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As I said in my original post – I am really loving being back to Project 365.  I have already taken so many more photos of my kids than I would have if I didn’t have this “obligation”.

Today I was playing around with my camera and tried some shots using BW in camera.  I usually convert color photos to BW after processing. 

I took this photo of my oldest girl right before dinner.   I was pretty happy with my SOOC shot (straight out of the camera).  But I added a bit of toning and then tried some texturing using TRA actions.  And now I love the shot! 

 
Funny story about dinner tonight - my oldest was procrastinating during dinner, taking FOREVER to finish her peas.  I left the kitchen and she soon came skipping out declaring “I’m done!!”.  Now, my eldest is a smart one, but I can “usually” still tell when she is trying to pull one over on me. I just could not believe she ate a pile of cold peas THAT fast (they were actually hot when they were initially placed on her plate). 

So I examined her mouth (no pea bits) and then started looking in napkins and on other plates.  Nothing.  All the while, she is insisting the peas were in her stomach.  I just kept looking her in the eyes and repeating my question until finally, I broke her.

She finally dissolved into tears admitting she threw the peas out the back door into the snow!  Believe me, it was damn hard to administer punishment (no Nintendo DS for the day) without even a smirk!

Yes, it is time for another great senior session! This time, I would love to introduce you to Sarah.

Sarah’s perfect session was [almost]  pure luck!  The day before, I had two other sessions scheduled, and we had to cancel both due to incredible cold and never-ending rain. It was looking to be a pretty miserable weekend and I wasn’t sure Sarah’s session would happen the next day.  But luckily, it ended up being a gloriously sunny and absolutely perfect day.

We met at a local college campus. The campus has a beautiful pond and lots of walkways and benches. We spent our afternoon walking through the campus and trying a variety of different backdrops along the way. We were also lucky in that we could still take advantage of some bright fall folliage!!

Sarah was a very sweet girl, and very photogenic, girl. Here are some highlights from our session:

Thank you Sarah so much for a great session! I wish you the best in all you do!!!!

For most people, the “holiday season’ ends on New Years.  But we aren’t most people!   Yesterday we ended our holiday season with our celebration of “Russian Christmas”.

You see,  I am 100% Russian.  And my family are [died hard] Russian Orthodox.  All four of my grandparents were born and raised in the “old country” and emigrated to the US.  I grew up in a world of two languages, although I never did learn a lot of Russian, and I attended a very old rite Russian Orthodox church.  Unfortunately, I only got to know one of my grandparents, my mother’s father.  He was born in Lithuania.  He was a roofer.  He spoke fluent Russian and English.  He had a beard.  And he loved his religion more than almost anything.

The love of our religion was passed down to my mom who married another Russian Orthodox and continued the traditions with me and my sister.  Our church follows the Julian calendar so our Christmas is celebrated on January 7th.  Growing up, the 25th was always Santa Claus Christmas where we got all our gifts.  On Russian Christmas, we celebrated the birth of Christ.  We always got to take the day off school (whoo hoo!!), we dressed up, we visited with family, and we ended the day with a big dinner/party at my mom’s.

We continue these traditions with our own kids.  I didn’t marry a Russian Orthodox, but we are raising our children in the faith.  And I love being able to share the same traditions with own kids.

Yesterday, we traveled up to Erie to visit with my family, attend church, and EAT!  Our dinners always consist of traditional Russian foods like kapusta soup (cabbage soup) and kolbasa (sausage), along with more traditional Christmas dinner fare such as turkey, ham and many deserts.

Our kids absolutely love Russian Christmas as much as Santa Christmas.  Of course,  who wouldn’t love a day spent with cousins, family and food!!!!

And is there anything cuter than 3 little Russian girls ready for church??

Merry Christmas!!!

Yesterday morning I had the amazing opportunity to get newborn photos of the our newest nephew!  Meet “D”!!!!!! 

He was so good, and so sweet (what newborn isn’t?) and I could have photographed him all day long. Most of our session, he was sound asleep. But he had a short time of relaxed wakefulness.

It was a perfect session and I can’t wait to get working on editing all of his amazing photos!!!

About a year and a half ago, I began Project 365 and successfully finished it in June of this year.   For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, you can read more about it on this site:

http://photojojo.com/content/tutorials/project-365-take-a-photo-a-day/.

It is a hard project in that you are often forced to take very lame photos in order to meet your photo of the day requirement.   However, it is also an amazing way to improve your photography, learn how to get more creative and just have a photographic journal of your year.

This year, I decided to try the project again and started on January 1st.  My first photo of the year was lame and consisted of a shot of our backyard.   But since lame photos are par for the course, I am not going to let it get me down. 

Today, day 3, I pulled out my camera while watching my 4 year old climb all over her Daddy.  I love the collage photos I created and definitely think it captures the obvious fact that she is defnitely a Daddy’s little girl.   This set of photos just illustrates how great this project is, I was just relaxing on the couch while this was going on and really didn’t feel like getting up to find my camera – yes lazy butt – but thanks to the project, I did!

I highly recommend this project to everyone and anyone!!! 

Have a great week!

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