Of Christmas, Photoshop and Bokeh

Friday afternoon my mom called while I was at my church. She was in great distress because the Christmas cards she had ordered hadn't arrived yet (And ALWAYS gets them in the mail the first week of December).

After much confusion and several calls between her and the company, she found out that they were out of stock. She REALLY liked the card and the Bible verse on the front and could I maybe find time that weekend to MAKE her a card?

I reminded her that I wouldn't be home that evening and was going to Chicago for the day on Saturday and wasn't sure how soon I could get it done.

Anyways... this is the card she wanted:



Mom bought 'snow' and sparkly Christmas ornaments and I went to work on Tuesday morning.
My sister was afraid that it would look like we were copying their cards.

I think it's safe to say that I did not.

I really wanted some bokeh in the back ground of the picture but just couldn't seem to get the right effect and then I thought... Heh... why don't I just make some?
It was SO much fun. I ::love:: Photoshop. =)

It's a flat card and this is the front:




And this is the back (with room for everyone to sign it!):




And this http://abduzeedo.com/awesome-digital-bokeh-effect-photoshop is the link for the Photoshop tutorial on making freakin' sweet bokeh.

Have some fun making your own Christmas bokeh. ;-)
(c'mon, don't you just like that word??)

Kayla, Birthday Dates and Pink Elephants

Today is my niece Kayla's third birthday.
She's been so. so. so. excited about her birthday for... mm.. about 6 months now. haha!
Kayla been telling people that she's 'almost 3' since August. My sister said last night that she was having trouble getting her to go to sleep, Kayla who was too excited to sleep was laying in bed singing 'Joy to the World'.

I asked her a couple of weeks ago what she wanted for her birthday. Her list was very precise.
A 'capooter' (computer), a tooter (scooter), a trike, a 'silly tree' (red maple) and a black baby.

Kayla also informed me last night that she had added another item to her Birthday List: a pink elephant. That doesn't talk. (apparently this is a stuffed animal. Not the kind that talk. lol)

I have a tradition where I take each of my nieces for their birthdays. They get to choose which meal and the restaurant. (Usually McDonalds or Dairy DeLite).
Kayla chose breakfast so Dairy DeLite was out of the question. So the options were McDonalds or Yoder's Restaurant (no, my family does not own it, though my sister does make the pies and cinnamon rolls.)
Kayla chose Yoder's and then later come to find out, she thought I meant 'Grandma' Yoder's. lol

I convinced her that McDonald's had pancakes and reassured her that they also had chocolate milk.

I picked her up this morning and after checking out her new 'capooter' we headed back into town. She asked if she could have ice cream with her pancakes. haha. I said probably not and that we could get a fruit smoothie instead.
She was quite overjoyed at this compromise, especially if we could get Wildberry which is her 'favorite'.

She thoroughly enjoyed her pancakes and sausage AND the fact that she had chocolate milk AND a wildberry smoothie. She kept exclaiming over how 'yum-may' everything was and 'You have to taste this!' She is more like me than her mother wishes, I'm sure. ;-)

After we finished up breakfast and packed up her leftovers we went to 'The Froggy Park', which is a usual stop on Birthday Dates with the nieces. It was a bit chilly, but we were the only ones there and I let Kayla wear my gloves.
We had fun playing and taking pictures. She's quite the little model. And loves to take pictures. She couldn't understand why she could take pictures with my new lens (Oh, yes. I in fact DID buy a 70-200mm f2.8 II!).

Here are some of the product from today's Birthday Date shoot. =)










This is Kayla and she is beautiful. Inside and out and I'm SO proud to be her Aunt. =)
Happy Birthday, Kayla. I love you soooooo much!!!

Of Flowers, Light and Years Gone By

Yep, I have officially dug into the 'archives' for this post.
Well, it's just then I recently re-discovered this shot and it's never been posted for the world to see...


This was taken at Garden of the God's while I was in Colorado for some classes with the Institute of Photographic Studies in September of 2008. Isn't it pretty??? =)
I just loved the light coming down through the trees to light up the black eyed susans.
And it's probably one of the last of my shoots before I switched to shooting in RAW. ;-)

Of Sunrises, Sunsets and God's Goodness & Love

Wow, hello world!

First off, let me apologize for leaving you (all 7 of my readers!) for so long.
Whew, as probably most of you know, shortly after my last post I, with my youth group took a 10 day missions trip to Ecuador.
It was an absolutely incredible trip, I (again with my youth group) had taken another missions trip to Ecuador 4 years ago in 2006. So it was so, so good to see all of my friends and 'family' there. Someday, I'll have to dedicate a couple of posts to my trip so you all can see some pictures and hear (read) some of the stories from the trip!

