San Francisco East Bay Child Photographer | Still here

It’s been so long since I’ve done a blog post, I’ve almost forgotten how.  It was a weird summer with my mom being re-diagnosed with brain cancer.  Life doesn’t seem right when she is ill.  If you are reading this, please feel free to take a moment to send good thoughts and healing prayers my mom’s direction.  I really would appreciate it.

This is just going to be a hodge podge of images I’ve taken in the past several months.  I just felt like sharing, and I hope you enjoy.  Comments are always appreciated!  Thanks for looking.

I was playing with doing macro but without a macro lens.  These macro shots were all taken with my 50mm lens, taken off the body of my camera, and then just flipped and held to my camera.  Hard to do, but I like a challenge.

San Francisco Bay Area Child Photographer | Pigtails, M&M’s, and Love

She’s a quiet little girl.  Checking out her world from the safety of mama’s proximity.

A quick bite of food slipped to her as she roams her world.Mama knows how to make her relax.  And laughMama loves her little girl.

A lot.

Life is bright with Mama around.

Life is great with Daddy around too.

She knows she is loved.

And with that knowledge, she is ready to explore.  Wearing pigtails for the very first time.M&M’s and tea time.  Such a perfect combination.

San Francisco Bay Area Child Photographer

Until we meet again, my sweet little L.  Save some M&M’s for me.  If you like my work, you can follow me on FACEBOOK.

San Francisco Bay Area Child Photographer | This mama got studio lights

I am blessed. Very very very very blessed. I have a wonderful family, wonderful children, a loving husband, and a passion for photography that brings me a lot of joy. And I just got even more blessed by being the recipient of an incredibly generous gift.

My mom’s friend recently saw a blog post about my mom. If you missed it, you can read it HERE. Well, he liked what he saw and thought I had a good eye and ability to capture true emotion.  SUCH a compliment and something I definitely strive for in my images.  Well, this guy liked it so much, he decided to give me his studio lights that he no longer uses.  He gave me 3 alien bees (those are lights), 3 light stands, a case to carry all the lights, a backdrop stand, triggers, lots of backdrops, and a new belief in the kindness and generosity of mankind.  I was floored, honored, and a bit scared that I wouldn’t be able to do anything very special with these lights.

I have been a natural light girl.  Only.  I didn’t even own a flash until very recently and still need to tackle how to use that thing.  What was a natural light photographer going to do with studio lights?

Well, I certainly didn’t want to disappoint the guy by not putting the lights to work, so I got started.

And here we have it.  My first image.  And can you believe it?  It’s my OPUS.

Bwahahahhaaaaaaaaa!!!!  Get it?  My Opus?  Teeeee heeeeee heeeee…..  There’s problems with this picture, for sure.  The first one being that my shutter speed was too high and I didn’t even expose the bottom half of the image, hence the loss of Opus’ feet.  But, I still love it.  Cuz it’s my first picture.

And then, later in that session, I got this of my husband.  My hunkahunka husband.  :)

This was gonna be fun.

Next try, I got close to what I wanted, but not exactly.  Note to self: black stool on black background makes child float.

So, I tried again.  BINGO!

And, so the journey has begun.  I still have a lot to learn, but I am determined to make my friend’s mom proud.

I am determined to not waste the gift.

None of us should waste the gift.  Whatever that gift may be.

And if I can not waste the gift at the same time that I have some fun, then hey, I’m doing something right.