iPhone photography

I've been really busy lately with my photography side business.  I'm madly trying to save for a new camera body.  But, at the same time I'm realizing that gear doesn't really matter.  Photography catches a quick glimpse of something and can tell a story, so what if that story is a bit imperfect.

Most of the pictures I have of my son have been taken on my iphone.  I don't always have time to run back to the computer room, grab my camera, switch out my lenses and attempt to capture something I want to remember.  I might be lying in bed watching Wall-E with him and have my phone on the nightstand and I want to capture something.  Or, eating dinner he is making a crazy face.  So, yeah, the pictures might be grainy and imperfect, but I am still happy to have them.

I'm going to be looking into good apps and exploring more on iphone photography and sharing it here over the next few weeks.  

But here are two imperfect pictures I took using an iphone that I am nonetheless glad I have.  They have been edited, but only on free iphone software, nothing else.

And, since it's my own child, these images are still beautiful to me.  I'm excited to explore some more iphoneography soon!

-Meghan

More iheartfaces

I am getting really addicted to iheartfaces.com

This week is "Pink Week" for breast cancer month.

I hate the stupid memes on facebook about cryptic things that sound sexual but are for "awareness."  Seriously?  That is ridiculous.

But, photos of cute kids in pink?  I'm all about it!

Here's my entry this week!

Relatedly, did I mention that the Down Syndrome network is awesome?  I did?  I'm going to do it again!  I have another photo shoot with a family who has twins where one has Ds in a few weeks.  Totally fun.

-Meghan

Colors of Autumn

So, I decided to go outside and capture three shots:

One looking up (couldn't help but want to do a long exposure and spin around with this one!):

One looking down:

And one looking out:

I think I got a lot of colors of the season.  Another fun thing to share later this week is that our playhouse is getting close to being done for the season and H loves it.  Totally adores it.  He plays in it all the time and really likes the old school plastic kitchen I picked up at Goodwill.

-Meghan

I heart faces-Orchard

It's orchard week at i heart faces.

I love going to our local orchard, and to be honest I wish less people went there because it used to be so peaceful and then everyone realized it's so fun!  Which I guess is good, but I like the solitude.  I need to find a time to go when it isn't so crowded so I can get pictures of my own little boy at the orchard.

Here is a photo of one of the little guys I have been able to take photos of through my new photography business!

-meghan

I heart faces (and supporting kids with Down syndrome)

This post is definitely to get the word out about two things.

The most important is that Champaign Down Syndrome Network has their big fundraiser coming up soon!
The Buddy Walk is on October 9, and you can win all sorts of prizes including a photo session with me.  Because that would be awesome.

Another reason for this post is to enter this week's i heart faces contest. The theme this week is "smirk."  And this little cowboy has a phenomenal smirk.  I'm sorry, but I wanted to hang out with him for quite a while tonight during a photo session.

-Meghan

Eating the Alphabet

I am doing a project this month trying to find, shape, and take pictures of foods that begin with every letter of the alphabet.

I have chosen a food for each letter, but using some kind of artificial sweetener for X is going to be a bit of a cheat.

Here are a few of my favorites so far:

Quinoa

Potatoes

Lettuce

I hope to finish it up in the next two weeks and then edit them all and put them together in poster form.  

Meanwhile, I will take any letter suggestions that anyone has!

-Meghan

90 Minute Shirts

 I know that we teased you with this a while back, but we finally got our act together and put together a full post about it. 

I wanted to try the 90 minute shirt tutorial from Dana on Made.  I do not have any kids, so I made one for my niece and one for Meghan's son.  My sister donated some old shirts that she had laying around.  She picked the fish pattern for Mary's shirt.  For Henry I picked the gray and yellow combo, but it seemed a little bit too plain.  A few weeks before I made the shirts I had gone shopping with Meghan.  We saw some cute letter shirts at American Apparel, but they were pretty expensive for children's shirts.  Henry has been really into letters lately, so I thought that H would be the perfect thing to make the shirt a little bit more exciting.

When the shirts were done we all got together for a nice picnic in the park.  Thanks to Meghan for taking some amazing pictures of the day! 

(This ice chest was really weird.  Just sitting in the middle of the field full of ice.  We think there might have been a wedding there the night before.)

(We were close enough to O'Hare International Airport to see big planes flying by.)

Here are my tips for anyone who wants to try the 90 minute shirts.

