If this sassy model looks familiar, it’s because she was featured here last fall. See the colour photoshoot here and here,  and the BW collection here.

Miss C just continues to impress me. Not only is she actively involved in various academic, athletic and community groups – a born leader – but she has intriguing hobbies! She shoots at a theme gun range, in Old West style dress, so I was very interested to meet with Miss C in her costume and have some fun shooting — with my camera, that is!
Such a mix of intelligence, personality, beauty and strength of integrity and character make her the very essence of an accomplished young lady – modern, feminine and tough as nails!

Millions and millions of years would still not give me half enough time to describe that tiny instant of all eternity when you put your arms around me and I put my arms around you.
~Jacques Prévert

Welcome to the March  installment of The Simple Things! This project by a circle of amazing contributing photographers, seeks to embrace the simple things that make up our lives. All the little things that we overlook, take for granted, bring us joy, bring us sorrow, or just make up our daily lives and make them unique to us. At the bottom of this post, find the link to the next photographer in our circle – click, read, enjoy, comment and come back next month!

Before bed, my son can make song requests. He always chooses the same ones, in the same order. The “I Love you L” song, that has his name. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. The ABC song. And the Rainbow Song, which goes like this:

Red and yellow and pink and green
Purple and orange and blue.
I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow,
sing a rainbow too.

We like this one a lot. So, for my son, for this month’s Simple Things, I photographed a rainbow. Seven pretty colours, of seven of my favourite things.  All different processing, all different in tone, depending on what each object and colour means to me.

Red. For me a colour of creativity, and always with a bit of a retro bent.
Yarn. Knitting has unfathomably become a hobby I enjoy. I think because I just love to collect the beautiful coloured yarn.

Yellow. Never one of my favourite colours, until inexplicably a certain warm shade takes my breath away, and I crave it’s sunny mellowness.
My favourite perfumes.

Pink.  My least favourite colour. But I can tolerate it muted and vintage.
Thread. Symbolizing another of my favourite hobbies, sewing. My daughter loves pink, so I go through a lot of thread making her dresses and skirts.

Green. A colour of mystery for me. Green has always been the colour I don’t know well enough to embrace, but one I really want to get to know better because of the earthy imagery it brings. Clean and crisp.
Grass and dew. So fitting with the advent of spring now upon us.

Purple.  The colour of my childhood, my first favourite colour. It’s everything to me from soft faerie dust to glittering jemstones.
A beautiful feathery hair band made for my daughter by a friend, newborn photographer Jennalle Dunn also of  Jennalle Dunn Custom Creations on Etsy.

Orange. A colour that feels like home to me. Warm and close to the earth, never the colour of common objects. Grainy and truthful.
Pomegranate blossoms, from the tree in my backyard.

Blue.  One of my favourite colours. Deep and dusky shades, with a hint of purple, like the belly of storm clouds rolling in.
Berries. Perfect for lazy summer afternoon picnics.

Thank you for visiting again for this month’s The Simple Things Project! Please click along to the next amazing photographer in the circle, Kristina Foutz.

I leave no trace of wings in the air, but I am glad I have had my flight.
  ~Rabindranath Tagore

Thanks for stopping by for this month’s installment of The Simple Things! This project by a circle of amazing contributing photographers, seeks to embrace the simple things that make up our lives. All the little things that we overlook, take for granted, bring us joy, bring us sorrow, or just make up our daily lives and make them unique to us. These things we document, so we don’t forget.

We like plants. We like flowers. We like trees. Our yard is full of them – big new sycamore trees, rose bushes, orange jubilees. Orange, pomegranate, lemon and plum trees. This spring we’ll have hanging tomato plants, basil, cucumbers and peppers. The dormant period of winter, when the grass lies brown and mossy green, is quite depressing in our yard.  Our daughter feels “sad” for the droopy vines, the broken twigs and dried leaves. So when we see signs of life, and new blossoms, we go into immediate planning mode.

This was excitedly sighted in the yard this week.

So the yard plans have been flying fast and furious. My husband went out and came back with grape vines, new rose bushes, and flowering shrubs. NONE of which can yet be planted, because it’s February, still cool, too rainy and still drops down too low some nights!  But, at the very least, we wanted to do some planting with our children, so they grow up with the same appreciation for spring renewal and plant life as we do. This is going to be so much fun, what a great way for the family to spend some quality time together! Right?

