The past few nights, the moon has been unreal.  In the time I've had my DSLR, I've managed just about every setting except for FULLY MANUAL (focus, setting, etc).  I have been quite frustrated in the education process, to be honest, and gave up for a bit...shooting instead about 80% manual.  But the moonlight begged, completely pleaded, to be caught.  Here's my process...sparing the technical jargon...mainly because I am still unsure what exactly I did.

Here are my subjects..mini calas and one lone dahlia.

The kitchen light is on here so I can actually see my subjects.  In the complete dark, the screen from the camera blinds me (even though there is a sensor that darkens it when I am looking through the view finder)




Here the settings were picking up on the ambient light from the dining room, but still wasn't what I wanted.




Here I was happier with the exposure, but not the focus.




An improvement in both exposure and steady focusing.



This one was a bit too dark


But this...this one was what I was trying to capture...how the moonlight back-lit the glass in such a magical way.



A portrait version.

Goodness me!  Is it really already Friday afternoon?  What a  blur of a week.  As you may have noticed, I've been concentrating most of my bloggular energies over at mine and Kelly's baby, Pretty, Please...trying to get that off the ground and into the already inundated world of design/professional blogs.  There's nothing like hoping, right?! ;)  (Feel free to add us to your following list anytime!)

I've also had the immense pleasure of helping Umber with her show this week in promotion as well as the ever-important task of holding little paintings while she hammers in nails. From my perspective, it looked something like this:

I am quite glad that this month's challenge coincided rather nicely with my trip to visit my sister.  Not only was it her birthday weekend (which is picturesque enough), but we also wanted to capture a few images of her pregnancy.  I set out to take 25 images per diem, and have certainly filled that quota and then some. San Diego is a rather tempting muse (even if it's not Seattle).

A few of my favorite images:

My sister's awesome pooch, Clarence

 Super woman preggo!


sisters...

In a previous post, I mentioned a project for my 31st year of life. Between now and August 1 of 2010, I will embark upon a 12-month challenge. Each month, I will endeavor to perform a specific task, focusing intently upon that one goal for the entire month. These are all things I would like to see implemented into my life, but feel overwhelmed when they all hit me at once. I am hoping that integrating just one thing will be an easier way to make these things habits.

I have determined that these things must be pleasant and that I must look forward to them. Here are some ideas so far:

So there are some ideas. We will see what happens, but for August, today marks the day that I stick RIGOROUSLY and METICULOUSLY to the budget. I do the monies at Chateau Bookling, so it can be easy to make exceptions whenever I feel the desire. Overspending has always been a problem for us, and since my unemployment runs out this month, I am trying to grab a tight reign on our lives. Today marks the day! Wish me luck!

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In other news, the saint and I have been taking some evening walks of late (another great way to not spend money...provided you can forgo an trip to ice cream on the way back). I've had my new baby in tow...man, she sure takes a beautiful picture.