Ready, Set, Snap: Rachael meets "Thomas"

If you are a parent of a toddler then you probably know who Thomas the train is. Thomas the train is one of my daughter's favorite shows. She was so happy to spot "Thomas" and his friends as we drove to Kelowna last week. Thomas the train is not one of my favorite shows and I honestly don't understand Rachael's fascination with it. I do realize that this show is not geared towards me but I don't believe in using TV as a babysit so I will sit and watch Rachael's shows with her. Give me Dora the Explorer and Barney and friends anyday. My husband however, can describe all of Thomas' friends.

Today I took Rachael to a historic railway station and caboose which is located in Sexsmith, AB which is 30mins from Grande Prairie. I don't usually have a reason to visit Sexsmith so it was neat today to play tourist with Rachael. And of course she was thrilled to meet Thomas.

I love that Beryl has mentioned that she will buy clothes for her daughter that she thinks will look good in a picture. Something I will pay more attention to now. My daughter has a wardrobe that I am envious of. It definitely helps that she has a lot of personal shoppers and has me as her personal stylist....it is great job if you can get it.

For today's photoshoot I picked out Rachael's clothes paying attention to what would pop in a picture. We live in Alberta so even though it is May..it was a bit cool today. Her white leggings and jean jacket however complimented her beautiful dress well.

Once again Aperture was the feature I was focussing on. All of the pictures were taken with my 50mm lens on Aperture priority mode. It wasn't an overly bright sunny day this morning and it became overcast towards the end of our visit to the train.

1/4000 f 1.4, ISO 400

This is a great picture if looking strictly from an aperture viewpoint as Rachael is definitely in focus and the train is not. To blur the train more I would have needed to be positioned closer to Rachael. However, this would have made a better picture of Rachael with the train if I had increased my aperture...then both Rachael and the train would have been in focus. Something I will bear in mind in the future. This is where the intention piece that Beryl mentioned, comes into play.

1/200 f 1.4, ISO 400

Here I chose to set my focus point on the train which then blurred Rachael

1/4000, f 2.5, IS0 8000

One of my favorite pics from today. Rachael with her favorite flower :). Beryl mentioned that she tends to choose an aperture of around 2.2 for portraits so I thought I would try that and it worked out well.