Thursday, October 15, 2009

Happy Birthday Abby!

{ Abby is Seven!!!! }

One minute I can hardly believe Abby is turning 7, and the next I can't believe she is only seven—she is so grown up. Right now she is enjoying first grade, reading chapter books like a champ, making arts and crafts in every spare moment, and is looking very toothless (and about to loose the second of her two front teeth!)

We had a birthday party for both girls at Jungle Jims. I had a hard time narrowing down the photos, but you'll see they had LOTS of fun with their cousins and friends.




























Thanks for coming, everyone!

4 comments:

Alison said...

Wow! Beautiful cakes and FUN pictures! I love the look of your pictures. How do you do it?

Joellyn said...

Hi Alison! You always get great photos too. You definitely have an artistic eye.

I bought a digital SLR about a year ago (Canon Rebel) and have slowly been learning how to use it. One thing I do is set my ISO pretty high for indoor shooting (400 or 800. Beyond that the photos are too grainy on my camera). Then I shoot in aperture priority mode (which is usually AV on your camera dial) so I can set the f-stop to a low number. That makes your backgrounds nice and soft, but also means you have to focus really carefully-something I need to work on. I also bought a lens that lets me open up to an even wider f-stop (1.4) Having a wide aperture and a high ISO means you can shoot indoors without a flash, and you definitely get more pleasing photos that way. However, some lighting is just too low for that, so my next purchase is going to be a nice flash. And after that... maybe an upgraded camera... it's a cycle that never ends :) The more I learn, the more I want.

Oh, and one more thing, Photoshop is my friend. I often will lighten/brighten a photo that wasn't quite right out of the camera.

Pioneer Woman has some great tutorials on her blog. Hope that helps! :) Have fun.

Alison said...

Awesome! Thanks for the info. I'll have to store it a way for when I get a upgraded camera someday! Photoshop is great. Wish I could spend more time with it! Great Pictures!!!

Kelli said...

THOSE CAKES WERE BEAUTIFUL!!!!!! Nice job!! Thanks for getting my kids to and from the party, they would have been so sad to have missed it. They love Sara and Abbie!