Happy Fourth of July! I figured if I didn’t get these posted now it might be next month… okay maybe not but anyway, happy 4th everyone!!
274/365 – Look what I found today on my way out to saddle up horses… I’ve never found a 4 leaf clover before… Must mean horses are good luck!
275/365 – My partner in crime! Maybe even call her my Mini Me… but she looks nothing like me…
My baby is already a year and a week old. Holy cow! So it’s time to suck it up and do the rest of her birthday and quit dragging my feet at admitting she’s a toddler. <sigh>. So we planned baby girl’s family birthday on her birthday at my parents house. Hubby’s grill was already over there and hey I didn’t have to clean my house while I felt horrible. I have caught something and it won’t let loose… a cold, the flu, something. Yuck!
Baby girl loves hamburgers and since it is her birthday we chose to make her favorite foods. She also likes Ruffles Cheddar and Sour Cream Chips so my father in law brought those. My grandma made her baked beans. I requested potato salad because she doesn’t care for that. My MIL made her birthday Cheesecake, strawberry and cherry. And we were set. Mom bought some cute/fun table clothes for $.97 and bam, the table was set. Again #pinterestfail but oh well
It’s that time of year… How on earth did we get to the 4th of July? The thing that the fourth of July brings besides celebrations of our Nations heritage and food, parties and get togethers, is fireworks. Who doesn’t like fireworks? I guess there are those out there… but I’m not one of them. I love them.
So the next thing to think about is how do you capture them on film? If you’re ever around me or you’ve been on my blog for a while, you know that I take pictures of EVERYTHING and I mean everything. Although every once in a while I miss a shot and have a #bloggerfail but usually I take pictures of Everything.
A couple years ago I went to every fourth party I could to learn how to take pictures of fireworks and today I want to pass along some of the tips and tricks I learned along the way.
Normally people would tell you that you have to have a dSLR to be able to take photos like these. And while I’m not going to lie, it is helpful, I didn’t take all those photos above with my dSLR… Nope, I took one of them with a point and shoot. Can you guess which one?
So my first recommendation would be to get a tripod. If not a tripod, make sure you have a very solid foundation for your camera to sit on to avoid camera shake.
Maybe I should have stated my first recommendation would be to have a camera… or maybe that is just a given. Okay moving on…
So you can definitely check out this post that helps clarify aperture and shutter speed… I’ll wait while you refresh yourself…
Okay now for the settings for a dSLR to take great photos of fireworks.
ISO: 100. Now normally that would be what you set it at for a bright and sunny day… and you might be thinking, but wait, what… these will be at night. Oh but that’s the way to do it. First off at night you’ll get a lot of noise, especially by bumping up your ISO. To avoid that and with fireworks being extremely bright against the night sky you don’t need a high ISO.
Okay, I finally sucked it up, and decided it was time to admit that we had Abug’s first birthday party. Excuse me while I pick myself up off the floor because my baby is 1. Okay… so… we had her first birthday party. Originally we were going to have a family party on her birthday and then a party the next day at a friends house for all her friends.
In a change of events, we had her friends birthday party at the lake. Hey that’s one of the great things about summer birthdays!
Sadly I was sick for most of this birthday. Ugh! So I didn’t help much in food prep other than doing her birthday cake. So while everyone else was preparing dinner, Tbug and I took Abug down to the water for a little photo shoot in her 1 year old birthday dress.
These two have the most unique bond and I absolutely LOVE it. I was always worried, especially after a conversation Tbug and I had when her dad and I were first married, but these two absolutely LOVE each other.