a tribute.....*update at bottom*

i always look forward to setting up and trimming the Christmas tree every year around thanksgiving. of course, this year was especially exciting because the boys helped. believe it or not we only had a few casualties(the good ornaments were on the top half of the tree!) although by the first of the year i am read to have all the Christmas decorations put away, but i am always sad to put up the ornaments and the tree. so here is one last tribute to our fading memory of the 2008 tree.....


*i had several e-mails and a comment asking how i took this image. thanks to a girl, Bobbi, over at 2peas, i was able to get this image quite easily!

-put lens on manual focus
-ISO around 800
-all lights off except Christmas tree lights
-settings, f/2.8, 1/30th
first i messed around with the focus until the lights were as 'blurred' as i wanted. then i metered the light and took the picture. i know i had a very slow shutter speed, but believe it or not, i hand held my camera for this shot!
my post processing was very simple, i did not do any contrast or color adjustments. i only added a texture(with a border), set on a very low opacity.

lessons....

this being the first year that K really knew what was going on, we really went all out to make Christmas morning magical. oh, boy did we learn some good lessons!

1. never, under any circumstances, will i by dollar spot wrapping paper, EVER AGAIN.
2. buy batteries BEFORE Christmas morning,DUH???(yes, we where the idiots at walgreens on thursday morning buying a gazillion dollars worth of batteries)
3. manufactures packaging, well....SUCKS.
4. one child will only like what the other child is opening at the moment, and fighting will ensue.
5. 'indestructible' toys will break.
6. the gifts you think they will love the most, won't be.
7. relax, nothing will work out like you had in your mind, it will be better:)

we had such a great day! Santa left behind a huge mess, foot prints all over the house and crumbs from the cookies everywhere. he stuffed the stockings and left great gifts for the kids. i made lunch for my parents, then visited with Scott's family. it was a tad overwhelming for the kids and they got grumpy by nights end, but all in all it was amazing! i hope everyone's Christmas was the same. Now, for new years........

top five(or so) of '08.....

the photoboard community i participate in, 2peas, has a year end tradition of picking your favorite 5 pictures of the year. there is now way i could narrow it down to 5, so you are going to get 7, and even this is not all i wanted to include!







these are just a few personal ones i thought i would throw in....

a name.....

okay, so i am getting everything in order to have a real business. i am trying to get a website built and paperwork done to make this photography thing official. but, i am missing one important piece of the puzzle..... A NAME!

so, if anyone has anything good, let me know! if i use the name you come up with, and you live in my area, i will give you your choice of a free photo session or a $15.00 Starbucks gift card. if you live out of the area, you will get the Starbucks gift card.

my full name is Jennifer Anne Marcus. i was thinking of using J. Marcus photography, but i am not sure. i am not opposed to using my name in anyway, but thought i would try and find something different/unique.

hopefully someone can come up with something good!!!!

the 'T' boys.....

this was definitely a learning experience, trying to get 3 very active boys to be in the same vicinity of each other and the camera at the same time, whoo! they are so sweet and very photogenic! the boy in blue DID.NOT. want his picture taken at first, but by the time we finished he was begging me for one more shot and giving me some good poses! can't wait to shoot them again, maybe with mom and dad next!

gettin' the christmas spirit.....

last week i was suffering from the major humbug's. I was trying really hard to get in the spirit for the sake of the boys, so i had a few things planned. we had already trimmed the tree and put up lights outside, and that helped, but i needed more interactive things to do with K & T. about the middle last week we came home and got dinner cooked right away, ate and got started building a ginger bread choo choo. the perfect thing for K! the poor boy could not eat the icing fast enough. T was a little jealous, but he got to spend time With daddy while me and K built the train. it took all of 5 minutes for K to lose interest and just want to eat the candy, that was okay, i still had fun. when we finished with that we bundled the kids up to go drive around looking at lights. we walked out to the best snow storm Houston has seen in a long time!!!! it was a completely magical night! we where able to get a few snow balls, T loved eating the snow and K got to catch snowflakes on his tongue! they liked it, but i think i was more excited than anyone, that helped so much to see the snow and it be the first time the kids got to experience it!

early '09 resolution.....

