Through the Lens Lesson 2

Moving along through lesson 2...more inanimate objects! I used my 50mm f/1.8 lens for all these pictures.



This was my bouquet from Christine and Cedric's wedding LAST year. It was made with silk flowers. Just shook off some dust and brought it outside.


'

Same bouquet, different location. LOVE that blurry background!



These poor orchids are "jailed"!



Same orchids...you can see their "jail" more clearly.

Through the Lens

I thought it was time I learned a little more about my Canon XSi so I signed up for this class at Debbie Hodge's Get It Scrapped site. I've printed lesson 1 and got started with taking some pictures. All the subjects were at school or at home so I had no human specimens to shoot. I took a toy car and went outside. First lesson was on focal points.

Assignment 1:


Center Focus


Far right focus--if there's a fancy name for it, I have no clue!


Center focus--recomposed left. At least that is what I think it is. I focus on the car with the shutter button halfway down and then moved over to the left.


Center focus--recomposed right.

Extra Credit:


Used one of those foreign buttons on my camera and it didn't explode!! Back button focus.

For all of these pictures, I used a 50mm 1.8 lens on program mode (a new mode for me!!!). Couldn't do assignment 2 as the kidlets were conspicuously absent and the livestock was not moving under the shady tree.

A Black Hole

Sometimes I feel like time disappears into a black hole. It's been almost a month since I've posted to this blog. Busy with end-of-the-school-year stuff. Short recap since the last update:

• Mid-quarter progress reports sent out a mere couple of weeks before report cards were to be distributed. Talk about extra work!
  
• Report cards filled out...waiting for grades from other teachers is the worst! It is was just me posting grades, I would have been done the day after our cut-off date.
  
• Two field trips to finalize and go on. We watched "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" and went bowling. Two different days.
  
• Last day of school craziness. Out of 24 students, only 13 showed up for the last day. Didn't bother me one bit. I still had report cards to finish. I let the kids watch a DVD on the computer, play with random things and just hang out. They played musical chairs WITHOUT music. HOW? Someone hummed some tunes. It was fun to hear and see them be inventive. We did the annual bus wave-off. In the hot sun. I was not amused.
• Finished all my work on the last work day by 10am and I had to stick around till 2pm. Where's the justice there??!?!
  

Spent a couple of days just vegging. Dinners in the crock pot that cooked all day and were so yummy to savor at night. Then...BAM! I got sick. It always happens. ALWAYS. When my body has a chance to relax, for some inane reason, my immune system decides to shut down and I get to spend the next few days breathing through my mouth. It helps NOT ONE bit that people in the neighborhood burn illegally, that my uncle's yard dude decides to do their ENTIRE lawn on one of the hottest days and that people in the class I'm taking wear strong perfume. The upside is, I can't really smell these things with the stuffy nose, but my nasal passages still react. Fun, huh?

And no, you didn't read wrong. I am taking a class. It's a five-day three-credit class that I'm taking for teacher recertification. My certification expires in 2012, but I don't want to wait till the last minute to get those classes done. Plus, it's hard to find a three-credit class for $60. Not a lot of scrapping done lately. Waiting for a shutterfly order...must be swimming its way to me.