Little Corner of Ania

And may I just say...wow!
What a blast! Seriously!
Alright, the cartrip over the mountains wasn't all that with a kid who got carsick and couldn't express anything else but "my stomach hurts" and hm, yeah, let's just leave it at that. You see, Norwegian roads aren't exactly on par with normal European standards - at least not the ones going over the mountains.....which kinda do have it's natural reasons, but still... :p

Anyways. We arrived Oslo late night on thursday, stayed with my mom and went to visit my sister on friday. I hadn't seen sis & her children for eight months, which's way too long - so I'm very glad for this chance to get to drop by her and her new house while going to Elverum for the wedding. So. Left the kids with my mom and went on to Elverum for the pre-wedding-party - a BBQ at the brides' parents place (a former farm w/ their own barn and bakeryhouse and stuff).

The next morning - saturday - the bride and her sister (who also was maid of honor) picked me up at the pension we stayed at and we went to the church for rehearsals, to the makeup-lady and to the girl who did her dress. May I just say. I'm *so* happy the bride agreed to have me come along for this. I got such an unique chance to take part of such a big and important day of her life...a peek behind the scenes....I'm so happy...and I so hope my pictures...although not all of them too good......that the best of them...will make her happy in return... I really dunno what to say because this was such an opportunity and I'm still in awe of being allowed to well, be a part of her day that special day.... ohwell... nuff sappy babling.

It's interesting shooting for others but yourself - it makes you have to look at the pictures in a new light and with way more critical eyes than normal and thus discover certain things you maybe didn't realize before..) At least that's how I feel right now.

What I learned:

1. Give more space around the borders/edges.
2. Stop giving so much unnecessary space to the upper part of the pictures. Nrgh! Note to self, pick focuspointthingie more often - the one where you can decide where it's gonna be - I think it might be the blame (having it at the middle the majority of the time) combined with the urge to catch the moment before it's gone (and I/the camera's actually ready).
   
3. Invest in another memcard or two...or actually, preferrably a media-storagethingie which can take the card (so it doesn't require the camrea to be occupied while I'm backuping the memcards. Hm. Or both. Enough cards for a whole wedding (I only had one 1gb & one 2gb card) so I don't have to delete the prev pictures immediately *and* something to backup them with without having to leave the camera occupied for that (2gb = 45-50minutes transfer :( )
   
4. Learn how to use the friggin flash properly. Esp the slavestuff.
5. Don't be so friggin stupid & shy to ask to move the darn candles away from sight while seated for the dinner. ARGH! Sorry but I was thinking about it but didn't want to be even more trouble than I already kinda was. Thought I could work my way around it. Bleh. :(
   
6. I want D300. Although I wouldn't mind D3!!! *smiles sweetly*
7. I want better lenses! (Hm. Maybe I do need some kind of sugardaddy. *cough*)
8. I so want to learn MORE!
9. I so hope shooting in RAW was worth all this post-hassle. (and Im not even done looking thru the pictures briefly - the postediting is yet to come ...sometime this week....so many things I need to get done...argh!)
10. I felt more comfortable during the preparations - not much pressure & we were mostly static so I could take good time taking each photo etc. The church was..well...I was at my most nervous there I think as it was like, well, no retakes and stuff and things happened so fast and it's like, the most important part (like, getting hitched duh). The dinner and stuff - well - the darker it got the more difficult it was taking pictures. See note 4. Although I do believe that no-flash for the dinner is best esp as it kinda conveys the special atmosphere. Sorta. Ohwell. Overall I think the quality of the photos went slowly down from the beginning of the church and onwards - but hm, I did tell the bride that I'd focus on her especially and her preparations as I'd feel more ok with that than the other important stuff. Kinda.
    

Anyways. I'm not quite sure how many pictures I did shoot - but I think it must be close to 800-1000 - atm I'm transferring the pictures to my pc while at the same time going through them to delete the worst pictures. Gonna go through them at least twice - once to convert them into jpgs and a second time to more post-editing. I think. The plan is to fix jpg's of them and web-sized versions of some of them so they're ready to be presented the bride&groom in DVD-format. Maybe a webbased one aswell with the web-piccies. I dunno yet. We'll see. Reminds me. Need to get Lightroom!

I couldn't resist editing a few pictures while waiting for the transfer of piccies to be finished -- so here's some peeks :)

For those who rather wants to read about scrapbooking; move on down to the next post about this weeks pencillines-layout.

Yay for en helg!!
Kjørte over til Oslo torsdag ettermiddag - startet ved tretiden og kom frem ved ellevetiden. Kjøreturen var - tja - grei nok, bortsett fra at Adrian ble skikkelig kvalm et par ganger :( Amalie var oppslukt av DVD-filmene så det var jo kjekt nok - men det var nok akkurat det som gjorde Adrian kvalm. Veldig kjekt å se mamma igjen - når en bor så langt hjemmefra så blir disse treffene som regel alt for sjeldne. Spes kjekt å besøke det nye huset til Pia og å se ungene igjen. Og så kom pappa også - perfekt! :)

Etterlot ungene i mammas varetekt og dro videre til Elverum der bryllupet skulle være. Fredagen var viet til en stor grillfest (og paintball/gokart for de som ville) på gårdstunet til brudens foreldre. Dagen etterpå var den store dagen - og det var skikkelig flott å kunne få være med og ta del i brudens dag på en slik måte som jeg fikk lov til -- jeg ble med henne og hennes forlover - som også var søsteren hennes - og tok bilder av dagen hennes. Fra øvelsene i kirken til sminkingen og kjolepåkledelsen og kirken og festen etterpå. Spesielt det å få være med "bak scenen" på dagen var helt supert og ja..veldig veldig spesielt... utrolig glad for denne sjansen og håper at hun blir fornøyd med bildene... har jo mye å lære... spesielt teknisk...mht komposisjon... jeg tar ofte bilder uten å egentlig ha tid til å komposisere (sp?) skikkelig fordi jeg er så redd for å miste øyeblikket.. jeg må prøve å få til dette litt mer automatisk - at jeg tar de riktige bildeutsnittene og sånn uansett... føler jeg har lært kjempemye bare av den ene dagen - litt fordi jeg føler disse bildene er så viktige at jeg vier mer fokus og tid på disse enn "vanlig"... håper jeg får flere lignende sjanser til ;) Spes gøy å ha "lov" til å ta bilder av noe helt annet enn ungene!! :p

Hm. Klokka nærmer seg tre nå, jeg må opp om fem timer og ta med Amalie til barnehagen (og få Adrian opp av sengen og bort til skolen) og jeg er enda ikke ferdig med å overføre/se igjennom alle bildene for grovsorteringa. Hrmf. Jaja. MÅ bare vise et par bilder da -snikkikk for bruden m.fl. til jeg blir ferdig med de andre bildene...sånn en gang neste år ellerno så mange bilder som jeg har tatt *cough*.

PS!! Kristin!!
Ikke få for høye forhåpninger nå da, jeg plukket bare ut noen VELDIG få bilder (og klokka er eek...halv fire og jeg er alt for trøtt til dette).... og ikke prøv å ta "lagre som" for å skrive ut disse bildene: de er optimalisert for web - mao - IKKE egnet for utskrift! Vent heller på CD'n i posten..en eller annen gang forhåpentligvis snart...
*yawn* zzzzzz....