behind the social media scene

Source: google.com via Gina on Pinterest

This is so true. I took a step back from FB last year. Be careful not to let social media get you down because you think everyone else has a better life, family, job, kids, husband, house than you. You do not know what is really going on behind those facebook statuses. 

 

Come join me over a pinterest, it is such a happy and lovely place to be! Let me know if you need an invite, I will gladly send one to you!

chicken gyros and no apologies!

I have been absent, and I am NOT SORRY! August till mid November were a complete blur of work. After all my ordering and edting was caught up I needed a break. a break for my eyes, my mind, and my health. It was so nice to actually hang out on the couch once and a while! I have not been around on my GCP page because we are switching hosts and webpages and I am currently unable to load any images :( Hopefully to be live VERY Soon there. 

Everyone has been asking how the healthy eating is going. Well, you know...it was the Holidays. We tried, but it was hard to fight the cookies and appitizers. 

We are gettin gback on track and I am searching all over for new recipes that we all will love. I have become officially obbsessed withlooking at  food photography and think this may be a secret dream job for me :) Already planning a little set up in my kitchen to take some shots. The only bummer is that by time the meal is cooked, the sun has set. The summer will be so much more fun to take the photos. 

So onto a site I found, Handle the Heat . I think what drew me to the site was the photography, of course, and that she tries to make each dish as healthy as possible. Tom and I made the mangolian beef and fell in love. So we recently made the chicken gyros. Tom loves gyros. I never ate one for fear of smelling like Tom does after he eats one. But I figured I would take one for the team and make these. When i looked at the recipe, it has everything I love, lemon, garlic, cucumber, chicken, yogurt...yum! 

I have to admit they were delish, but I just am not a fan of garlic breath like that. Tom on the other hand 100% approves. The kids, well, were in bed by time they were done. We had last minute visitors and were not able to finish making the gyros in time for the kids to eat. 

Here is the recipe taken right from the Handle the Heat webpage

Chicken Gyros 
Serves 4
From Annie's Eats via Elly Says Opa
For the tzatziki sauce:

• 16 oz. greek yogurt or plain yogurt
• 1/2 hothouse cucumber or 1 regular cucumber, peeled and seeded
• 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
• Salt and pepper
• Squeeze of fresh lemon juice
• Extra virgin olive oil

For the chicken:

• 4 cloves garlic, smashed
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 2 tsp. red wine vinegar
• 2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• 2 heaping tbsp. plain yogurt
• 1 tbsp. dried oregano
• Salt and pepper
• 1 1/4 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into strips or bite sized chunks 

To assemble:

• Pita bread, whole wheat if possible
• Fresh tomatoes, seeded and diced
• Red onion, sliced thin (I skipped this because I don't like raw onion) 

To make the tzatziki sauce:
If using plain yogurt, strain the yogurt using cheesecloth over a bowl.  Let strain for several hours or overnight, if possible, to remove as much moisture as possible. Note, if using lower fat yogurt there will be more liquid strained. If using Greek yogurt, skip this step.

Shred the cucumber.  Wrap in a towel and squeeze to remove as much water as possible.  Mix together the yogurt, shredded cucumber, garlic, white wine vinegar, salt and pepper to taste, and lemon juice. Drizzle lightly with olive oil.  Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving to allow the flavors to meld.

To prepare the chicken:
Combine the garlic, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, olive oil, yogurt, oregano, and salt and pepper to taste in a medium bowl.  Whisk together until mixed well.  Add the chicken pieces to the bowl and mix well to coat.  Cover and refrigerate for about 1 hour.

Preheat broiler. Cook chicken under broiler for about 2-4 minutes per side, depending on size of pieces.  Once the chicken is completely cooked through, transfer to a plate and let rest for 5 minutes. 

Warm pitas. Top with chicken, tzatziki sauce, diced tomatoes and sliced onions.  Serve immediately.

Resolutions: The Print Project

Taking off my photographer headband and putting on my mommy hair pin.

The hardest part of this project is letting go of the fact that not all my pictures are taken in beautiful light with simple backgrounds and gorgeous attire. 

But I have finally let go. Three years later, and it is time. 

Source: google.com via Gina on Pinterest

The Inspiration

Liz Tamanaha of Paislee Press I have been following her blog for about a year now. I love everything about her. Her simplicity of design and eye for photography. Her words have moved and motivated me to start. I know, because of her, I am not the only one. 

