Another great weekend!

This weekend, we decided to travel as a family since I had to teach my workshop.  We took off shortly after the kids got home from school on Friday and arrived at Gary's parents' place late. 

Saturday, Gary relaxed at home with the kids while I headed to Kitchener to The Art House Studio.  Karen met me there early - she was so sweet to bring coffee for both me and my hubby (who was originally going to drive me in and then head to a golf course - but it rained!)... It broke my heart to tell her that I am not a coffee drinker. :(  She also painted a big "Welcome Sue!!" on the door... made me smile!

We started the class just after 11am, due to Lisa's mishap with her malfunctioning gas gauge!  It was a great group of students!  I was so happy, of course, to see Karen and Lisa, again, but I also got a chance to meet some new friends.  We chatted about photography, laughed, stopped for some yummy lunch, chatted some more and then head out in to the misty rain to take some photos and get some HANDS ON! experience!

It felt so good to get back out and just start shooting photos for the sake of photography.  Not a wedding, or a photo shoot, or even a birthday party.  Just for the Love.  Of.  Photography.

Of course, it wasn't until I got home and uploaded my photos that I realized that my camera is still not behaving the way I'd like it to, even though I was using my most favourite 50mm lens!! The photos seem soft and grainy and there is alot of colour aberration... :(  I have since contacted the Nikon Service department to decide what to do with my camera/lenses.  I have also contacted my awesome Nikon rep to get some pricing on a new camera!!  Hopefully the one I want will come within my budget...

Anyhow, here are some of the photos I took on our walkabout:

This is a photo of Lisa's friend, Tisa.  I know it's a bit "hot", or overexposed, but I liked the contrast here.

And yes, her name really is Tisa.  Lisa and Tisa - isn't that funny?  It reminds me of when I was in university - I had a best friend, Sue, who had a friend from university, named Sue!  We'd go out to a bar and have a hoot saying, "Hi, I'm Sue... This is my friend, Sue and my other friend, Sue..."  No one believed us - I dragged out my ID more times when I was with those two!

Anyhow, I digress... here are more photos:

I converted the next two to black & white.  The scenery itself was very monotone, because of the overcast weather and grey concrete, so I thought black & white would lend some drama to the images:

I snapped photos of the students as they were playing. 

Here's Rosanne, who incidentally was one of the lovely four ladies that shared the table with Nancy, Holly and I at the ScrapFest crop:

Tanya drove in with her family, who went golfing while we played!

Kerrin and Ken were a great husband-and-wife team, who joined us from Milton:

Lisa took some awesome shots on our walkabout - we got a sneak peek after class - girl, you have some crazy, wicked talent!  And you're NOT a monster!! :)

Here are Karen and Carol - just realized these are the only photos that I have of them, taking photos!  And it's not even good quality... :(

I tried to photograph unique or striking objects.

Here's our wonderful group - at the end of the day, Karen presented me with a lovely frame and mat that everyone had signed!  So sweet... once I print off this photo, I will share an image of the frame - it's going into my new studio!!

Thanks for inviting me to play, Karen - and thanks to everyone who attended!  I had a lot of fun and I hope you did, too!