Star Bokeh on the Fourth

July 5, 2018

Star bokeh. Have you ever seen it before? I adore it, especially at Christmastime and for the Fourth of July. I bet you’re wondering how I achieved it. I’ll tell you because I’m cool like that. 😉 I found this DIY tutorial on it a couple of years ago, and I couldn’t WAIT to try it out. I had seen it done before on Christmas tree lights, but I wondered if it was possible to do for fireworks. It is. And it’s amazing.

For all of you budding (and already-budded) photogs out there, here is the tutorial I found. In this one they used a heart shape. I think you could really do any shape you want. I was lucky enough to find a star-shaped hole puncher at Meijer last year, and it was only one dollar. A dollar well-spent, if you ask me. 😉

Once you’ve made your little black cover, make sure to put your camera in manual focus, not auto. And then make your picture blurry, not in focus. The blurrier your shot is, the bigger the bokeh ends up being. It’s been fun to me to experiment with that part of the bokeh. I find that, overall, I prefer my bokeh to be about in the middle; not too big, and not too small for you to barely even notice it.

If you’re trying to catch something fast like fireworks, make sure that your shutter speed is fast (something at least over 1/250s), but possibly quite a bit faster depending on how much light you have. In the shot with my house, I still had to add in some fill light in post-processing so that you could see the background. It helped too that we did fireworks a little before it was pitch black. Kids. 😉

Let me know if you have any more questions on how to achieve this. I’m an open book! Happy fourth to my fellow Americans! I love our country, and I’m so grateful for the privileges we enjoy. God bless America.

Star shaped bokeh fireworks in front of a house on the fourth of July. Midland, Michigan photographer

Evening on the Beach

July 3, 2018

This past week my family and I went to the beach. Now, we’ve been to many beaches before, but we’ve never been to a beach on Lake Huron before. … Ever. And we’ve lived in Midland for almost four whole years! It took us long enough, right?? Well, the kids are a bit older, and my youngest is no longer a baby (insert crying emoji). So since our lives revolve less around naps and breastfeeding, I’m feeling a little more freedom regarding outings.

We left to go to Bay City around 6:00, and we had the most enjoyable time together. We totally didn’t bring any toys or play things for the kids, but they ended up not needing them. They were content to simply be in the water. At first, my littlest not-baby was super sad. I don’t think he enjoyed feeling the sand between his toes. After all, it’s “irritating, and it gets everywhere”. I hear ya, Anakin! But after a while he warmed right up to it and rather enjoyed throwing wet sand on himself. He also loved watching all of the seagulls fly around.

My older three (who are still little, mind you) had a great time being in the water and splashing around. I was surprised they did as well as they did for how long we ended up staying. I thought for sure they’d get bored after a while. But they could have stayed for even longer than we did if we had had the time.

Once we were ready to head back, we decided to go to the splash park to get the extra sand off. I thought my kids would have a fun time there. And they did! But to the happiness of my nature-loving soul, they greatly preferred the beach over the splash park.

I love the beautiful state of Michigan. I’m so glad I live here, and that I have the opportunity of raising my kids here. Here’s hoping we’ll get back to the beach sometime soon. <3

small child watching a bird flying at the beach | Midland Michigan photographer

Golden Hour at the Chippewa Nature Center | Midland, Michigan

July 2, 2018

It’s no secret that one of my favorite places here in Midland is the Chippewa Nature Center. It is the beauties of nature at its finest, particularly at golden hour. My husband and I love to make Sundays family days, so oftentimes in the afternoon or evenings when the weather is nice, we’ll go for a walk together. Sometimes it’s just around our neighborhood, but more often than not it’s down by the Tridge or at the CNC. We haven’t made it out there much this year so far, so yesterday evening we proposed to take a walk there together. It has been SUCH a hot weekend, but it didn’t seem so bad when we were there in the shade of all those trees. In fact, the weather even seemed pleasant.

One of the reasons why we love going there is because the kids LOVE exploring all the trails, picking all the flowers, and throwing rocks in all the ponds of water. And I love taking pictures of them doing so. 😉 I also adore taking pictures in that gorgeous light at the end of a summer’s evening during golden hour. The way the light is softly filtered at the end of the day seriously makes me swoon.

We started on our normal path, but we accidentally took a wrong turn halfway through, so we ended up walking about twice as long as we intended. We had some tired kiddos by the end of the walk! Haha, a little exercise doesn’t hurt anybody, right? Besides, they had walked so far that evening, that by the time we got home they were good and tired and ready for bed. I’m certainly not going to complain about that. 😉

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Into the Woods

June 25, 2018

The woods and forest at the Chippewa Nature Center make my heart sing. I love being there. I love going on walks with my family there. And of course, I love taking pictures there. 🙂 We can’t forget that now, can we? One of the things love about it is that although we’ve been there so many times, we seem to always discover a new path or trail we’ve not been on before. We’ve even gotten lost there once, and my poor children had to walk much farther than we had intended to get back to the car. Hey, it’s OK! We’re helping them build character!

On this particular day it was warm and humid, but it wasn’t too hot to be uncomfortable. We were traipsing around for at least an hour, probably closer to an hour and a half. My kids LOVE going on the trails in the woods, and they love running up and down the hills and going around corners to discover what new things they can.

This little sweetie is Tumpkins. She’s such a cutie, and I love her vivacious attitude, her hugs and kisses, and her spunk. She’s also pretty crazy! There’s something about taking pictures of my children running away into the distance that tugs at my heart just a bit. It’s like their childhood is fleeting, and this moment is going to fade into the distance. I’m so glad we spend as much time together as we do. Although I’m sure I’ll have regrets later in life, one of them will not be how much time I spent with my family. They get all my free time. They’re what I’ve been given time for.

Mother’s Day Roses

May 20, 2018

Another Mother’s Day has come and gone. And the thing I look forward to the most about it are the flowers I always get. My husband has always been great about getting me flowers for Mother’s Day. I used to love them only for the fact that I love flowers. Especially roses and tulips. But for the past number of years, the biggest reason why I love getting flowers is because it gives me something beautiful to photograph.

Don’t get me wrong! I LOVE taking pictures of my kids! I’m so happy that I have this talent to capture our family life. BUT! Sometimes my children are less than thrilled about me sticking the camera in their faces. They appease me, but then they’re done. Haha. Flowers, on the other hand, don’t have an opinion! I can put them wherever I want, angle them just so, wait an hour and a half if I want, and then, when I come back to them, they’re still right where I left them. Granted, of course, they’re out of reach of little fingers. 😉

My husband knows that I love roses the most, so it usually isn’t a surprise when he comes home with roses on Mother’s Day. The surprise is finding out which color(s) he decided to buy! Yellow was this year’s color. I love the yellow. Happy, sweet, fun. I hope you seeing these almost as much as I enjoyed taking them. <3