Tonight's post is featuring some of God's most beautiful paintings (at least this week!)
I'm not usually a fan of sunrises, unless you're at the beach. Eh, I can do without them. Some friends & I were discussing the differences between sunrises and sunsets a few weeks ago. We were on the road at a very un-godly hour of like 5:30 a.m. And we decided that while sunrises are pretty, sunsets have them beat, hands-down. For some reason they just seem cooler. AND as one of my friends pointed out, "You're not so tired."
Maybe that's why we enjoy them more. We can be more relaxed at the end of a busy day, rather than being up too early after not-nearly-enough sleep about to begin a long day.

This was taken on Sunday morning on my way to church a little before 8 a.m.

Fall mornings are so, so very beautiful. They seem quieter than summer, maybe not as quiet as winter mornings but definitely right up there (and not as cold!). Maybe it's the fog... I don't mind a little fog in the mornings, as long as it's not thick I don't have to drive in it.

This is a 10-shot panorama of tonight's sunset. My sister called me to say that the sunset was beautiful and told me to go out and see it. I completely trust her opinion and grabbed my camera on my way out.
Wow. God. =)

For awhile now, I've been contemplating and basically just being overwhelmed by God's goodness. In any and every situation, good and bad. God is still good. He can't help, but be good.
It's because He loves us that He is a judge over man. And because He loves us and is a judge, He created the plan of salvation to save us, because He is good.

I was reminded on Sunday morning of a song by the band, The After's.
In an interview, singer/songwriter Josh from the band shares this about the song:

"Every morning when you see the dark give way to the light of the sun
-that's a reminder that we live in God's world."

Of Little Girls, Tea Parties and Dress-Up

This week I was babysitting for a little girl named Teanna for a couple of days... I invited my nieces out to play with her. Today we had a tea party and pool party (NOT at the same time)

I got out my play jewelry box and they got all dressed up. Little girls are so fun. =)

















Tonight I'm doing Teanna's portraits! =) I did portraits for her about a year and a half ago.












Te asked me the other day "Do you remember the LAST time we took pictures? And it was SO cold and it was raining and we got hot chocolate??" haha! I love this girl...

Of Names, Journals and Vacation Bible School

I decided on a name for my new camera:

Meet > Nyles Dietrich






This is my new journal .... it inspires me.

This week I was the photographer for vacation Bible school at my church.
Here's the slideshow I put together for the program at the end of the week.

Of Travels, Cameras & New Names

So rather than getting my poor Nathan fixed, I decided to upgrade and buy a Nikon D90.
I was having kind of a hard time being really excited about having to spend the money to buy a new camera when I was trying to save money for a 70-200mm f2.8 lens.
But after a week with no camera, (even my mom's small digital camera had dead batteries) especially a weekend in Akron, OH at a really cool hotel : The Quaker Square Inn, I was definitely ready to have a camera again. I think this was proof that I can't stop being a photographer. lol
This week I am the photographer for Vacation Bible School at my church and am supposed to put together a slideshow for the program on Thursday evening. I've been having a lot of fun learning all of the new things that the D90 can do.

I am looking for a name for my new camera! It must begin with the letter "N"

Leave a comment with your ideas!

Of Weddings, Broken Cameras and Answered Prayers

I was really excited about this wedding, two of my friends were getting married, it was an outdoor ceremony, Megan Decoteau of MRae Photography was flying up to help me shoot the wedding, I rented a fisheye lens, and I wasn't nervous at all.
But the day didn't go exactly as planned but God came through anyway.

Just as the pastor was pronouncing the couple as Mr. & Mrs. Beck and they were ready to walk down the aisle, my camera flashed an error message and stopped working. I found out later that the shutter had worn out. I was so glad to have Megan there to get the shots of the couple and wedding party coming back down the aisle. And praise the Lord for my cousin Ryan who was running the sound system and had his camera gear with him and let me borrow Nora, his Nikon D60.

The rest of the day seemed to go well, until I got home that night and finished loading pictures and going through them and I realized that I was missing all of my pictures from after the ceremony. I started frantically going through all of my SD cards again and making sure they didn't just get saved to a different folder. But the worst thing possible had happened, With several identical cards that were not all labeled, I had apparently formatted the card, thinking that I had already loaded it, when in fact, I had not.

I bought and downloaded a program called "CardRecovery" deciding it was probably a good business expense anyway. I didn't even know which card it had been, so I ran the program on all 5 of the cards I'd used that day, praying that I would find the pictures. But it was only bringing up pictures from a year ago.

