I took 5 minutes to find this white balance in Kelvin. BAlens did it in 10 seconds.

I’ve never been happy with the white balance presets that any of my Nikons have had to offer & the auto can get so frustrating when in mid-shoot you have different color corrections. It’s especially annoying when batching photos to find the colors all over the map! Seriously, I’ve spent hours editing poorly exposed/balanced photos before. It’s misery.

Almost exactly two years ago I took Nicole’s table top class, where she emphasized heavily on shooting in manual & mentioned manual white balance. Since then, I’ve gone completely manual when shooting and I’ve been using my Kelvin setting for white balance. I’ve been using that for the last 1+ years and it’s MUCH more consistent than relying on presets. I’m sort of getting the hang of it, but I’m nowhere near consistent enough; especially when in dark situations with multiple light sources.

I forgot to adjust my white balance from earlier in the day. BAlens fixed that.

 This little lens cap has seriously solved all of my problems. Not kidding. You can see a huge difference in these photos, right? I sure do. No matter what, the BAlens is going to be consistent. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Unlike a greycard. It’s also pretty seamless to use this while capturing fleeting moments.

The lens cap is always with you – as long as you have your lens that you bought the cap for, at least . You just turn on your camera, follow your white balance preset instructions & take a picture with your cap on. Then you take the cap off & shoot away. It’s genius.

This is close, but still too orange/red.

I love that I don’t have to worry or guess anymore to find the correct color balance in low/artificial light settings. No matter the light source, this thing helps my camera properly adjust for the lighting & gives me perfect skin tones every time. That’s huge. I hate it when my pictures make me look like Snooky.

Since using the BAlens cap, I’ve cut down on  my photoshop time by 90%. No joke. SO worth the $45-65 price. This is the least amount of time I’ve spent in photoshop since I started blogging. I have better things to do with my time – like nap with my kids. Or actually do the laundry. What’s your favorite photography gadget?

BAlens provided by Photojojo – THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

I was playing around with my white balance settings & showing him photos every once in a while. After I showed him the first set of pics, he said something about being bald & went back to playing with Felix. This time, he was singing a song – a song that he made up. Eu sou careca – I am bald. He’s hilarious.

Little did he know, I was capturing his goofy moment on video. HA! That’s the best part about having a DSLR with vid capabilities! He thought I was slowly framing my image, but I was recording every bit of that funny song of his.

It’s been a really long time since I’ve shared pictures & info on baby Felix, I thought I’d share a few stats with you. He’s a chunk-monster! AKA the Feli-monster. He’s 20lbs (95th percentile), 28 inches long (off the charts for his age) & his head. . . oh his head is WAAAAAAAY off the charts. He’s got the average size head of an 18 month old, which explains his difficulty sitting up. He still hasn’t reached that mile marker yet. It’s getting a bit frustrating that he still wobbles in his high-chair, but he’s getting there and I’m more than happy for him to take his time. I’m just glad he’s not like my younger sister was and walking at 7 1/2 months.

Also, this video makes my heart melt. I still need to remember to shoot horizontally when I’m in video mode, but you get the idea. He just lights up whenever I talk to him. Do you see that cute gaping smile at the end? He’s got me wrapped around his tiny little finger.

My brother-in-law just got back from a two year stint in Honduras, so most of us Esplins were in Phoenix to celebrate his safe return home. Chris couldn’t get time off work, so he held down the fort & let me galavant off to Phoenix on my own. Chris’s sister, Shelley, flew with the kiddos & me out to Phoenix, which was HUGE. It was the first time I’ve flown with two kiddos & everything went surprisingly well. I didn’t have a companion on the flight home, but we fared remarkably well considering our flight came in at 11pm.

While we were in Phoenix, we went swimming, killed a scorpion, went shopping, watched movies, ate lunch with friends, watched bob’s burgers and helped organize my youngest sister-in-law’s bedroom. Felix spent most of his time in the arms of an aunt, uncle or grandparent and Penelope spent most of her time bossing around Molly the dog. It was perfect.