1.  I do not have a serger.  Dana has instructions for making them without a serger.  As I was sewing on the collars, cuffs, and H's they were looking very uneven and bunchy.  I thought for sure that this tutorial just did not work very well without a serger.  Then I ironed the shirts.  All the bunches and unevenness came right out!  So my tip is to not get discouraged.  Try ironing the shirt and see how it looks.  Chances are it will look much better after a simple ironing.

2.  I found that Mary's shirt, which was about a 24 month size came out with better proportions than Henry's.  Henry's shirt was about a 3T.  The body of his shirt came out fine, but the neck was a little bit too large and loose.  I figured out that the key to a well fitting neck is the ratio of the size of the sleeve hole compared to how high the shoulder/neck pieces come (check the pattern on made and hopefully you will know what I mean).  I used the same 24 month onesie as a pattern for both shirts.  I made Mary's a little bit shorter and thinner, and Henry's a little bit longer and wider.  Mary's shirt had narrower sleeves and therefore sleeve holes.  This caused the shoulder parts to wrap farther around the sleeve on Mary's shirt.  This holds the neck in place.  Henry's shirt on the other hand had a larger arm hole, so the shoulder wrapped around less.  Therefore, his shirt does not hold as tightly at the neck.

Happy sewing!

- Laura

Vacation

Laura was right, the beginning of the school year always makes me shut down with anything else other than the new year.

I love labor day weekend though, it's kind of like a last chance to spend time pretending it's summer before the real schoolwork begins.  We started work again 3 weeks ago, but here I am finally back and with pictures from my vacation.

We went to Brown County, Indiana and stayed at a little cabin in the woods with family.  It's a big horse area, but honestly, the mules were the best.  I thought they were just ugly horses, but apparently they are those horse-donkey mixes.

I love flat lands, but it's nice to spend some time in the hills and at a lake.

-Meghan

Silhouettes in the sun

Before the heat of summer is totally gone and the light starts to disappear way too early, I wanted to capture some of the playfulness we have had this summer.

Last night we created fun silhouettes using some stuff around the house and the evening sun.

It's really simple to do yourself.  I used a vintage sheet I picked up at goodwill for $2, a few garden stakes and a few binder clips.  The ground was too firm to sink the stakes into, so we propped them up using a picnic table at my favorite park.

Make sure to position the people on the same side as the sun and the camera on the other side of the sheet so that you are shooting right into the light. We played around with where the sun hit the sheet to use it as a "prop" in these pictures.

My two year old didn't entirely get the idea of making shadows, so we encouraged him to show us some of his favorite signs.  The one above is "bug" which looks kind of like a cute nose-pick.

I think that using a few different sheets or changing exposures could really be fun with this idea.  We didn't have tons of time because this was already way past bedtime.

I would love to see if anyone else has done things like this!

-Meghan

Happy Monday

We've been busy!  From the White Sox game (a horrible loss, but cute ball players) to a picnic in the fields, Laura and I have had a crazy weekend.

We will be posting more about these adorable outfits this week.  Stay tuned for the details!  (Hint: one has 'h-es-es')

-Meghan

Not quite a failure!

Reading Laura's failure post made me smile.

While we wait for the sun to come up so she can take some pictures, let me disclose the giraffe-mushroom-yard-thing I posted about on Monday.

It's a cucumber!  I planted an heirloom cucumber, and forgot to write down what kind it was.  They were yellow-green when I left town and brown when I came home.  I thought some kind of disease hit.  But really, they were incredible!

Also, just to pimp myself out/show that I can in fact finish projects, I finished an alphabet poster for my son yesterday.  He has become obsessed with letters and letter sounds, so I worked on making him a fun poster.

He loves it.  And because it's fun for him, I put it over here too.

-Meghan

While you wait, go outside

While dinner is cooking, go outside.

If it's raining, open the door and splash.

Bubbles are on sale now, buy them.  Make them.  Use a piece of string and a straw to make a big bubble blower.

But enjoy it.  July goes by much too quickly.

-Meghan

Sensory Market

I finally put my finger on why I love the market.  It isn't just the food, though that is pretty incredible.  It's the sensory stimulation.  We went a few hours later today (10am) and it was packed and they had sold out of some of our favorite things.  So I decided to let Henry wander and touch things and I would look for patterns and colors and light.

Looking behind the booths and down on the ground and up at the canopies was actually a lot of fun.

If you are getting a bit burnt out waiting for the tomatoes to come in, I really suggest trying to see and smell and touch everything else you have been seeing for the past few weeks.

-Meghan