My Shoulder to Cry On

Tara Kennedy of To Live To Dream To Love Tara and I have been friends from the day I took her son's first birthday photos back in 2009. Our love for photography and motherhood drew us together. We currently do weddings together as Gina And Tara Photography. Two hours into this project I texted Tara and told her I was ready to give up. There is too much work and disorganization to deal with. Right away she texted back "Don't Quit!!! It will be worth it. Just take a break." Tara is doing a similar project as you will see soon below. (and on her blog) We were both inspired by Liz, but in two different ways. 

Trial and Failure

Last year at this time I was involved in a One Frame a Day Project. And I was doing good at it! I was taking as many photos as I could and immediately putting them into templates. Then I got busy, and then I was taking more than one photo a day and wanted them all in the book. That required design on my end. And that equals failure to me. You will soon find out that I dislike design. It is just not my cup of tea. 

It wont be perfect, or will it be?

Liz spoke to me right here and right here . "For whatever reason, something clicked for me this past weekend. Maybe because I finally decided to let go(of the belief that I needed to find the perfect album size, the perfect design, etc. before I could start on the project). You know what? Perfection is so overrated " Liz Tamanaha

love this pic, taken on the night we brough Ava home. red eye and all

She is so right! Are my kids going to judge me because some of my earlier photos have red eye? Or that it is an 8x11 book instead of 12x12. Or 202 pages instead of 20 flushmount pages? That I took 50 pictures one day and only one images another?

I sat there and yelled at myself. "Gina, just get these images off your hard drives before they crash!" Who cares how long this takes, how many pages the books will be, and what type of photos will be in them. They are my family memories. I should have zero excuses.

One Person- Two inspirations.

Tara and I were both inspired by Liz.

I was inspired for her off to press project. To me it was easy and will get the job done. I am using her Off to Press Templates and some of her Quick Book Album templates They are beautiful, clean and simple...plus super easy to use! Score for me!

Tara is a design queen, she rocks at it in photoshop. Her digital scrap booking is simply amazing to me. She was inspired by Liz here to do Project Life. This project is a combo digital and real scrap booking project done every week. Follow Tara to see how her project is going here

Hoarders Welcome Here

I have four...yes four external hard drives. All full. These are filled with client and personal photos. Sadly, I was not organized in the beginning. I am shoveling through images on every hard drive to make sure I find my family ones. This is the most discouraging part. But now that Ava is going to be four and I have to go through four of these hard drives, it has to start now. Before it gets worse. I feel like a hoarder when I open every hard drive. But, once again, Liz to the rescue! Here blog post here is the plan for my organization from this point onward. 2012 resolution....check! 

Editing Lesson Learned 

oh, why hello there orange Ava! skin tone, oversatured editing, nightmare. but adorable smile :)

The second most discouraging thing is the editing of my early years. YUCKO! And I didn't keep the originals on all of them. Why did I think oversaturate, alien eyes, and leaning people crops were good? Well because they are memories, they will be in the early year albums. But from this point onward, I will be using a timeless and clean edit on all my photos. I often see this happen with photogs just starting out. I was there once too. You think the more you edit your photos the more professional you look. This is so not true and many of the photographers I love and follow today, hardly touch their images in photoshop. 

THE BIG OLD PLAN

1. From 2008 till 2011: Every year gets an album. 2008 is the year Ava was born. I started with our shower and baby moon. i have already pulled out the photos I want to use and put them in order. I have also started doing album spreads. 2009-2011 will be a nightmare. The photos are all on different hard drives. Some are not even edited or converted to jpeg yet. This is where I get discouraged, but will have to take a little on at a time.

2.Organize in 2012: All personal photos will get edited in order that I take them, just as if it was a session.I will also keep them on their own hard drive and use a personal photo only memory card. The mistake I made the last three years was that I would take a few photos on the same card of a clients and those photos would get imported with the clients file. I would never copy and put them in a personal photo folder. This means I have to go back and open every clients original file folder and make sure no personals are in there. 

3. Smaller Albums for events: once I complete the 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 albums, I would like to do a few more detailed albums. Ireland, Mexico, Disney, Arkansas, and parties.

Printing

I plan on using Blurb.Com for printing all the albums. Everyone raves about them. They price is right, you can get hundreds of pages in a hardcover book and it will still be under $100. This is good since I will probably order four books at a time. One for display, one for keeping, and two for grandparents. The yearly books will be 8x11. The smaller albums will be 8x8 or 12x12. I love square but they are a nightmare to fit photos into without a nasty crop sometimes. 

