S.L. Smith Photography

The Seedling

Stephen Sigmund:

Learn wisdom from the ways of a seedling. A seedling which is never hardened off through stressful situations will never become a strong productive plant.

 

Mudslingers

This weekend the kids and I began planting our seeds and starting our baby plants in pots for our big vegetable garden.  I gave the kids some guidance, but let them basically plant them on their own.  I am also letting them help me with the watering.  I am a little doubtful that they will grow, and am pretty certain that I will have to go and buy the plants, but that's okay.  I really like them having these experiences.

It was a fun experience for all of us.  The kids all got along well, followed directions, didn't fight, shared the dirt and seeds, kissed, hugged, and held hands and sang Kumbaya.  started out well, but then ended up arguing about the dirt, the seeds, how to do it, how not to do it, yelling "Hey, that's my pot" and "Get your seeds out of my holes". Eventually they began flicking and flinging mud at each other and then decided to tie each other up with this:

I wished I would have taken pictures of the fighting, but I was a little busy being a referee and trying hard to suppress my laughter. 

Here are some pictures from before the mudslinging started:

Here are some plants that we will be keeping in pots:

Sweet Baby Basil:

Beautiful baby lettuce:

and some Cherry and Grape tomatoes:

I hope you like garden pictures, because I will be bombarding you with them all spring and summer.

Make a Wish

"To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe."
Anatole France

Printing your images

I have been meaning to post this information for a long time now, but got so busy doing other things that I forgot.  I am begging you, pleading...please, PLEase, PLEASE,  PUUHHH_LEEEZ : when you have your photos taken by a professional photographer and the photographer lets you purchase the digital negatives, PUHLEEZ take them to a lab that specializes in printing professional quality photos.   Those images are special, you spent a long time getting ready for them, your photographer took a lot of time to make sure they were just right, and you paid a lot of money for them.  Don't go to your local drug store, super mega discount store, wholesale warehouse.  They use a low quality paper and a low quality ink. They usually have a person with no experience just feed your images into the machine and let it do all the work.  They often do not check your prints for color or cropping. I have had clients come back to show me their printed images from a certain drugstore and they all had a strange grren tinge to them.  I then had samples printed from a professinal lab and they looked perfect. 
I recently experimented with online printing just to see what I would get.  I sent the same image to a few different online photolabs who specialize in printing.  Then I sent the same image to the lab I use.  One of the labs I used sent the image back with half the child's forehead chopped off.  The other lab had great cropping, but the child looke like he was in the late stages of jaundice, the third lab I used was decent, but the color was off a bit.  The pro lab was perfect.
If you are looking for a good lab, I would use http://www.saphoto.com/ . You will pay a little bit more, but it's totally worth it.
This also applies to printing the photos on your own printer.  They just will not look as good as having them printed professionally.  Don't print these high quality images with a low quality printer or printing service...you'll thank me later;)

I Hope You Dance

A sort of magic happens when people dance...look and see:

The last chapter in this wedding story is coming soon....

Warming up the Dance Floor

I think I am going to show you the reception pictures in batches since I am still editing them, but I do not want to keep you waiting.  I have to show you these pictures of these funny brothers warming up the dance floor.  These were taken when the reception first started and I was testing my lighting, shutter speed, etc... At first, these two cuties didn't even notice I was there.  It was the perfect opportunity to get some fun images of them.   I am not sure what the little brother is doing to big brother's head, but it was definitely funny.  I will be back tomorrow with more reception photos.

Taking us by Storm

Last night an amazing thunderstorm snuck right up on us. It started with crazy wind that blew my heavy metal furniture around my back deck, then the thunder and lightning came. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the downpours started.  Of course I did what anyone would do in this situation...I grabbed my camera.  I love rain, I love storms, heck, I even love watching the weather channel and looking at www.wunderground.com.  It just find it all so interesting.   Here are two of the pictures I took.  They are not the greatest since I hurried so my camera wouldn't get wet.  I wished I could have taken pictures of the golf-ball hail that came down, but I came in because I didn't really want to find out what it felt like to get hit in the head with huge chunks of ice falling from 30,000 feet...I'm smart like that.






Here is what I thought was crazy.  You know how thunderstorms usually look like mass or a blob on the map...this was a straight line going right up I35.

Chapter 2 : The Ceremony

It was hard to choose pictures to post from this beautiful ceremony, so rather than bore you with my words, I will let you experience the wedding through the photos.  I do have to admit that I had a hard time taking some of these photos with tears dripping into my viewfinder.

 

and this last one I just had to throw in.  This funny little guy made a silly face in every single posed shot...I love him!  I cropped down one of the group shots to show you this funny man.