julialainephotography

Sundays...

The difference between 1st and 2nd grade

OK, so check out the sweet innocence of the 1st grader, can you tell which one she is?

Then find the two 2nd graders who are going to be the B.M.O.C. next year as big 3rd graders (Elementary school ends at 3rd grade around these parts) - can you say attitude with a capital
A T T I T U D E ?!  LOL

This was not taken by me, it was by one of the dads on our team, and you may recognize these three amigo's as the musketeers who made up part of the little people team this spring.  Getting to play together on the same team brought these three really close, plus they see each other a few times a week at practices and games of their big sisters.  Anyway, I just got this photo in my email box today and the expressions completely cracked me up because you can so completely see each girls personality come shining through.

On another note entirely, this photo started out like this, but yesterday I finally bought the Totally Rad Actions with a $20 off coupon I got and man are they worth every penny (and they're not expensive to begin with).  I used the "prettyiser", "oh snap", and "ez burn".  I can't wait to play with the rest - their are 46 actions in all!  If you go to the site, they've got sample shots up and you can see what each action will do.

As always, these are clickable for a larger view.

Lightroom

I took my own advice and downloaded one of the free "try before you buy" Adobe products - in this case it was Lightroom.  I remember a couple of years ago when Adobe first introduced Lightroom;  it is marketed specifically to photographers.  Where Photoshop is really a graphics program, Lightroom was built around the photographer workflow and processing needs.  The beta was free so I loaded it on to my computer and since there were no tutorials and at that time it wasn't quite user friendly (for someone with no photoshop background); eventually I deleted it and never thought twice about it.  But lately I've been hearing glowing reviews and everyone is talking about it, specially now that Lightroom 2.0 has recently been launched.  So, I took their free 30-day trial and have been playing with it a bit.  One of the reviews I read talks about the Lightroom Presets, and I've got to admit - they're pretty fun... and EASY!  You just load your photos, click a preset (or several), then play with the sliders (exposure, recovery, lights, darks, etc)  that can customize it to your preference and whala! (is that how you spell that?) Lightroom does all the work for you. 

As much as I have been enjoying it, I'm not going to rush out and pay $220 for the privilege of making life easier right now, but I would recommend to all to download and have some fun with it, I can definitely see the appeal. 

Here are a couple that I used the "Aged Photo" preset on:

Little People Soccer

M's team is comprised of 9 little girls, all in 1st and 2nd grades.  But three of them have known each other at least 1/4 of their young lives.  These three are in the "Little Sisters Club", which is comprised of the younger sisters (and brothers) of the girls that play on L's competitive soccer team.   All of the little's play some kind of sport, most of them soccer, and since they've been hanging out at soccer fields most of their lives, they're really quite good too.  Their coach is A's (the tall one) dad, and he made sure they all ended up together this season, which I think was very sweet.  They really have a good time playing together.  I think each of them have played for two years already, this is M's third season, and you can easily see how much fun she has!

{click for much better large versions)

Yes... the one that's talking is mine.

Easter Egg Hunt - Part 2

In addition to adorable 15 month old little boys, there was also an Easter Egg Hunt at our Easter Egg Hunt Party...

Easter Egg Hunt - Part 1

Our neighbors hosted their annual Easter Egg Hunt and cookout last night, and I'm glad they live just across the street from us because I wasn't going to even take my camera until THIS little guy showed up!  I just looooove babies!  His mom said it was OK if I took a few (200 pictures later...) photos.  :-)

2007

It was not at all easy to go through these and pick out 11 (December's not over yet) favorites from the year... mainly because they're on 3 different computers right now!  I must get organized.  :-)  But the other reason is that it's hard to separate what may technically be a good photo when it's up against a photo that has more emotional meaning to me, and let me tell you the emotions finished first almost every time.  So others may not agree with these, but they're my favorites... for one reason or another.

January - My youngest received a karaoke machine for Christmas (yes, I'm a glutton for punishment).  She was all in pink, with her new pink robe in her pink room with her pink microphone and singing her heart out... who could resist.

February -  She'd gotten mad at me, I can't remember about what, but she'd gone outside to be alone.  I hate it when they're mad at me, so I went out to try and tease her out of her funk, but this was the look I got.  I swear this child went right from "cute", bypassed "pretty" all together, and moved straight on to "beautiful" in the space of a minute.  By the way, I had her laughing soon after this - lucky for me, she's as ticklish as they come.