Sweet Girl (looking so very excited!) is given the plant bag. She’s not very impressed it’s not a big flower we’re planting, it’s just bulbs.

She’s in charge of opening the bag, while Baba gets the shovel and dirt. By now it’s getting dark and the mosquitoes are getting interested.

We teach her how to dig little holes. She wants to use a “digging thing” like they do in school, for gardening hour. I like to garden with my bare hands, no gloves or spades if I can help it. I encourage her to do the same, and we laugh at how dirty our hands get. We’re ready for the bulbs!

By now the mosquitoes are having a field day – but oddly only the boys are bothered? Little Man has run back into the house, he’s having none of this.  My job is to slap the hordes of little beasts off my husband’s back, while he and Sweet Girl shove the bulbs into the loose dirt as quickly as possible. Forget the water, we’ll do it tomorrow! Now let’s get the heck inside before we’re eaten alive!

The next day it’s Little Man’s turn. He gets to water them, and he’s very excited now. Any time he gets to use the water sprayer is a good day. And since the mosquitoes have been blown away by the nice breeze, he’s ok with venturing outdoors.

Done!  It’s not so pretty or colourful yet, but soon ~ if the sun ever comes back out to play! ~ we’ll have some pretty blossoms for the kids to take care of. Spring is right around the corner, and the yard will be growing up green. I like to think the kids are growing up “green” too, and can always laugh, get their hands dirty, and watch and wait for the sun and rains to bring their garden to life.

For the next Simple Life story, follow along to the site of the incredibly talented Leslie Crane here!

When my daughter was born, the day she came home from the hospital, I started a journal for her. I opened up a Word Document and every day I wrote how much I loved her. I told her what she was doing every day that brought me joy, happiness, frustration, pain, love and triumph. She humbled me, brought me to my knees, lifted me so high with love for her that sometimes my heart felt like bursting. My firstborn, she became my whole world.

She’s now 4, and I haven’t written in that journal for almost two years. Oh, every once in a while I added a few paragraphs, trying to catch up. But after the first 18 months, when I was pregnant with my son, it stopped being an almost daily capture of events. I photographed her so often, and when my son was born I took to portraiture more seriously, that the words gave way to images. But the images often missed the little things.

Three recent tragic losses in my immediate family made me realize that I haven’t paid enough attention to the little things about her that amaze me every day. Portraits aren’t enough. It’s the simple little things she does, the essence of her, that make me fall in love with her daily.

So at a recent trip to the zoo, a day we decided we needed to reconnect as a family, I handed my son’s stroller over to Baba and I took my girl’s hand and I spent the whole day with her. Just being with her. I took pictures of her not for portraiture, but to capture the minute by minuteness of being the amazing little thing she is. Here are some of the images from that day. The simple things about my daughter that break my heart and fill it, all at once.

Dear Ladybug, it’s been so long since I’ve written to you! I have taken thousands of pictures of you, sung you a thousand songs, told you a billion times how much I love you. I remember how I used to write down all the simple things you do that amaze me.Now that you’re growing in a big girl, so many things you do make me so proud to be your mother.

Like the way you take your little brother by the hand, and show him things. He looks up to you. He wants to do everything you do.

The way you love your Baba and he adores you melts me. He likes to tease you and call you the Poopy Princess, and you get so mad but you’re laughing at the same time.

You still have the most incredible dark eyes. So brown they look black.

No day to the zoo would be complete without ice cream! You couldn’t care less about most snacks, but ice cream is always on your mind!

Funny faces? Yup! You got em! You insisted on stopping here, to “take a little rest”. I think you just liked the idea of sitting on the ropes!

My little ladybug, you may sing like a warbling grasshopper but you can DANCE and make music! Like your Grammy, you love to sing, dance and anything to do with music brings you joy.

I love your curiosity, and how you ask questions. Nothing escapes you. You’re full of “whys?” and “hows?” and you want to know everything. And everything you learn, you teach your brother.

