Those special childhood moments - collected and captured

For the past 6 weeks, I've been part of a wonderful photography ecourse - Collect the Moments, run by Kat and Kat from Capturing Childhood. When I first heard about their new endeavour, I was instantly drawn to it, simply because I love their photography, and who can be a better teacher than those whose art you admire?

I've been taking photos as long as I can remember. I used to be even quite ambitious, and geeky about it. Yes, I did darkrooms and went totally manual when there were automatic SLRs on the market, and then I got totally into sports photography (I still struggle to bin those thousands of tennis photos that I took). Somehow though, all that I once knew, had become a bit rusty. Yes, I picked up the camera much more once I got my DSLR a couple of years ago but it was more hit and miss. Sometimes I was totally happy with my photos, other times they didn't live up to my expectations. Trouble was, I couldn't tell what had gone wrong.

It was the perfect timing for me - still on reduced hours and holiday time, which means that work, while still busy, isn't taking over my life. So I signed up.

Well, what can I say? I loved it. The course did so many things for me. It brought back my lost knowledge of how to work and be in control of aperture and shutter speed. For the first time I learned about composition and really looked into how light affects the photographic outcome. I analysed my shots, and was inspired by those taken by my fellow students. I found out about free tools out there that I didn't know about, and nailed down the problems that previously led to disappointing photos. I started using the tools of my camera, one at a time, and could even be found reading the manual!

By week 2, I was sitting at my computer waiting for new posts or waiting for people to upload their most recent assignment shots to the flickr group to admire them. It was so refreshing seeing childhood through so many eyes, so many perspectives and with so much love and tenderness.

I've taken away a theoretical knowledge that I never had, refreshed the knowledge that once upon a time I did have and lost on the way, and the motivation to dig deeper into the potential of my DSLR. The latter translates to having registered for the next course, the Manual Overdrive bootcamp which will be all about going manual on the DSLR (and registration is still open). I'm also now making more of an effort to have the camera with me all of the time, so I don't miss those special and fleeting moments of childhood. Yes I may have been the annoying papparazza on our recent holiday, but hey ho, it was worth it! Now that I know what works and how to overcome photographic challenges, all that is left is putting it into practice. And mastering the beast of the manual settings!

In case you were wondering - I do take photos of my children's faces of course. Some of the best shots are in fact the moments captured. However, these are the pictures which I'm happy to share publicly.

Holidaying

It almost feels as if we hadn't actually been on holiday. It all happened rather quickly, and I don't think I've ever stumbled into my holiday this badly organised. Sometimes though it works out anyway.

We'd been to Devon, in the hope of some warm but not hot weather, some sunshine and beach.

It rained. It poured. It rained some more.

And you know what? It was just fine. We'd stayed at a place that had an indoor swimming pool right next to it, a play park and a trampoline too, and a toy and DVD library. And I'd brought not one, no two knitting projects. We can do rain.
Still. It was nice to also have a hire car and explore Devon and Cornwall.

There was a lot of knitting in cars while manoeuvring through hedgerow lined roads. The manoeuvring was done expertly by t'hubby, the knitting similarly expertly by me (cough cough).
There were many trips to the pool and the kids loved it. Apart from Snowflake who liked to watch and throw balls instead which was fine by me, not being a pool fan myself.
There were visits to the Eden Project, Dartmoor, Clovelly, Bude, Holsworthy.
There was a lot of playing by 4 cousins without the need of adult interference.
There was a lot of TV - DVDs, tennis (Snowflake calls it Fussball which I find quite cute) mainly.
There were long train journeys and one ugly interchange station.
There were late nights for the kids.
There was a duck pond with ducks and geese ready for bread.
There were donkey rides, market days.
There was wool from a local Devon sheep. Could I resist? Rhetorical question. I still buy yarn quicker than knit it up.
There were lovely country inns, woodland walks, and about 400 pictures taken.

Cubling cried when we said goodbye. She wanted to stay in her new home, the Badger House, forever. So with one grumpy child and one under the weather with a nasty cough child we returned home, just in time for the Wimbledon final. "Fussball, Fussball, Andy, Andy!"

The challenge of the week is to dry the holiday laundry. I can do rain, but the laundry doesn't like it.

PS you can see some run downs on our outdoor adventures on my other blog, Nature Kids.