We got back to a clean house (which we have now destroyed, sorry Chris!) and my new camera! I’ve spent most of the morning playing around & reading the instruction manual. Seriously, I suggest EVERYONE should read their camera’s instruction manual. It doesn’t matter what kind of camera you have, just learn all of its ins & outs. You’ll take much better photos once you do. Promise. I’m about 90 pages into the manual & have about 210 to go, but I feel like I’ve improved immensely since I started reading. I’ll definitely be reading it through a few times.

With all of my enthusiasm, I took this opportunity to shoot some pictures of the nearly 5 month old Felix. He’s getting so big & animated now, I just love it. During our vacation, he discovered his hands & started rolling over! It’s so exciting! Now I need to teach him to hold up that behemoth head of his.

I totally get washed out in white. PLUS a white backdrop is harder to expose for & get correct white balance for. I’m still a major rookie at the photography thing. In the back of my mind I’ve been thinking a middle-grey curtain would be so much better to shoot. Yesterday it clicked. I thought I’d go to Home Fabrics, a place that my friend had told me that offers discount home & upholstery fabrics, and see what they had. Despite their lack of grey fabrics (they mostly have tan & burgundy) I was able to find some printed grey cotton for $5 a yard. It was originally $10 a yard.

I needed cloth that was 57 inches wide – which just so happen to be the exact width of this fabric! All I had to do was hem the two ends & I was ready to rock & roll. Did you know that if you rip fabric, it’ll rip in a straight line, exactly perpendicular to the selvage? That’s how I was able to get an even hem on both ends. Making this back drop took about 15 minutes & $22.

I slide the fabric to the edge of the curtain rod & use bulldog clips to secure the extra off the ground when not in use. It’s a pretty slick system. Much better & cleaner than my last method.

Backdrops are so yearbook/1990, but I love that I can focus on taking pictures of me & the kiddies without worrying about the background/ugly carpet/styling. What do you think? So, if you take outfit pictures or kiddie pictures, what kind(s) of backdrops do you use?

Felix is a dream baby, I’m very fortunate that he’s been so easy. All he does is eat, sleep & suck on his pacifier.

Fattening him up is coming along quite nicely. Look at those side rolls!! I love chubby babies.
This is quite possibly my favorite photo that I’ve taken of him so far. It’s like he’s shouting for joy, “I’ve made it to two months!”

Can I brag about it for a minute? I love this thing. Let me show you how awesome this thing is:

I took these photos at my cousin’s house at midnight. Each photo was taken from the same spot on the couch using the same settings. The above shot was taken without a flash of any kind. So sad.

This shot was taken using my pop-up flash. It’s not horrible, but it looks pretty bad. Right? It’s still really dark.

Now this is what I’m talking about!!! The above image was taken using my new flash pointed at the ceiling with a diffuser cap. WOW. Isn’t it nuts the difference between this and the rest of the photos? I love my new toy, I just have to start working out my arms so I can better handle my giant camera/lens/flash set-up.

{click on the image above to join the flickr group}

In celebration of the new flickr group, I’m hosting a little competition this month!

Whoever wins the best flickr group photo for the month of February will get all sorts of cool prizes. I haven’t picked out the prizes, but rest assured there will be a hand-bound book, some calligraphy and other goodies in there. You’re going to like it. PROMISE. So please, join my little group and show off what you’ve made! It can be anything! A drawing, a refashioned shirt, the awesome dinner you made last night, you get the idea! Please post a picture or 12, just as long as it’s made by you, photographed by you and very PG.

I really hope you’ll participate. I’ll keep you posted as I figure out what exactly will go to the winner.

This contest ends February 28 at 11:59pm MST. Winners will NOT be chosen randomly. 3 judges (me & two other guest judges) will vote on a winner. Judges’ entries are not considered part of the contest. Multiple entries are encouraged. You must have a flickr account and entries MUST be added to the flickr group pool to be entered. Am I forgetting anything? Sheesh. Comment or email if you have questions.

Good Luck!

Here we all are having a serious moment. Andy (middle) taught the silkscreening classes which I so stupidly missed. He’s really cool.

