Adding to the Collection!

Meet the newest member of my camera bag:



This is a Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III USM lens. I bought it refurbished from Adorama, but am confident that it will work wonderfully. I'm hoping it will be delivered by the end of this week. I'm bringing it with me on my trip to New York next week! I've been given a fantastic opportunity to photograph some of the speakers at the meeting we are organizing. Unfortunately I imagine I will not be able to publicly share any of those pictures, but I'm excited nonetheless. Perhaps I'll have a couple of free moments where I can photograph the city.

Sophie's Cookie Decorating Party

This session was different than any of the sessions I've done yet. I liked it! My colleague Jen, who I did photos for back in November, asked if I would be interested in taking photos at her daughter's cookie decorating party over the weekend. Of course I was interested!

Sophie had 6 of her friends over, and they gathered around the kitchen table to cover cookies in bright colored frosting, sprinkles, and candies. Such a cute idea! I am happy to say I got a lot of cute shots, and had a difficult time picking out the few to share here. Oh, and my watermark is different because I don't have the file I normally use on me right now. I just threw something else together in the meantime.




Sophie, the hostess.






The best part of decorating cookies is eating the cookies, of course!







After the fun with the cookies, the girls bobbed for apples and then played dress up!






They took dress-up time quite seriously.


A princess parade!

In other camera-related news, I purchased an external flash, the Speedlite 430EX II. I was super intimidated by it at first, but now that I've had some practice I can say I LOVE it. I've been experimenting with bounce flash, and am surprised that it is easier than I expected. Who knew you could use a flash and have photos that look like you DIDN'T use a flash?

Eeee!! New Lens!!

It came, hooray! I ordered the 50mm f/1.8 on Monday, and it has arrived. I cannot WAIT to try it out! I may have to wait until the weekend, though, to have the opportunity to use it in natural light. Stupid winter/no daylight.

New Camera!

Proof that my husband rocks:



This is what he gave me Friday night as a (two-week early) birthday gift!! Yay!!

It's a Canon Digital Rebel XSi. My little Nikon point-and-shoot has been driving me up the wall lately with mysteriously blurry photos, and I have been itching for an SLR camera of my own after borrowing Schuelke's camera on multiple occasions.

Let the fun begin!