Hannah Senior Portraits

 Well, here are my first "official" senior portraits. After a bit of preparation, we finally got it done. I wasn't sure how they would turn out, but I must say I am pleased with the results. It also helps to have a willing subject. 

 It was a nice, warm, autumn evening, and the sun was setting, and the light was perfect.  

 Here I used the wood of the building, to bounce back a little light into her face. This was one of the things I had forgotten to grab; my reflector. Any of you who do photography, know this is a huge mistake,to forget your reflector, especially if you do natural light photography. So I was going to have to improvise.  

 So as the sun started to go down, I was desperate for more light. Another thing lacking in my photos, was a "catch light" in my subjects eyes. Luckily, there was a dumpster near the construction sight, that had some insulation in it, which has a white, and silver side to it. Perfect.

 As you can see in the photo below, the minute we added the improvised reflector, the eyes became more alive, and I had much more light to work with. 

 We ended up, down in the trees, taking advantage of the beautiful colors. We had fun experimenting with different poses, and enjoying the sunset as the sun disappeared behind the hills in the distance.

 After a while, we didn't have much light, and I had maxed out my memory card, taking pictures. So we scheduled for a second session, when there would be some snow.

 The second session was extremely cold. However, I didn't forget my reflector this time! :) It wouldn't have felt so bad had we been moving, but since we weren't, the cold seeped in through our coats, reminding us it was near winter. 

 Luckily, her mother had the forethought to make a thermos of hot coco, taking the edge off the cold.

 We had woken up before the sunrise, to take advantage of the first rays of sunlight, before  the quality of light, was too harsh, and would cast hard shadows on her face. Also because she had to go to work before we could do them in the evening.

 At first, I had thought for sure, the sun would not come out that morning, because it was overcast, and there was no break in the clouds as far as I could see. But God decided to bless us with a break in the clouds, and a wonderful sunrise. 

 We headed down to Old Colorado City, where there are lots of cool, old buildings. I especially liked the color of the brick, and there was plenty of that down there. The building in this photo, was little antique shop, and the sun hit the side just right, casting a nice spot of light on the wall. After we were done, we went back to the house where we enjoyed a nice warm breakfast.

 Anyway, thanks for reading!

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#SummitSummer

   Well, I can honestly say, that this post is long over due. Especially since it's subject content, happened in August. So much has been going on ( I know, I've said that a lot ) however, every word of it is true. Right after we got home from Summit, we pretty much got back to school. We had a friend of ours over for a while, we had a meeting with the conservation district, and the process of the barn being built, started (Which is now, almost done), and we went camping for two weeks, for the festival of Sukkot. Hopefully, I'll get some of those pictures up too. So anyway, back to the subject of this post. Summit. It was a great two weeks, and I made many new friends, and learned a lot.
When you read about it on their website, it sounds a lot like "Summer School" with 7 hours of classes, a day. Fortunately, they break it up into nice, short segments. They have activities during the middle of the day, such as Sports time, or special trips, like rock climbing, Pikes peak, etc.  I was at first, a little apprehensive, about the whole thing, but soon settled in. We had four other roommates, in our room. Room 205.

Every morning, there is wake up call, at 7:00 in the morning, with a loud shout "Good Morning SUMMIT!!!" by some of the staff. My brother and I were usually up before wake up call, so we get to the showers in time. Breakfast is at 7:30, and varied from day-to-day.

The second morning, we woke up really early, and went on a hike with some friends. We went to the top of Red Mountain, right behind the Summit building.

Part of the view from the top of Red Mountain.

On the way back down, looking North off of Red Mountain

A street in Manitou Springs. I don't know what it is, but I love tree lined lanes.

 One of the rules they had there, was "Three strikes" rule. So, if you broke three rules, then you got KP with your small group leader. Which makes it awkward, since you drag someone else into it. They had room-checks, where they would score your room, according to how clean it was; how well your bed was made, floor, dresser, etc. and if you failed, you had to go clean your room, before you got to go to lunch, and if you won, then you got to first. They add up your overall score, when Summit comes to an end, and the winner gets a pizza party. If you want a perfect score, you have leave a little something for the room-checker, because on the score sheet, there is a little box that says "other". You can get the best score on everything else, but you won't get a score of 30. So our room left some Nutella, and a short poem, for the checker.

The porch out in the back of the building, next to the dining room.

 Volley Ball was the big game there, aside from Ultimate Frisbee.

 The other view from the top of Red Mountain.

 Like I said before, they had some special activities, like Pikes Peak, rock climbing, etc. Well, they normally do paintball, however, because of the Waldo Canyon fire, the area in which they do it, was destroyed, so they replaced it with, outdoor laser tag, which was still, an immense amount of fun! They also would have done whitewater rafting, but it was so near the end of the season, and the water level was too low.

 During the first weekend, they have a "Staff Auction" to raise money for a pro-life group, and they auction things like, a bunch of custom made t-shirts, or staying up with the night-watch, or a swing dance lesson. Of course I was a part of a group for the swing lesson. I got to learn some aerial moves, and a couple spins. It was a lot of fun. One day we went to the park, but unfortunately, it started to rain, so some of us headed up to the pavilion, where we practiced our swing dancing.

Graduation night, was an absolute blast. Everybody was dressed in their finest. They handed out our diploma, and a session dvd, and a contact sheet, after they gave a short speech, then we all went up to the dining hall for ice cream, and root beer floats. Then the dancing started, which was awesome! There was line dancing, swing dancing, slow dancing, and some break dancing. 

Thanks for reading!

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