So here I go!

first spread of 2008 book. a friend found this quote on pinterest for her nursery. had to borrow for this book :)

baby moon photos. God I love Mexico.

Cheers to resolutions and printing our photos in a digital world. I encourage all of you as well!

Documenting Your Holiday

 Here are some tips to make sure you fully capture your holiday on camera! 

1. Have your camera handy and ready: Batteries charged and new memory card. Nothing is worse than realizing your battery is not charged or that you forgot to put in a memory card. Happens to the best of us. I actually didn't have a memory card in my camera when we went to watch my Dad drive a NASCAR car. Thank God we knew someone there with a great camera and he gave us the pictures he took. That was the worst feeling in the world.

2. Details! I am not talking about people. A special ornament, food, drinks, decorations, wrapping paper. These little details add a little something if you end up making an album of you holiday pics. It tells the whole story of our holiday. 

santa's crumbs

3. Work the room. Walk around and just take pictures of everyone mingling. You may have to do this a few times. I have learned from photographing parties and weddings, that it takes a while for people to get used to someone taking pictures of them without anyone knowing. You may get a picture Uncle with food in his mouth...Your brother giving you a dirty look....Your Grandma flicking you off (So talking from experience here). It may take you a few trips around the room to get some good documentary photos of everyone.

 this picture took me a few times. my grandma kept looking, and yelling at me. 

4. Be posers. You got to do it. Some family members don't like the documentary type photos where your subjects are not looking. Do generation shots, individual family shots, the kids, and so forth. If you can, bring a tripod and learn your self timer, to be able to get yourself in some shots. 

have fun with it, your in laws with CHERISH it ;)

5.Precious Moments. Get close and get those special moments of your kids sitting with Grandpa, Gandma and Auntie hugging. Don't make them look, just get the moment. Little hands holding an ornament or unwrapping paper, close up. These are all little things that matter most, and you can not capture from ten feet away. 

Your family may think you are crazy, or annoying. But I promise when they see the pictures, they will L O V E you once again :) 

Happy Holidays and Fabulous New Year from mine to yours!

Deck your halls with holiday bokeh!

(Taken of Ava December 09)

Today we are going to have a little crash course in aperture, and how to get that pretty holiday bokeh you have been seeing all over Pinterest. 

I know, those two words are foreign to most of you. But hopefully I can teach you a little something and impress your family with you holiday photos. 

 

This is mainly for DSLR owners, maybe some point and shoots have the manual and aperture priority options. Let me know if they do.

Lesson one: (seriously crash course) Aperture. The aperture or F-Stop in the opening in the lens (like a circle opening similar to the pupil of your eye). The larger the opening, the more light that comes in. The smaller the opening,  the less light. This is known by a number. 1.2 or 1.4 is a larger  opening than 3.5 or 4. Most kit lenses do not get any more open than 3.5 or 4. If you have a more expensive lens, you may be able to change it to 2.8 or even 1.4. You can see this number in your viewfinder. All of you have tp get out your manuals (I KNOW BORING!) But learn where that number is on your camera. In Manual (the M) and Aperture Priority Mode (The A) you can pick your own aperture. Now the smaller the number (larger opening) you have more depth of field (bokeh or blur). The smaller the opening (larger number) more is in focus. 

I think the best way to do this for those of you that do not know much, is to put your camera is A (Aperture priority mode) This way the camera worries about all the other settings and all you have to do is play with your aperture.

Put your subject a few feet in front of the tree or strands of light. Ideally facing a window for natural light. (this may be difficult if it is dark or at night)

Turn off your flash

Open your aperture as wide as it will go. (1.4 for the lucky lens owners, 3.5 or 4 for kit lens owners) Look at your manual to find out how to do this on your camera.

Shoot!

How did it go? I would love to see how they turned out. post them on the facebook wall here.

I did a little playing with my camera at different apertures, and how close I got to my subject. (Please excuse the grain, this has to do with iso and how dark it was, to be talked about another time)

2.0

4.0

The closer you are to your subject...the better the bokeh, depth of field, or blur

2.0

4.0

Now for these photos, I switched to the manual focus. Turned the ring on my lens till the tree was out of focus, and shot

4.0

2.0
2.0

Happy shooting my friends!