tonight i had to finally put my foot down and made a decision. we are a family that no longer eats fast food. i hate it. it is disgusting, unhealthy, expensive, overrated, and a sorry excuse for food that is suppose to fuel our bodies, not make it fat and unhealthy, right?
now, i know this is not logical, but on the way to the grocery store tonight, we stopped to grab something convenient at sonic. first of all i was taken aback when i realized how greasy little T's grilled cheese was, but i feed it to him anyway, because i did get him a string cheese instead of french fries, which cancels out the grease....right?
Then i was about half way through my burger, when i got the same weird headache i always get when i eat fried or greasy food, i thought i was going to vomit if i took another bite, so i through it away and announced to the people in the car that this would be the last trip this carwould be making to fast food. no more, i just can stomach the thought of eating another fast food burger or taco again.
before i had K, i always thought to myself that i was not going to feed my kids this way. so unhealthily, in the car, and in a rush. S and i have had a long love affair with the drive through and you can tell by the sizes of clothes that hang in our closet. i do not want our kids to take after us, so we stop now.
i actually enjoy cooking, its the grocery shopping that gets me in trouble(well and the cleaning up afterwards, but that is whole different subject). i need to get on a schedule, get my hind end to the grocery store regularly and cook for my family. now, i just have to find some good recipes.........anyone got some they want to share?
Stef, you better pick it up a little on your food blog.





on a side note, i really don't like to post without pictures, but i have so many i am overwhelmed and so is my poor, poor computer. over the Christmas holidays i plan on cleaning up, organizing and backing up all my files so my system runs a little faster. until then i may only be posting old stuff.

the 'B' family.....

this was the first time shoot complete stranges. cynthia saw the pictures i took for kim and the kids, and liked them enough to contact me. i was so nervous, as always, but it went so good! i had a blast with them, and can you even believe how beautiful they are? she was born to be in front of the camera!!!!

HOLY COW.....

it's freaking snowing outside....in HOUSTON ,TX!!!! i am not kidding, yesterday at this exact same time i was outside in Capri's and a short sleeve shirt, such is the weather in Texas!!!!

it was sleeting a few minutes ago and now it really is snowing. the ground is not cold enough for it to stick, but hey, i will take what i can get!!!

sorry, no pictures*gasp*, but i am at work....shhhhh!

up in smoke.....

A few weeks ago, what seemed to be the opportunity of a lifetime came my way. The owner of the Houston Oaks Country club and golf course saw the engagement and wedding pictures I took of Mellissa and Roger Bonanno at the country club. They were interested in using my pictures for advertisement and then asked if I was interested in being the photographer for their all inclusive wedding package.

You can only imagine how flattered I was to hear they liked my work that much! I thought LONG and HARD about that kind of commitment with the boys being so young and decided to decline the offer of being the only photographer for this package. However, we did talk about setting up an appointment after the first of the year to talk about me being on a list of preferred photographers that they recommend if a bride asks and to talk about them using my images of M&R for their advertisement.

I got a very unfortunate phone call last night telling me that the facility burned down over this weekend(http://www.houstonoaks.com/golf/proto/houstonoaks/documents/firememo.pdf) luckily no one was injured in the fire, I am very saddened for the owners, employees of HOCC and the future wedding parties that were scheduled. I am also bummed about the loss of the possibility of photographing weddings at that location. Hopefully when they get rebuilt, up and running my opportunity will not be lost. Until then, I will keep trudging along, learning and getting better, so when another opportunity comes my way, I will be even more experienced!

the promised update and some snapshots.....

wow- i can't believe we have been so busy, but haven't really done much, KWIM? just a little of what has been going on. we had a wonderful, relaxing thanksgiving at my parents house with my sister and her family. the kids really got into and enjoyed the new tradition of decoration nonnie and pops Christmas tree after thanksgiving dinner. we started doing it 2 years ago, but they have been to young still to really get it. my dad also bought a nice Lionel train that runs around the tree, k thinks that is the best thing in the world, next to his.

T FINALLY decided to walk last week, i still can't believe it took so long. he is already a champ and thinks he can run! He is also getting mean or i guess i should say, defensive. he is the smallest, but is not going to let ANYONE walk over him, i have to say i am proud of him! T and K already fight, i have had to start breaking them up. for as small as T is, he DOES NOT give into k!

I have been keeping busy with photography. I am enjoying it so much and learning more than i thought i could. i am getting the stuff rolling on becoming legal and getting a website. it is scary, but i love it so much, it just feels right. i know i am going to have to grow some thick skin, i always worry SO much that my clients are not going to like my work, it drives me crazy. i guess because it doesn't matter how much i improve, i can ALWAYS go back and find something i could have done different, i know we are our own worst critic!

s is keeping busy, getting more and more work for his business. hopefully it will pay off this year!

he is certainly enjoying this hunting season, he harvested a nice whitetail and a Sika buck. It is just to bad that hunting season is right in the middle of the best part of the year and he is gone for so many weekends. although i don't mind that he hunts, it is just hard to plan fun holiday things around all the hunting weekends.

here are a few snapshots from recently.....

