Just a few candids from the last week or so. I take nearly all of my candids on my iPhone, but lately I’ve been trying to get back to shooting some with the big camera, too. I have to leave the big camera on my desk in the home office to remember to shoot with it regularly. Last week it sat on our coffee table for half a week and I used it a lot more, so maybe that’s where it needs to be!

A little technical info for those of you who shoot inside your house and want great candids: I shot these with no flash. My ISO was about 800-1000 and for the shot of the cat on my daughter’s back, that was shot at ISO 3200. I shoot with the Canon 5D Mark II and the low light ISO control is fantastic. I also use custom white balance when I shoot my candids inside. It’s typically on Tungsten or Fluorescent. I don’t have any fancy way of choosing white balance – I change it to see what looks the most natural by taking a shot on several white balance options and choosing the one that best represents the actual light in the room. I still have a mix of CFL and old-school lightbulbs in some rooms, so it depends on the room I’m in.  I’m typically shooting “wide open” at apertures of 1.6 to 2.2 on my 50mm 1.2 lens to allow the most light from the room in to the photos. I added a little post vintage toning to the piano photo and no major processing to the photo of the cat on back. 🙂

I was inspired to work on capturing more of these moments while watching “The President’s Photographer” on PBS this weekend. It originally aired a couple of years ago but they re-run it sometimes and it’s such an interesting look at the life of a Presidential photographer. Their days are long but they record some amazing moments in history. My favorite shots were the candid moments with the Presidents – the photos in which their guard is down. Those are the most telling.

Of course we’re a three-cat family, so nearly all of our candid shots revolve around their antics.

Savannah is our oldest cat and she’s considered geriatric at age 13. But she seems to be getting more social and less shy as she gets older. She has no qualms about sitting on the piano bench while Olivia practices. That is, when she’s not sitting on a random piece of paper on the floor. You can put an 8.5×11 sheet of paper on the floor anywhere in the house and she will find it and then casually sit down on it and go to sleep for hours. Cats are so funny!

There’s no happier place for our cat Charlie than sleeping on, near or next to a person. Thank goodness she only weighs about 7 pounds because she loves sleeping on our backs!

And, let’s talk about the weather for the last few days. From the 70s to the 30s and back again multiple times. Yesterday and today were crazy. Here are a few shots from last night. We had about 30 minutes of rain last night at sunset and the sun was blazing through the rain. It was incredible light. A little while later we had insanely black, tall clouds surrounding the house. And of course today we had flurries for a minute followed by sun followed by another minute of flurries followed by sun. Crazy! I can’t wait for real spring. 🙂

As the light was dying I noticed fog rising off the lake across the street from our house. Crazy weather!