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Today I am thankful for my awesome, incredible, spectacular, fabulous, and super duper new camera. Yes, I said new camera. I got a Nikon D700 today. I also got the lens that I have been dying to have - the 24-70mm 2.8. I am blown away by the camera and lens so far. The reason why I have wanted an upgraded body (I have been shooting a D200 which is a great camera) is because my D200 limited me from being able to increase my ISO much at all. If I got to an ISO over 400, the pictures started having so much noise that I hated them. As long as you are outside or in a really well lit home, this is fine. You shouldn't need your ISO above 400 that often, but there are definitely times when you have less than ideal lighting conditions and I either had to use my external flash (a Nikon SB600 - which I am a HUGE fan of) or I just missed out on the shot. The D700 is known for its low noise at high ISOs. Now, when I go to shoot a newborn indoors, I don't have to stress so much about the amount of light coming in the house. I can crank up the ISO and know that the pictures will still be usable, which has not been the case in the past. For those of you just learning, you want to keep your ISO on the lowest possible setting you can to still get the shot in sharp focus. I keep my ISO on 200 most of the time. No matter what camera you have, you will start seeing noise show up in your pictures as you increase the ISO. I LOVE the lens. It is crisp, the bokeh is beautiful, and it is really fast. It is HUGE though. And so heavy. It is going to take some getting used to for sure. My thoughts are that I need the proper equipment to do my job correctly, and I feel 100 times more confident now. In honor of my new camera and lens, every single picture in this post are straight out of the camera. Not a single post process done on any of them. Pretty amazing, huh?

I waited at the door for my camera to get here all morning. I was so impatient while I waited. It finally came at 1:30 - right in time to put my models down for nap. :( I have never wanted them to get up from their nap so badly. Once they were up, we went to another lake by our house with ducks. I am determined to find cool places to take pictures. I am so tired of taking them at my house or the park. This is a big goal of mine. I was so desperate for something different today that I lugged our antique purple chair outside by myself. I love those chairs and hope to use them in pictures a lot some day. I plan on reading my Digital Field Guide tonight and playing around with the camera. Yeah! It is going to be a fun weekend!

I have avoided even talking about this because I swear I am in denial about it - but on March 1st, Annie turned 11 months old. I, quite literally, cannot deal with the fact that she is going to be a year old already. I want her to stay just like she is for a lot longer. All she does is smile, coo, talk, giggle, snuggle, and make everyone around her so very happy. I don't want her to get too busy for me! In less than a month, I will have to start telling people that she is a year old. I am just not ready for her to be a year. The time we have had with her has flown by. I had to mention this today though because she did two things today that made me so proud of her. First, she went from the sitting position to laying down position twice without falling or getting upset. This has never happened before today. If she went from sitting to laying it was because she fell over. Not today though. This is huge! And then, Mandy and Anna were over for lunch today and I looked over at Annie and said hi to her and she plain as day, said the sweetest, "ma ma" you have ever heard. I think Mandy and I both almost cried. It was amazing. So glad I had a witness here. In the past week she has figured out how to get from point a to point b without crawling. She does a butt scoot in the sitting position and can now get all the way across the room. I promise to get it on video soon. She became so determined when she started noticing the dog bowls. She will do anything to get to those bowls. I hope she will start crawling soon. She wants to move so badly when she is on her tummy, she just can't quite figure it out. We will get there, pumpkin, I promise!

Hope you all have a great weekend. Lots of pictures today. I am sure you can imagine that I took just a few. I am sure there will be a lot over the next several days! :)

Not a thing done to make her eyes sparkle or her skin tone perfect. Just shot in manual and this is how she looked. I am honestly blown away.




The richness of the colors is shocking to me.
















One of my all time favorites of this silly girl.