Yes, the first picture is T in the toilet, he was sitting all the way down, but by the time i could get my camera, he stood up.

the others are at the Dewberry farm, it was cold and windy, but the kids had a blast. i relinquished my photographic duties that day and let s take all the pictures with the P&S, it was nice!

an update....soon

sorry it has been awhile, an update is coming soon! hope anyone is still reading!

gorgeous.....

i had the pleasure of shooting a long time friend of S's and his gorgous family on their property. just look at those eyes, they are amazing!!!






i can tell such an improvement each and every time i go on a shoot, with my confidence and technically. i got practically perfect SOOC exposure on these, i was so happy because i need almost NO post-processing! now i need to work on getting creative and thinking outside the box with posing, any suggestions?

an apology.....

i know this won't mean as much as the actually thank you card that i owe so many, but i will write this regardless.
i think writing thank you cards(and teaching my children to write them) are very important, especially in this day and age of technological disconnect, but i have failed miserable. My MIL so graciously through T his first birthday party back in August(ages ago, as far as i am concerned) and i have not sent out one single thank you card. i have written about half of them, but now i am embarrassed to send them out because it has taken so long.
i know it is such an inconvenience to take out the time to shop for a gift and then spend part of a hard earned weekend at a child's birthday, and i appreciate it so much that my family and friends do that for us.
so to all those that read this and i owe you a thank you....... thank you.

choo, choo.....

Debra, my mil, brought the boys to garden ridge the other day to pick out an ornament for the Christmas tree. well, we were only there for 5 minutes when the Santa express train caught K's eye, needless to say that is what he got, and he lets EVERYONE know about it! we have already had to get it out several time so he can play with it, he is going to drive me crazy with the thing until i give in a put up the Christmas tree way early.

i took these pictures very late the night he got it, so with it very dark outside and inside, the light was a challenge. i decided though, as i was processing them, not to change them. i could have lightened them, changed the color cast, cropped and sharpened, but these are sooc, i figured they where not that bad and a true representation of him playing with it the first time.

beautiful family.....

i had the pleasure of shooting this beautiful family last weekend, can you get any more precious? We took these pictures in front of a local neighborhood, Rock Creek.
probably my fave....





now i know i am not the first, nor will i be the last to take an image like this, but it is one of my favorites and i find myself going there all the time! it just works so well.

red, please.....

i loved kool-aid when i was growing up and i loved cherry. to be more specific i loved black cherry flavored kool-aid. i have never made K kool-aid before, but i had some in the pantry, so when he was begging for juice today, kool-aid saved the day. cherry flavored non-the-less!! he loved helping me spoon a whole cup full of sugar in that tiny pitcher that would be filled up with water and more colored sugar, just what a little boy that refuses to take a nap needs, right? so, today, i got to see my little man with his first red stained, kool-aid mustache!

full moon.....

after much research i was able to go out and get a decent picture of the latest full moon. i would much prefer a picture of a half moon or smaller, but when i saw this big, beautiful thing hanging there in the sky, i had to give it a try. hopefully the next time there is a tiny sliver of moon, the sky will be nice.

*ETA* i was asked to explain how i took this shot....here goes!
i had my camera mounted on a tripod,it is hard for me to hand hold when this lens is zoomed all the way.
i had my zoom lens set to infinity(300mm for this lens).
ISO @ 100 & 200
Aperture @ 5.6
tested the shutter speed between 1/125 and 1/500. i think this picture is ss 1/500.(i will go back and check later)

i think it is a common mis-conception that you need a long shutter speed to get a picture of the moon because it is dark out. but remember the sun is reflecting off of it and it really is brighter than you think. if you use a long shutter speed it will just be a big ball of white, trust me it happened last time i tried, hence the research! good luck, i hope to see some of yours soon.

don't fence me in.....

my boys don't like to be couped up in the house for more that an hour, ever. so i am sure you can imagine how the last two yucky days have been. they beg and scream at the door to go outside and play, really if you were my neighbor, you would think i was torturing them.
my mom finally opened up the blinds on Monday afternoon so t could at least see daylight. he had more fun playing in that dirty, nasty windowsill. i guess as long as they can see that outside is still there and hasn't gone anywhere, they are fine! when i saw t's eyes pop up behind the couch i couldn't resist getting this shot, bad or not! excuse the wonky colors and dirty windows.....

true love.....

i am not sure i will ever have it in me to bill myself as a wedding photographer, but this day was A LOT of fun! thanks M & R for this opportunity.

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