Being able to participate in Nicole’s Art weekend was so much fun! The last bookbinding class I taught was nearly a year ago, so it was great to get back into sharing the addiction. In two classes we bound nearly 30 books! I was so impressed with how well all everyone did. Sadly I didn’t get a photo of a single one of their books. Oops.

Alma, one of cool art weekend teachers (and one of my dear friends) gave me a super rad flower brooch. She teaches fabulous illustrator classes, designs beautiful repeat patterns and sews these fabulous felt pins (among other things). Check out her etsy shop here. Her husband taught the photoshop & workflow classes (which I heard were great) and their baby. Oh. Their baby taught the how to melt everyone’s heart class. He’s very cute. very.

I had the pleasure to Audit Nicole Hill Gerulat’s Tabletop photography class. I learned all sorts of cool tips and tricks to get better photos. Nicole convinced me that I need to start shooting manual and focusing manual. I learned a lot more about photography that way.

We were in such a dark room for this, but look at how the coke can was lit! Nicole is very impressive with her lighting abilities. She’s also very nice and one of my favorite photographers. You should take her classes.

These photos I took with my lensbaby because my regular zoom lens is an embarrassing piece of j-u-n-k that stopped focusing that afternoon. Now I’m getting a new zoom lens, can’t wait to get it in the mail!

I had a great weekend, it was so packed with creative time I just crashed on Sunday. I’m still trying to catch up on my sleep. It was a pleasure to meet and hang out with everyone at art weekend. I surely hope it’s not my last!

Luckily, the first place we went to was the perfect place. Seriously. Besides backpacks (which we already had) we got completely outfitted for our hike-in camping adventure for under $190. We lucked out with an awesome sales associate who found us a $40 tent. Yup. Awesome.

We left a little late, which meant our hiking and set-up was all done in the dark, but it worked out really well. Chris managed to pack all of our gear and I managed to pack Penelope (nearly 30lbs) and my camera gear. I had a little argument in my head whether or not it would be worth it to take my camera and tripod and luckily the smarter part of my brain won out. Just before we went off to bed I took out my gear and looked for just the right shot. It was a beautiful night. As I was setting up the moon had just come out and the skinny tree branches of the trees created sweet silhouettes against the glowing sky. Seriously it was beautiful.

I’m so happy that this photo (above) worked out so well. It made packing the camera SO worth it. That night Penelope and I snuggled inside a mummy bag just big enough for the two of us. High-quality Z’s weren’t the name of the game, but I sure had fun snuggling with the Nels.

Exploring the countryside was so fun, this area was incredible. We’ll be doing this again. Definitely. Read more about our adventure on Whrrl.

Click here for the story.

You need a mama? I’ll be yours indeed.

One of the many highlights of the BlogHer trip was hanging out in the Shutter Sisters Suite. The Shutter Sisters were sponsored by Lensbaby and Aurora, which—in a genius bit of marketing—let masses of bloggers test their products at the convention.

Aurora is a photo-editing program with a simple and sleek user interface aimed at matching your images to what you saw as you snapped the shutter.  Aurora’s feature-set sidesteps Photoshop by ignoring the fancier—and sometimes horrific—editing techniques that Photoshop users tend to abuse. Instead, the focus is on fixing common problems like saturation, color balance and exposure that tend to plague the entire photoshoot.  In addition to fixing photos, Aurora connects with websites like Facebook and Picasa to make uploading and sharing your photos a one application process. You can even edit the photos you’ve already uploaded! I’m anxious to get my hands on a copy to reduce my time in Photoshop and hopefully process all of my photos instead of just those destined for public consumption.  They’re only charging $20, so it’s a slam dunk.

Lensbaby stands for crazy lenses and crazier photos.  It’s Aurora’s doppleganger, kicking dirt at realism with the same impressionist attitude that makes old Holgas, Dianas and pinhole cameras so intriguing. These lenses have pivot points!

