It's Austin time!

So this weekend, Tyler and I made a quick trip to Austin to see my friend Lisa get married. Before the wedding, we met up with Tyler's family for lunch and then visited with them afterwards at their new "log cabin" they just moved into.  I took a few pictures of their property for Nicole to share with friends, but I also was able to take my first kid pictures of her daughter Ashton.  Lucky for me, Ashton was more than willing to be my model.  One thing to note - I was feeling adventurous so this was my first time to switch off of aperture mode and onto manual mode - SCARY!  I definitely could tell a difference in my pictures when I set the shutter speed and aperture in different ways.  My goal is to continue to shoot on manual mode as much as possible so I can learn more about how to manipulate the light coming into the camera.  Here are a few pics of Ashton:

They also have a great dog with big brown eyes, Bailey:

And they also have a pony as a neighbor! This pony came running across a field just to say hello to us:

What do you think?

-n

It's flower time!

The weather in Dallas this weekend was warm and sunny, so Tyler and I made our way to the Dallas Arboretum on Saturday.  Once we got to that side of town, it appeared that the rest of Dallas had the same idea, so Tyler had the bright idea to park 2 miles away and walk there - ugh.  I threw a little fit and pouted the whole time, but I did get a few pictures on the walk past White Rock Lake on the way there.  There were a gazillion people there, but there were more tulips than I've ever seen in my life in every single color you could imagine.  Here are a few pics from our Saturday.

The fence on the walk to the arboretum

White Rock Lake

Fisherman on the lake



Red tulips

Neat fountain in one of the gardens

So many tulips!

Blue pots

Tree-lined walkway



And one of Max - of course :)



It's class time!

So I've been so busy the past few weekends, that I don't have any new photos to post just yet. However, Tyler has promised me that if the weather is nice this weekend that we can go check out the arboretum so I can get some pictures of the tulips....so stay tuned for this weekend!

In other exciting news, I just signed up for a photography class at Brookhaven Community College here in Dallas!  Class starts in two weeks - Thursdays from 6:30-9:30 (let's hope I can get off work in time!)  I'm really excited to start getting assignments so I can hopefully start building a little portfolio.  Here's the class description:

"Prerequisites: Highly recommended that students have some basic photography knowledge in f-stop, shutter speed and ISO as well as working knowledge of their camera’s manual.

Learn by doing in this workshop with hands-on projects each week. Projects are done in class, with no homework, except some shooting your feet - learning technique.  Improve your images by using the features of your camera.  Your coursework will let you learn the technique/settings, perform tasks with your team partner; and present each week's assignment to your classmates."

Brookhaven has a ton of different photography classes (as do some of the other community colleges in Dallas) and they're pretty inexpensive.  Good thing, because I've got my eye on my first new lens which also happens to be more expensive than my new Marc Jacobs bag!  YIKES!

And in even more exciting news, Tyler and I are going to Charleston, South Carolina at the end of May. There is a "Photography Tour" that I'll be dragging Tyler on, so I'll definitely be taking my camera and am looking forward to getting some great shots while we're there.

Lots to look forward to!

xo, 

n