Some of us girls had decided to go watch "Killers" at the theater. I tried to enjoy it but I kept thinking about my lost pictures. I knew Megan had gotten plenty of shots and this is why I have a second shooter. But I'd gotten some really, really good shots that I was excited about and I felt that being the main photographer I'd let down my friends who'd gotten married.

It was a pretty miserable night. I wanted to cry (and truth be told, I actually did.) My friend John McPherson of JM|Imagery called and told me his own horror stories of losing images and gave me some tips and the names of a few other programs to try.

At 1:30 a.m. I finally decided to try running the program one more time, I picked up a card, put it in the slot, started the program and went to take a shower. I prayed again that God would recover my images and promised to never format a card again until I saw every last one of my images on my hard drive and to label all of my cards.

After the shower I came out to check on my computer and saw that it had finished recovered over 400 pictures. I thought it must just be the pictures that it had recovered earlier. But when I checked the files, hallelujah they were all of my missing pictures!!
Everyone else in the house was asleep so even though I felt like screaming, I whispered "Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord."

So, hallelujah, our God is the God of lost images. =)

"The LORD said to Moses, 'Is the LORD's power limited?
Now you shall see whether My word will come true for you.'"
-Numbers 11:23

Here's some of my favorites so far:

Of Wednesdays, Home and Fisheye

This post is what a "normal" Wednesday is like at my house --Seen through the "not-normal" way of my fisheye lens that I rented for a wedding this weekend.

First off, my sister Jessica bakes cinnamon rolls and pies for a local restaurant every Wednesday. So our house is always hot and smelling good. And it's also messy... lol
This is what the kitchen/dining room area looks like:

This is the door from the kitchen into the office... that's my dad at his desk.

An empty wok with remnants of the pork stir-fry I made for lunch.

In between putting pies in the oven, Jess has been playing from my Selah music books

Philip & Susanna are building stuff with Legos.


Early on in our Lego building days, Mom came up with a solution to having Legos end up all over the house: Old bed sheets.
Then when you're done you just wrap up the sheets, Legos and all and put them back in the box.
Handy, no?

A couple of the finished products: Pecan, Rhubarb and Rhubarb Custard pies...

And there you have it... a Wednesday in the Yoder house as seen through a Fisheye lens.

Of Accidents, Breakfasts & Porches

My sister Lindsey, while cleaning up around her new house last Thursday evening, tried to pick up a piece of plywood that she forgot was covering the septic tank and ended up falling in and messing up her knee. Here's a picture of her in the ER while Jess tries to clean up some of the nastiness:

So, because of Lindsey being laid up with her knee until Wednesday when she goes back to the doctor, my sister Jessica & I (and our friend Angela) have been spending the night with Lindsey to keep her company and help her out with meals, etc.

This morning I had my breakfast of "Egg In a Basket" and cranberry pomegranate juice out on Lindsey's front porch while doing my devotions.

"The LORD is high above all nations;
His glory is above the heavens.
Who is like the LORD our God,
Who is enthroned on high,
Who humbles Himself to behold
The things that are in heaven and in the earth"
-Psalm 113:4-6

Of Ice Cream, Friends and Goodbyes

Last night we went out for a little "Going Away" party for Joy.

Joy & I have been friends basically since we were babies... lol
I love her so, so, so much. I just wish she could always be home!
But unfortunately, I have to share her.
One Wednesday she's leaving for Slovenia until the end of July for a missions trip.
Even though I'm gonna miss my chica, I'm so glad that she's taking this opportunity to work for God.
She's a fun-haver, a song-singer, a risk-taker, an encourager, a lover of God and people.
In short --she's awesome.

Oh, and we share the same most awesomest nieces in the world.

Of Nieces, Lunch and Fun

I like to take out each of my nieces for a "date" for their birthdays. They can pick breakfast, lunch or supper and choose the place.

Hannah chose the Dari DeLite. We had a lovely little date and afterwards we had a fun photoshoot and went to the park.
I so can't believe that my niece is 7 years old! It's crazy!

Here's a couple of shots from the day....

Hannah wanted to take some pictures... she wasn't bad at all! ;-)

Of Mornings, Light and Peas

I picked and shelled the first little batch of peas this morning... =)
Call me weird, but I actually LIKE to shell peas. lol
There's just something fun about cracking open the pods and letting all of those pretty green peas roll out into your hand.
I decided they were way too cool and the morning light way too pretty to just enjoy it myself so, here you are!

Macro --because it's fun!