A Special Day

On Tuesday I got a call from my father in law. He asked if I would watch my two nephews that lived with me when they were small. I said I would love to. So they came over at 4:30 on Wednesday. They slept over and Grandma came and picked all 6 kids up at 1pm on Thursday to take them out to her house.

I have not seen much of these two little boys in 6 years. They are great kids! Their Dad and his wife are doing a wonderful job raising them!

It was fun having 5 rambunctious little boys and 1 girl in the house!

Photographing in RAW format

I wanted to try photographing in RAW format. I just wanted to see what the difference was. Well I found it to be a royal pain in the butt!

I will not be doing photography in RAW format anymore. Unless it is for something important like Wedding Formals. Other than that...forget it!

Anyway, after spending most of yesterday trying to find a program that would let me view my RAW format photos. Altering them in RAW format and then transferring them to JPG format, I am now ready to post some of my photos!

Seeing others photos

The kids came home from their Dad's house. He has been sending the kids home with photos that have been taken of them there. He got them dollar store photo albums to put them in. They love them and I love seeing the things that they do when they are with their Dad.

However the photos are never very good. I still find it odd that they use a film camera. I have been using digital for so long it seems odd and old fashioned that someone would still take photos with a film camera!

The photos are often out of focus or too dark or over exposed. He doesn't seem to care that these things are wrong with the photos and sends them anyway. Often times you have to take a really hard look to see what child is in the picture because their face is all shadows because of their cowboy hat.

All the photos that I look at that he sends, I can't help thinking, if he had done this it would look better. If he had done this it would be exposed properly. He should have turned the kids this way or that to make it brighter and not so dark in this one.

Can I Fix It??? YES I CAN!!!!

At the last band camp, my hot shoe flash crapped out. I was heartbroken. I have been looking online for a new one. I spoke to a friend who is a photographer and she said not to spend less than $300 for a good flash!

So I took the flash out of the camera bag today to take a second look. There was some debris and build up on the connection where the battery goes. I took a Q-tip and some nail polish remover and cleaned the connection. Now the flash works like a charm!

I am so happy that I have a working flash again and I don't have to shell out $300 for a new one!

I am going on Thursday to the Vistek store to see if I can find a Gary Fong Lightsphere Cloud flash attatchment. I was going to order it online but it fits onto the flash and you need to make sure you get the right size so that it works right. So I will bring the flash with me and then I can know for SURE that I got the right one!

I am so looking forward to the Gary Fong attachment for my flash!

I also was thinking about what I could use for a back drop holder today and I think I have a great way of doing it that is portable....a little hillbilly but portable all the same! Everyone that knows me knows that I have some odd hillbilly quirks that rubbed off from the kids' Dad!

Going Back

We are going back to Puerto Plata on April 8th for a week. We got killer seat sale on west jet for $200/person each way! We have friends there so we don't need to worry about a hotel or anything like that. We only need to pay for food and that won't be a problem!

I can't wait for April to get here! 53 days to wait! I can't wait to take more photos of the area!

Snorkeling and Punta Rusia

We took an amazing tour called Paradise Island. You can see their website at www.cayoparaiso.com . We took a jet boat for 30 minutes across the ocean to a small sand bar island. On the island they have a bar set up and a place to put your things. They have a small hut for the snorkelling gear as well.

We went snorkelling by a coral reef and it was amazing. The staff give you bread. You hold it in your hand and swim out. When you are out there you smoosh it up and the fish swarm you to eat the bread! It was great for taking photos with the underwater camera. We saw so many fish. The water was so clear and warm! Made me want to learn to scuba dive!

After snorkeling they took us along the shore to see the mangrove trees in the national forest. That was pretty cool. The roots of the trees were amazing!

Then we went to Punta Rusia. Which is a little fishing town. They had a bar and restaurant there for us. We had a buffet lunch. The food was really good!

Behind the restaurant they had a little petting zoo sort of thing with goats, iguanas, and some birds. As well as a fountain.

Behind that on the road, was the town. I took a walk down the road and took pictures of the buildings and the people.

Sosua Beach

Sosua Beach is a great little town. The beach there is amazing and it's great for snorkelling because it is in a bay, the waves aren't as rough as they are at Cabarete Beach.

Sosua Beach is located 15 minutes from Cabarete and about 30 minutes from Puerto Plata. It is very touristy. There are many many vending stalls along the beach. It is very shady down there and a really cool experience!