I’ve drooled over the concept since I first saw it on Shutter Sisters, so I leapt at the chance to test drive one of the ‘babies.  Image fidelity is not on the menu. The results are as distorted, fringed, and horribly out of focus as you want to make them. They’ve got three untamed lenses, all of which are customizable with optical inserts; there’s a standard glass lens, a plastic version for Dianaesque effects, and a pinhole insert.  Other accessories include telephoto, macro, wide- and super-wide-angle attachments. My personal favorite is the super-wide.

This image was done with the super wide attachment and plastic optic (check out the fringe!).

Lensbaby straight up. Double plated glass and no lens attachments.

Double plated glass optic and macro +4 and +10 filters on. This bug was about 1 cm long in real life! The macro would be perfect for capturing wedding ring details.

I can’t remember what accessories I had on for this photo, but I think it was just the plain old lens. This was taken right outside the Sheraton along the river.

And then there are the novelty heart- and star-shaped aperture packages. Nice.

I’m a sucker for camera equipment, especially when I get to try it out for free. I went on two Lensbaby test-walks and called my husband Chris to see if it was ok to buy one.  He wasn’t too hot on dropping $270 on an impulse buy, which I can’t really fault considering how unemployed our family is right now. Like a good blogger, I entered to win a free one instead and kept my fingers crossed. I must have crossed them extra hard or cashed in some Karma Chips from my saintly elementary school days. Penelope was napping, Chris was looking for jobs online and I was checking my email on his iPhone when I found out that lightning had struck again!  I started squealing and shaking violently until Chris turned around and asked what had happened. He was overjoyed as well, if only because he might have saved some cash on my Christmas present.

I actually won the single piece of camera equipment that I was in the process of coveting. My only comparable experience so far in 24 years is—ironically—winning the BlogHer tickets from Whrrl! and Social Luxe Lounge. Blogging has been good to me. Time to go play with the ‘baby.

What I used:

• For the exterior, diffuser part I used white felt and white plastic from a picnic spread. I’m sure you could fuse plastic bags together and do the same thing. Although, you would want to make sure they were plain plastic bags.
• For the interior reflective top I used the shiny metal bag from a Pop’s cereal bag
• I used elastic cording to attach the sock to the flash and white thread to sew it all together.

I ended up hand sewing the sock together, which wasn’t hard but a little more time consuming than if I had done it with a sewing machine. Despite the freakish appearance my camera takes when I use the sock, I really like how the photos turn out.  Check it out:

The flash sock helps to avoid over-exposure and softens all of the hard edges usually created with the flash. It’s also interesting to observe that my sock warms up the photos ever so slightly. Interesting, hu?!? While my flash sock works on my pop-up flash, the sock idea is really optimized for an external flash.

Do any of you readers have an external flash that you love, or know of one I could get on the cheap? I’ve been thinking of getting one, and would love some pointers from users/camera enthusiasts and not salesman.

It’s been a while since I’ve roamed around the Salt Lake valley in search for Photo-op backdrops, so the first and really only place that came to mind was Gardner Village. If you live in Utah, and you don’t know what Gardner Village is, you’ve got to click on the link and GO! It’s a walking, outdoor “mall” of sorts. There are quilt shops, antique shops, bakeries, candy shops(the best fudge you’ll ever find). Best of all, it’s beautifully manicured with a creek, gorgeous flower beds, antique buildings and wood structures; all perfect for taking just the right photo. On another note, there are carnivals and events there for Halloween, Christmas and at pretty much every major holiday and it’s a very family-friendly environment.

I don’t think it would matter where we took the pictures, though. Whitney is just beautiful and knows just what to do in front of the camera (she thought she wasn’t photogenic–FALSE!).  Did I mention that Gardner Village isn’t open until 10am? We had the place all to ourselves at 8am; no random folks getting in the way of our photo shoot!

I love the fashion photography where the models are jumping up and down. Can you tell?

We had a lot of fun talking about boys.

Here’s Whitney in her Supermodel pose.

I just love how it all turned out!

I want to get more photography under my belt and I would love to take pictures of someone riding my bike (an old schwinn from the ’60s). Anyone in the Salt Lake area willing to pose for me? Please leave a comment!