Favorite Photo Friday

I'm taking a photography class.  This week's subject/homework was "portraits."  FINALLY... something I like to photograph.    I've spent the last 7 weeks photographing "stuff", which is extremely difficult and uninteresting to me.  These photos have to be "untouched" or "straight out of the camera" so I couldn't do any editing to them, which is very difficult for me because I want colors to pop, edges to blur, etc.  But still, these are my fav photos of the week because they are of my fav people.

This is my neighbor's son.  Don't you love those soulful eyes?  That furrowed brow?  He looks so serious, which belies his goofy, daredevil nature.  I also really love the freckles, which you don't notice so much when you look at him in person. 

If you notice nothing else about this photo, please note how dirty his knees are.  That says it all.

And on the same day, my daughter was clean and looking for the tiny little purple flowers that are coming up in our clover.  This photo is just screaming to be monochrome, but I can't touch it until after class! :(

My precious!

This is the brother of the boy in the first photo.  Isn't he just the yummiest?  Oooh!  And he squeals with this high-pitched delighted squeal that drives his mama insane, but secretly I think it's cute!:)  The focus is way off in this photo.  I zeroed in on his hands instead of his nose and my aperture was too large to capture everything crisply.  See, I KNOW what I'm doing wrong, I just can't seem to correct it. 

I love this photo of Liam.  I think I love it because it so captures who he is.  One of our portrait assignments was to capture the essence of the person we were photographing in one shot.  I had planned to get a photo of my friend Melanie with her daughter, Hope, because I think above all else, Melanie is a defender of children the world would discard and Hope embodies that.  But this photo, which I was just goofing around with, "accidentally" captured the essence of my son.  He looks like this a great portion of the day.  Notice how you can't tell if he is smiling or growling.  Yep, that's him!  Plus, that little cleft in his chin is not at all obvious when you look at him.  I love it! 

This was a shot I took yesterday trying to work on my indoor lighting.  But I love the composition because Connor is so intently focused on his Lego ship, which is pretty much life around our house.

Does anyone else have trouble if they put their photos on "xtra large" in blogger?  Mine get cut off on the right.  Is that because of the format I am using on my blog?  

Sorry, I told you way more than you wanted to know about what was in my brain while looking through the lens, but photography class has been pretty introspective for me! :)

TGIF!

1 Corinthians 10:10

"And do not grumble, as some of them did-and were killed by the destroying angel."