More fun with the camera

Calistaglowsweb
Originally uploaded by lisablaschke

So I set up my little home studio the other night to play around with the lights and try new things when Calista wandered into the room and said "Take a picture of me," which she never says. Usually it's "are we done yet?" Being the daughter of a photographer has made her dread posing for pictures the way most kids dread going to the dentist. So I snapped one or two pictures off and low and behold I see this on my LCD screen. Wow! I thought, that looks really pretty. So I wanted to share it with all of you. I think I'll add some shots like this into my little bag of tricks.

Workshops coming up

Today I signed up for a couple of workshops that I'm really excited about. The first is a "trash the dress" workshop in Brenham in a couple of weeks. I should get an opportunity to really have some fun and learn a few things. Trash the dress is a fairly new concept that involves taking a beautiful white wedding dress -- or any formal dress I suppose -- and then going out into the field and setting up some unusual shots that may end up getting the dress quite messy and dirty. The idea is that brides take these shots after the wedding when they no longer need their dress and aren't concerned about it getting "trashed".

The other is a bridal portrait workshop in Austin set for June. I'm really looking forward to that one because I've heard great things about this company and they have some really beautiful and dramatic bridal portraits on their website. I'm excited about getting into the line of wedding photography and I hope to learn a lot at this session.

In other news, I have a couple of photo shoots this weekend that I'm looking forward to. I hope to post a few pictures from them on my blog next week. I have some ideas to make some very romantic husband and wife portraits for these clients. Look for those soon!

My New Van

The Blaschkes have a new member of the family. As I told you previously, we put our long time minivan for sale the other day. It was snapped up pretty quickly -- and why shouldn't it be, it was a great car! But I was left without a car all of a sudden, so off we trek to our local used car dealer - because I don't buy new. We found a newer version of my old reliable Caravan. This one is a bit bigger, which is important because my children seem to keep getting bigger and bigger -- that's what happens when you feed those things! I also needed more space for my equipment.

My favorite feature on this thing is the plug for my MP3 player, if only I can figure out how to use the thing. I also like the stow and go seating and the built in child restraint system. I'm thinking of ordering one of those big stickers for the back window to advertise my site and get more traffic here.

Rained out sessions

Well it looks like my photo sessions for this Saturday are going to be rained out. That's one of the drawbacks to doing location shooting. There's always the possibility of bad weather. So instead of doing photo shoots I'll be driving around looking for possible shoot locations for future sessions. Or I could take advantage of the rain out to actually stay home and do housework -- Nahh!

In other news I put my van up for sale today. It's a 1998 minivan that I bought when I was pregnant with Keela. Keela is now 8 years old! It's taken us on a lot of fun trips and there are so many memories attached to it. Bringing Keela home for the first time, bringing Orion home for the first time, driving back and forth from Temple to Columbus to Bastrop. I get attached to things, even old cars, so I know I'll be getting sentimental as we find a new home for this van and move on to the next one that will be coming shortly. We'll have to peel Keela's sticker collection off the back window. And remove the melted crayon from the back cup holder. And of course take off the Aggie stickers and the sticker that says "Got breastmilk" on the back window. I'm sure our new van will bring us just as much fun. I can't wait to meet it.

Models Needed

Well I had a model set up for a artistic bridal shoot that I have in mind and she canceled out on me. I was really looking forward to it. So that leaves me with tons of ideas and inspiration and no model to carry them out. If you wear a size 8 and want some free images for a portfolio, give me an e-mail.

Music for my site

I've been going back and forth about the issue of music on my site. Some people say it needs music to go with the slide show, but others say they hate music on websites. So for now, I have an idea. Those of you who like music on their websites do this: open up a new tab on your web browser and go to the site of your choice that has cool music on it. I recommend www. juliabailey.com for looking at photographic slideshows. Her music is great and the photos are cool too. But you won't be looking at those because then you're going to open another tab and go back to my site www.lisaonlocation.com. Now just sit back and enjoy the slide show and the music.

The Boy's Birthday

Orioncake
Originally uploaded by lisablaschke

Well my baby boy turned 3 yesterday and it was an exhausting day of toddler birthday parties and the ever popular Chuck E. Cheese. I had this wonderful idea to make a cake and create a dinosaur scene on top with little plastic toys. I made the mistake of icing the cake while everyone was eating lunch and then decided to lay the little ones down and finish up during naptime. I turned my back for literally two minutes and come back to find this.

He was so proud of his creation. He delights in making messes. Fortunately, uncle Shaggy showed up with an ice cream cake for us. I couldn't resist his little mess, however, and let him put the candles on this one. We just told everyone that the cake was an artistic creation of the dinosaurs coming upon a tarpit , within which the dinosaurs would fall and be lost for millions of years -- or until we dug them out and ate around them.