Can we talk about your sense of adventure, and how you’re not afraid of anything? Wouldn’t it be nice to keep you in a bubble, to keep you safe? Maybe not as a zoo exhibit, but this idea is interesting….

“Would I put on the 3D glasses and take the opportunity to make more funny faces? Yes please!”

Baba always tells you that you’re the coolest kid, ever. A long, lean, long haired fighting machine who walks on her tip toes. We say it’s because you were conceived in Romania, and you took in a little bit of the mystery and spark from that beautiful place.

You want to try everything! I think you might end up being like your Auntie, she’s the one who has to ride the roller coaster ten times before she can leave the park. Maybe it means you’ll be a world traveler like your parents. Right now, such childlike wonder in you makes me fear for you at the same time it makes me admire your free spirit.

Have I mentioned the funny faces?

We spent the whole day together, and as always you take my breath away. I see in you the past, the future, my heart, your soul. And a sweet little girl who at the end of the present day, just wants to eat her cotton candy and curl up on the couch with her mum and talk about everything we saw together.

I hope you enjoyed this month’s The Simple Things! Please visit the next amazing photographer in our group’s circle, Laura at Five Petals.

Little man in the studio today, showing off his kooky side!

He buried himself under mounds of pillows, with just his little feet showing. Oh the giggles coming from under those pillows ~ I was laughing while shooting.

Now that you have your digital images you’re excited to print them or share them online!

If your images were presented to you in digital format (ie. not prints), likely you’ve had them burned onto a CD or DVD.  You probably have two versions, and it’s important to understand the differences between the two. There might be two folders of images, one labeled “Full Resolution” or “For Printing”, and one labeled “Web Sized” or “For Web Sharing”.

FULL RESOLUTION VERSIONS FOR PRINTING

Resolution is a much more complex topic that I can cover here, but the crux here is pixels. There is more “information” (the pixels will number in the thousands).  The more pixels, the better they will print.

Crop carefully. Your photographer has taken great care to ensure your images look their best for printing, and cropping can result in loss of resolution.  If you have any concerns about the image, they will guide you on which size (5×7, 8×12 etc) is optimal for your print. Photographers retain the copyright to their artwork, and modification  is illegal so do not re-edit or modify the image.

Here is an example of crop sizes. You can see you lose a bit off the sides and the shape changes. Make sure you don’t lose important elements from a poor crop choice.
(Thank you to Chandra Vanderboom from Chandra Vanderboom Photography for creating the crop ratio document used in this illustration).

Another note: PPI, or pixel per inch. Most labs require your files be set to 240 or 300 PPI, so be sure to check with your printer if you are going to sharpen your images. Your photographer has more than likely prepared your images as 240 or 300 PPI. By and large, the PPI doesn’t matter, especially when it comes to viewing the images on your computer.

WEB SIZED VERSIONS FOR SHARING

The web versions I provide for my clients have been resized from thousands of pixels down to 900 pixels on the longest size.  You’ll notice the drastic reduction in pixels, which means that these versions will not print well. If you print them, they will be pixelated, blurry and very poor quality. Not exactly great for framing! The size change means some “web sharpening” is necessary, so if you print these versions the contrast will be heavy and they will look over sharpened.

These are great images for sharing because they are so small. They won’t take up a lot of space and upload quickly. If you upload the larger full resolution files it can overload servers, make for looooong upload time, and because they haven’t been optimized for web viewing will look a little out of focus and lack clarity.

WATERMARKS/COPYRIGHT

Finally, these web sized versions will most likely carry the watermark of your photographer. Please, please do not crop, blur or in any way try to remove this watermark. Your photographer has worked hard to provide you with your beautiful pictures, and retains the copyright for them. Photographers want you to share them with your loved ones, but they deserve credit for creating those wonderful pictures that you are so excited to share. I ask that you respect the work and give credit. Not just because it’s illegal not to do so, but because you appreciate the hard work and long hours put into making them.

I hope that clears up some confusion about the two versions of the images you have been provided! Photographers truly want you to love, cherish, and share the wonderful pictures of you and your family and we want you to be able to enjoy them in the best possible way!

Happy printing and web sharing!

A happy family is but an earlier heaven.

~ George Bernard Shaw