kept it anyway, since it was a moment that would never happen again.

I set up this selfie of Fernando and me in a local park (Lions Park on Briarcliff), because on a scouting trip for a family photo session I had found this park and loved the almost heart-shaped tree with the brook behind it.  The photo was set up with a tripod and timer.  There are homes back there, and I hoped to not get much in the image.  You can see the fence, though.  Grr.

Trees and brush are pretty easy to edit out, and I managed to do a decent job.  Here's the "fixed" image:

One last series, back in Paris!  In the Tuilerie Garden, we spotted the Eiffel Tower.  The below is the setting, nicely framed with some trees:

I knew I'd have to get closer to eliminate random tourists, but see that statue in the above image?  Yeah, naked woman statue.  I really didn't want that in my image either.  So, I had Fernando stand strategically in front of the statue, and positioned the camera on a concrete ledge so that I could see the Eiffel Tower just beyond us in the distance.  Timer set, I ran into the image, et voilà!  No statue.  But waaaaait a minute.  There's my camera backpack!  I recall trying to edit it out, and I think I finally gave up and determined to enjoy the image.  It was Paris, after all!

Hope you enjoyed looking at my "Almost Perfect's" in photography!


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Team Celebration | Naperville, IL Event Photographer

I unofficially became the team photographer for Alpha Omega Math Club.  :)

Because of that, I got to take pictures of the awards ceremony held after the ICTM State Competition. The students had a great year, and really enjoyed the friendships, math, competitions, and celebrations.  Enjoy these images of awards and celebration! 

Regina, the leader of Alpha Omega.

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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