March - A true example of how "emotional photos" mean more than those that are more technically perfect.  This was our new 12 week old puppy's first day home.  My dad and I had driven 13 HOURS the day before to go pick her up, and while I questioned during parts of that trip if I really could have found a miniture schnauzer we liked closer to home, one look on my girls faces and the pure sweetness that oozed from this puppy made me realize that she'd found the right home indeed.

Okay - reality check, it wasn't all "sweetness".  Her first week home she actually ended up spending the night with her grandparents, because she CRIED all night - and someone around here had to go to work in the morning!

April - SOCCER!  You should be surprised there is only one soccer picture in this bunch, because percentage wise about 70% of the photos I take during the year are at my daughters soccer games.  This is a favorite though - she'd just scored a goal in the last game of a tournament that her team won, and at the end of the game, each teams coach awarded a player on the opposing team a "Player of the Game" patch.  Yep - she got it!

May - It was now time for First Communion, but I think this one was more excited than her big sister.  She is ALWAYS up for a new adventure, and she lives life with the same amount of enthusiasm that you see in this photo.

June  - Belly Button (yes, that's really his name) is the neighbors cat but spends a LOT of time at our house, and had decided to wait out the hot summer on my new park bench in the shade of our front yard.  He and the bench made for a very pretty picture.  By the way, Belly Button and our puppy are in love.  They're very sweet together when D stops being a puppy for a second and let's BB snooze - evidence seen here and here.

July - I am here to tell you that unfortunately bullies are alive and well in the 4th grade.  This is one of my daughters best friends, she has a bit of a high maintenance personality, but when it comes right down to it, she is a really sweet kid - and pretty too.  Well this year has not been good to her, she's very smart and has been the subject of a popular bullies attention.  Her mom is beside herself, and it just breaks my heart to see what some of these kids have to go through in school.

August - (Okay, is this like a marathon post or what?!)  This photo just proves that dogs DO smile!  Of course, with a life like hers, what's not to be happy about?

September - Her first lost tooth - I seriously could not get over the tongue sticking through; I think this is one of my favorite all time photos of her.  We were hanging out on the deck of my parents lake house because as much as this little one adores her puppy - she's still not too fond of other dogs and there was one visiting my parents yard at that time so she refused to go down by the lake, but instead enjoyed the view from her comfy chair up top.

October - It turned cold all of  a sudden and this one immediately latched on to the fact that she could now finally have hot chocolate again!  She will bypass candy bars, cookies, and all other form of sweets, but give her hot chocolate and she's your friend for life.  Speaking of friends, someone I've known for years lives in Alaska and told me she didn't realize there was a "season" for hot chocolate, which made me crack up - because in Alabama there is definitely a season for this drink, the temp has to at least be below 65!

 

November - As mentioned before, we went to Arkansas to visit my brother and his family for Thanksgiving.  I love this photo of him up on a mountain for a lot of reasons.  First, he's a photographer too (we're a house divided - he uses Nikon, I use Canon), and is rarely in front of the camera, so I got a lot of shots of him doing his thing.   But, he's also "Nature Boy" and has found his dream job working as a manager for the Arkansas state park system, so I think this photo with the camera around his neck, the blue sky behind him and the giant rock he's standing on - actually says a lot about who he is. (admittedly, this photo is much better seen LARGE)

Sigh... that's the first recap of this year.  There will be another post to show a composite of the year in pictures, but these are my favorites from each month.  I hope you enjoyed walking down memory lane as much as I have.  :-)

The Year in Pictures

My personal favorites from each month along with a composite of the year in our lives... coming soon!

So what's with the hair on teenage boys these days?

LOVE this kid!  He's the second oldest in the cousin clan and at almost 18, I do believe he can make the girls swoon - if not with his obvious good looks, then certainly with his ever present sense of humor - and I believe that comes through on these photos just as much as those blue eyes do.

Throw your arms in the air!

This little guy is getting the most out of life and is not shy to show how he feels about it.  He's one of the happiest little men I know and I was pretty excited to be able to capture some of that joy.  C, I hope you always feel this way...

I'm just now proofing photos after the long weekend, so they'll be plenty more on C later.

Happy Baby!

Little A was no problem at all, she came with a big smile on her face and kept it almost the whole time.... specially if she had a leaf to hold, and lucky for us there were plenty of those around!  Thanks T and S for carting her everywhere and putting your little girl on moss covered  paths and piles of leaves.  Here's just a sneak peak...