Home Love

85mm, f/1.4, ISO 1600, 1/2500

Today, I wanted to share a few photos from a recent trip back home along with my camera settings. I love this dangling rosemary that my Mom planted on her patio along with the aged pot. This was shot right at dusk about 30 minutes before sun set.

85mm, f/2.5, ISO 640, 1/400

This is a photograph of my little sister – some might say younger sister, but since she is both younger and little, I prefer little sister. Most of my editing involves simple use of the curve tool and the burn tool.

85mm, f/1.8, ISO 1600, 1/250085mm, f/1.8, ISO 1600, 1/1600

Even though I shoot 99% manual, I usually don’t spend too much time thinking about my camera settings when I am taking a photograph. I select my desire aperture and then roll my ISO and shutter speed until my in camera meter is on target, which is usually exposed for a half stop over because I love bright pictures. When I put my camera down, I usually start shooting with whatever settings I had last – TERRIBLE habit that I need to get better at!

One thing that I realized when putting in my .exif data into this post is that I am often using a very high ISO which requires me to use a fast shutter speed. In a perfect world, I like to keep my ISO as low as possible, for better clarity.

Anyway, just a few photos that I wanted to share because I love visiting home to re-charge the batteries and these just remind me of the time spent at such a loving place. Plus, I had to give my Mom’s new milk bottles a little love because they are pretty much the neatest thing around!

xoxo

Engaged | Thai & Kristina| Placerville

Sorry for the lack of posts, but we have been in Costa Rica for the past 10 days and if you have ever been there you know computers are the last thing on your mind!! We are still working on getting the pictures from our trip together, but here is a set I took over the Thanksgiving weekend. I was able to shoot this engagement session along with my Dad, the man behind Kevin George Photography.

Thai & Kristina met in high school and have been dating ever since. After several years of dating, Ty finally proposed with a beautiful ring and Kristina said yes. Ty & Kristina bared the cold mountain air and kept the laughs up all the way until we ran out of light!

Thanks to Kevin George Photography for letting me come along and to Thai & Kristina for braving the weather! Congratulations guys!!

This tree was trickier to climb than it looks but these guys had no problem hoisting each other up and making it happen!

This is one of my favorite pictures of the day!

Celebrating with Family

We celebrated Thanksgiving with Ryan’s family in Manhattan Beach on Thursday and then drove to Placerville on Friday  morning to celebrate with my family.

Here is a picture I snapped out of the car window somewhere on I-5 between Los Banos and Coalinga.

Each year I look forward to setting the table with my Mom’s china and her crystal. I am in amazement that she picked out her china pattern when she was just 19 years old and yet somehow, 30 years later her china is almost a perfect painting of their new home in the gold foothills filled with fences, horses, and rolling hills. My Mom made another fantastic Thanksgiving feast filled with some family favorites: twice-baked potatoes, pumpkin pie, cheesecake, stuffing, and cornbread!

In high school, I worked at the local coffee shop Bella Bru. As a former two time, Bella Bru employee-of-the-month (no joke!), we always try to make a stop in just for old time sake.

Here is another picture, out of the car window, taken on I-5 somewhere near Kettleman City on the drive home. The clouds were looming in the distance all day and they made for spectacular lighting!

Ryan took this picture right before we got on the Grapevine. We heard reports of snow on the Grapevine, so we were happy that the clouds held off until we got through.

It was a short trip and there is never enough time to fill the empty spot in my heart that yearns for family and old friends, but even just the short time there helps keep me held over until Christmas!

Picture of the Morning

Greenstone becomes Greens-snow

This morning we woke up to these text pictures sent from my Mom in Placerville,  California.

Hopefully, they are curled up on a couch next to the warm fireplace with some hot cocoa. Way to extend the weekend into a 3-dayer!

28/365 Sisters + spare time – TV

Girls like to play dress up and apparently this is not something they grow out of.  That coupled with the fact that sisters egg each other on, resulted in this:

28/365 - Totally normal for these sisters

Click here to see more pictures on flickr.com

25/365 – Leafless Oaks

Being newlyweds and having families in cities 430 miles apart creates a bit of a dilemma come holidays.  Obviously, we both want to share the holidays with our families and share comfortable traditions in our home cities but whichever place we decide, one of us is away from family.  In the spirit of Thanksgiving, we reminded ourselves that we are fortunate to have two places to celebrate, and doubly so, because each family understands if we end up elsewhere.

This Thanksgiving we woke up early and drove up to Placerville to visit the Zavoda’s.  We enjoyed great company and an outright feast that included a bbq’d and deep fried turkey, ham and no joke six desserts!

Did I mention that Thanksgiving is the best holiday of the year?

After dinner we took a walk from the Zavoda house and a enjoyed a cold country sunset which included some great leafless oaks.

25/365 - Leafless Oaks