43/365 A Few From The Zoo

My mom has been wanting to take Gabrielle to the zoo for over a year and today she finally got her wish!  I think Gabrielle enjoyed the excursion, but she was far more interested in watching babies than animals.  I took the opportunity to take tons of pictures and learned quite a bit about what I have been doing WRONG.  Next time I'm definitely going to opt for my 70-200mm lens over the 100mm and I'm going to concentrate on closing down my aperture much more.  All in all, it was a good learning experience.

Something about me caught the interest of this meerkat because it came right over to stare at me

 

Too bad this glass was so filthy!

42/365 At The Park With Oma

41/365 Family Day

Gabrielle had tons of fun playing with this box at Tante Isabelle and Uncle Ralph's house

Gabrielle with her great-grandparents

40/365 In My Oma's Garden

Our stormy afternoon today provided a great opportunity for me to take out my macro lens. Luckily the storm passed as I was arriving at our family reunion and I was able to take some pictures in my Oma's beautiful garden before dinner.

39/365 Too Much Fun

Ready For Bed

38/365 A Typical Afternoon

What does a little girl like mine do when she's stuck inside all afternoon?  Well, first she might collect some toys to play with....

 Then she'll decide that playing with Tupperware is much more fun.

After that she might try to convince me to take her to the park yet again, even though the weather looks ominous and it's ten minutes before nap time.

Then she may remember all the toys she collected and play mommy for a while (she loves to imitate everything now).

Then comes nap time!

On another note, I feel like I'm coming to a photography crossroad and I'm not sure what to do.  I really prefer natural light to flash, but the lighting in our house is poor, and I usually end up bumping up my ISO quite high to avoid motion blur (toddlers are fast!) All the noise in my pictures is starting to bother me and noise reduction in PP only does so much.  It seems that I will have to either invest in a speed light (and learn how to use it), starting thinking about a camera that can handle noise a little better, or figure out some other lighting solution.  If you have any other suggestions, just leave them in the comments below.  I'd be happy to hear from you.

Today's post is part of Mama Loves Papa's Small Style.

Shirt: The Gap

Skirt: Arizona Jeans

Leg Warmers: Baby Legs

37/365 Downtime



An exhausted Gabrielle winding down before bed



Today I'm linking up with The Long Road To China for Black and White Wednesday