Posted in: Photography: Learning and Teaching | Retro | Women

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In honor of Valentine’s Day (which I love), I thought I would revisit Preston Castle and the Pin Up Girls.  I love the way they use red, especially on their lips, to the vintage feel of their look.  In the above photo, I took this in the rather scary basement of Preston Castle.  It was very dark down there, but the textures and colors on the walls were quite amazing and worked well with red.  Here I have her looking towards the basement door, which is wide open behind me and my camera, to get the light on her face.  She has a wonderful bemused look on her face and she had to stand quite still in order for me to get this shot.

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Here are the other two pin up girls at the photo shoot.  Note the great red color on their lips and the bright red flower in the one gal’s hair.  This shot was taken in the “back yard” of the castle.  You can see in the next photo that the back yard is really a huge open area of poured cement.  These gals were so much fun.  They had the poses and exaggerated pin up looks nailed.

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As you can see, this place is huge.  In fact, you will also note that I’ve cut off part of the top of the castle because I couldn’t back up any further without dropping into the Juvenile Detention Center located next door to the castle. (I think that may have been scarier than prowling around the basement in the castle.)  You can also see how tiny our pin up model looks compared to the size of the castle.  There are a lot of rooms to explore in that old building.

At any rate, I digress…081115_6163-edit

Here we are in the stairwell to the basement.  I love the cute little red bows on her stockings and she has a wonderful look on her face.  These gals were all pros and I didn’t need to give them much direction.

This final photo is back inside the castle.  I love the light on her face and the way she boldly shows off her features with her clothing and her pose.  If you got it…081115_6228-edit

…and she’s got it.

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  • February 15, 2009 - 2:22 pm

    Lesley - Very cute Valentiney girls! Um…and that’s quite the tattoo. She can definitely pull that look off…me, not so much!

  • February 16, 2009 - 9:40 am

    Julie - Wow!

    She got um’ alrighty…..

    love,
    Julie

Posted in: Christmas

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My husband brought home a bunch of cool 3D glasses from a store on Friday night so that we could see a couple of Super Bowl commercials in 3D.  The commercials were pretty cool, but I thought the people in my house were much more interesting.

Above, the men watch the game in the “man cave”.  The women basically stayed out of this room because there was way too much testosterone going on in there.  All of the men were rooting for the underdog Cardinals, so they were a little disappointed with the outcome.

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The women mostly stayed in this room to watch the game …I guess “watching the game” is a bit of a stretch since I don’t think any of us really watched the game, but we did enjoy each other’s company and the 3D glasses.   One young man vacillated between the rooms wanting to hang out with the men in one room and his girlfriend in the other.  Poor guy.

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Here’s my three men…my husband, and two sons…enjoying the commercials.  See what I mean about having more fun watching the watchers than the commercials?

And here are a few of my favorites.

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I don’t think any of these photos will go down as my all-time most beautiful pictures, but the memories provided by these photos will last long after the loveliest of my photos have been forgotten.

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  • February 3, 2009 - 10:27 am

    Lesley - Oh my gosh, great photos! (I’m so out of the loop I didn’t even know there were 3D commercials—of course I was working…) I love the black and white one and especially the one of your 3 “boys”. Looks like a great time!

Posted in: family

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I was taking a bunch of pictures of some of my younger relatives (children, nieces and nephews and their friends) while they were playing Guitar Hero a couple of weeks ago.  For the most part, these young people were having a lot of fun, but their faces were not showing it.  Their eyes were glued on the tv so that they could play the game.  But their faces were rather expressionless.  However, there is always one who is not afraid to break free from the crowd.

I caught this moment of my daughter cutting loose and thoroughly getting into the part of lead singer.  In fact, she reminded me of a picture of an infamous rock star from the 60’s…

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Not to say that my daughter is anything like Janis Joplin, but the pose reminded me of her…and since I’m reading Annie Leibovitz’s new book, “At Work”, I was more in the mode to think about rock star photography.  (I can’t find the name of the photographer who took the above photo but I do have a link back to where I got it.)  Annie Leibovitz is a very famous photographer who started out photographing rock and roll stars for Rolling Stone Magazine when they were both just starting out.  She’s taken absolutely fabulous photographs of some of the most famous people around…including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Demi Moore (pregnant and nude) and the Queen of England.  She also has a fantastic series called “Disney Dream Portrait Series” using famous people cast as Disney characters.  Take a peek by clicking on the link.

At any rate, I don’t think I’ll ever make it to the level of Annie Leibovitz or the photographer who took the above photo of Janis Joplin, but I do enjoy photographing people when they are having fun and aren’t aware of my camera (for my kids, I don’t think they would recognize me without my camera in front of my face, sad to say.)

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  • January 29, 2009 - 3:06 pm

    Lesley - The kids do get that comatose tv look playing that game don’t they? I like the photo of Aly–it’s awesome. I also like the disney portraits–especially the Alice in Wonderland.

Posted in: Children

dinogoestotealoresI was thinking about the photo collage that I made last week of my nephew and his girlfriend on the beach, so I thought I would try it again with a wonderful little guy I know who has graced my pages before. I found a very creative digital scrapbook designer by the name of Lori Davison over at Scrapbook Graphics.  She does wonderful fanciful things that are a lot of fun to play with.

This is almost too much for my eye to handle, but I just couldn’t stop.  Lori has so many wonderful elements and papers and frames…and I actually removed some of the elements.  At any rate, it was a fun way for me to add some creativity to a photo that I really like.

Hmmm…maybe it is a bit over the top?

NAH!

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  • January 26, 2009 - 12:17 pm

    Lesley Cox - I think it’s adorable even if Batman does look a little out of place (hee,hee).

  • January 26, 2009 - 7:28 pm

    Teresa K - You are so talented!

  • January 27, 2009 - 3:52 pm

    Pamela Baker - You BETTER go if a bee asks you to tea. I wanna go this looks so fun.

Posted in: Children | family

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My little friend came by to help me make some Mexican Chicken soup last night and he brought a school friend of his…Freddy the Frog.  He was Freddy’s caretaker for a week.  At the end of the week he returns the frog and turns in a one page story about his time with the frog.  So, I took a couple of pictures to help him tell the story.

Sadly, while my little friend was making the soup, the frog apparently got tired of reading the recipe to him and began to slide down the counter.  He’s apparently a rather lazy frog.090120_9317

Alas, I wore out my little friend with all the cooking and picture taking, so he was a touch grumpy when I suggested he read a quick story to Freddy so I could take the last picture.  It was a tough day of going to school, caring for Freddy and visiting me.  It wears me out just thinking about it.

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  • January 21, 2009 - 3:02 pm

    Lesley Cox - I love that little guys eyes. I never get tired of seeing pictures of him. My kids have had a book and animal that everyone gets a turn to take home too. It’s always been a big hit with them and a lot of fun.

  • January 22, 2009 - 11:01 am

    Pamela Baker - LOVE YOUR NEW LOGO. Good thing the frog did not
    fall in the soup. Love ya, pb

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