Sun Flares

So I got myself a new toy...the mother of all camera lenses for portrait photography. I have been playing with it for the last week and even used it for my two latest photo sessions. Be prepared for lots of blog posts of the girls as I continue to play with this awesome new piece of equipment.

I am an old school photographer. I learned exposure back in the day of 35 mm SLR film and I learned very quickly that if I didn't expose correctly, I was wasting a ton of money on film. Not so good. I went digital years ago and love the freedom of playing to my heart's content and deleting what doesn't work. Most of this afternoon's pictures got DELETED as I attempted to take some nice outdoor pictures of a very busy almost 3 year old and an even busier 14 month old!!!!

As I am growing my photo business, I am scouring the web for composition ideas but at the same time, sticking with good solid exposure and not buying into "Fad Photography." One major fad is sun flares. Back in my old school days, fun flares were avoided at all costs. We didn't like them and they messed up a good picture. Seems that sun flares are becoming very popular these days. I still don't like them when they ruin a nice picture, but I tried to master the technique today while the girls and I were outside playing under our favorite secret hide out tree... our beautiful weeping willow tree. Here is my first attempt. Pretty cool if I do say so myself. Lots of cool colors in the flares. But two minutes later, I took a picture of Sawyer that was ruined by a sun flare. Guess there are times when sun flares look good and times when they don't look so good.

Sun flare right near her head....ugh! Good thing the picture wasn't that great to begin with.
Sydy fell in love with this beautiful weeping willow tree when I introduced it to her a couple of days ago. They are my absolute favorite tree, so I am not surprised that she loves the tree also. We have been playing under it for the last few days. She told me "get under, Mommy" while she lifted the weeping branches up. These trees really do make you feel like you are under a tent. Ours isn't even that big yet, but I love to sit under it with the girls. I see lots of picnic lunches under this tree once the warm weather decides to stay.

She likes to grab hold of low branches and spin around while holding them. That posed a little problem today. My silly girl got her hair all tangled in a weeping branch. Ouch. Took me a while to untangle the mess!