Christmas

Christmas!!!!! My big present for Christmas this year was my Canon 580 EX II External Flash. It made me salivate a bit! This flash just rocks my world! My Dad commented when I opened it up that, "We used to get that same expression from you when you opened up Barbie Dolls for Christmas." My tastes have changed dramatically. Although I still love Barbies, but my passion is photography! So the following pictures were taken with my brand new flash. Mind you I have no idea how to work it. I was having some issues with controlling it. It is one POWERFUL flash. I think I got it under control for now, but I will definitely be buying a book on how to operate this thing. It is kind of complicated. So our first stop on Christmas was my sister's house. Here are some pictures from there.



My nephew Craig.



My niece Kaylie hamming it up for me as usual. I don't even have to prompt her. She just goes into this montage of the grossest/weirdest/face contorting poses.







And this one tops all of her poses this year. Drum roll please........................



I asked my niece Courtney to smile for this picture and this is what I got.



Here are some pictures at Don's Aunt Shadie's house.



Here is why we don't have children yet. Our poor kids wouldn't get to play with their toys because Don would steal them!!!



Christmas at Don's Mom's house.

Christmas Eve

This year my parents and my brother Joe came to San Diego for Christmas. It seriously made my whole year to have them here. We usually spend Christmas in San Diego and this year since we didn't go to Arizona for Thanksgiving, I was bummed I would not see my family. So to have them come out here was just the best present they could have given me. I know it was a sacrifice for my brother and I was so grateful he came too. My brother Joe and I have about a 9 year difference between us and as I have gotten older, we have become closer. I get so excited to see or hang out with him. He is just a lot of fun. Same with my sister Marza, we have about 10 years between us and since I have gotten older we have become very close. I consider her to be one of my best friends. I feel so lucky to have her here in San Diego close to me.

So for Christmas Eve, my parents and brother went with Don and I to my Father in law's house in Ramona. Of course the drive up Wild Cat Canyon Road made us all sick. Well, my Mom, Joe and I got sick. That road has too many curves for my liking. But we all had a great time with my husband's family. They are wonderful people and I am so glad they offered to have my family come up. Here are a few pictures from that night.

Here are my parents, Joe and Don.



My brother in law Jon.



Some of Don's familia



Me trying to warm up by the fire place. It was frickin' cold!



Grandma Horn



Don's cousin Brandie and her daughter Kylie.



And here is my father in law with his two boys.

Don & Amy - 12/20/2008

Here is another photo shoot I did for a family member. This one is for Don's Dad and his Step Mom Amy. We went to Ramona in a little rural area near my father in law's house. It was so pretty there. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from that photo shoot.

Christmas Party - December 5th, 2008

Ever since I have been with my company they have done a huge Christmas party every year. We all look forward to them and just thoroughly enjoy them. I joke that it is kind of like an adult prom for us. I was fortunate this year to already have a dress for it. I used my bridesmaid dress I bought for my brother's wedding. It was red and formal, perfect for what I wanted! This year the party was held at the Down Town Marriott Hotel. It was pretty much right next to the San Diego Convention Center.

So I brought my camera with me of course. I don't let an opportunity to practice my photography go by. Especially when it is a party setting. Since I photograph weddings I thought I could practice with taking pictures while people danced. Here are a few pictures of that.







Here are some pictures of Don and I. This first one was taken by one of my friend's boyfriend. He is a photographer as well and he was showing me a cool trick to make dramatic lighting with my flash. For those of you who know a thing or to about cameras all he did was put the ISO to 100, the aperture to 10 and the shutter to 250. This all has to be done in manual mode, so if you are not comfortable with that, this may be to advance for ya. Just practice, practice, practice. Than with my external flash he pointed it straight at me (fairly close to me) and took the picture. The lower the aperture, the more dramatic the lighting will be. Try it out! In Lightroom I lightened up the background where Don was, to include him in it too. In your editing program you could play around with that too. So here was the end result. The second one is a really dramatic one. That one was with an aperture of 8 and 250 shutter speed.





Here are some other random pictures...







And than Don getting down with it... or something like that. :o)

Thanksgiving

So Thanksgiving was pretty low key this year. This was our first year staying in San Diego for Thanksgiving since being married. We usually go to Arizona to see my family for Thanksgiving and last year we went to Puerto Penasco in Mexico (which I highly recommend.) So it was a bit strange staying in San Diego this year. All in all it was great. Here are a few pictures from when we went to Don's Aunt's house.

The Horn Brothers - 11/22/2008

So yes I realize these pictures don't go in chronological order, but I mainly just forgot to post them up in November, and I guess I could use the excuse that Jon was giving these pictures out to family members for Christmas. So basically I didn't want to ruin the surprise. Ya, I will go with that!

Jon (my brother in law) contacted me about doing a photo shoot of him so he could give pictures out to family members for Christmas. I was a little surprised since Jon doesn't like getting his picture taken. So I decided to include pictures of him and his brothers since he is the hardest one to convince to take pictures. We went to Balboa Park since there is a lot of variety there and it is one of my favorite places in San Diego. It is a great location for pictures! Unfortunately we started the photo shoot too late. The sun was already going down so we were racing against the clock. It was one of my more difficult photo shoots since I prefer natural light. I was still happy with what I did get, but I think if we had started earlier it could have been better. But for now I am happy with it.

Here is a picture of all the boys.



Here are a couple individual shots that I liked from each of the boys. The first one is of Don.





The second one is of Jon.




And last but not least, the youngest brother... Mike. Now I couldn't pick only one favorite picture of Mike. I actually loved both of these pictures, so I am posting both of them up.






This very last picture was taken with all natural light. This is how dark it was at the end of the photo shoot. I propped my self up against a pillar because any movement can blur the picture since I took this picture at a very slow shutter speed. Even than I can still notice a very very slight blur. Next time I should use my tri-pod to ensure there is no blur whatsoever. But I still liked the picture so I kept it.

Day at the Zoo 10-25-08

This past weekend I got to babysit my sister's kids. On Saturday we spent the day at the San Diego Zoo playing. Craig had a camp out trip so he didn’t come with us. It was just me, Kaylie, Courtney and their friend Mackenna. The kids were great. Their friend Mackenna made my day. When we were leaving she said she had so much fun and that her favorite part of the Zoo were all the pictures. I love that kid! Anyone who will let me be a crazy paparazzi (and enjoy it) is ok in my book.

On a side note, I over heard the Zoo keepers on the radio saying the Meerkats were attacking people. At the time I heard that, we had left that area so we didn’t see anything. I don’t know much about Meerkats, but they don’t look that dangerous… Who knows, maybe they had sharp pointy teeth like the bunny in Monty Python. :o) Here are some pictures from our little adventure: