One of my New Year’s resolutions was to do one fun family/kid thing every month. January’s nearly over so this Saturday, we headed down to Galveston. This trip had three purposes: first, to be a fun thing to do with Fig; second, to take pictures for my photography class homework; and third, to celebrate my husband’s new job. His daily commute will be going from 2.5 hours to about 10 minutes so we are all thrilled about the change that this will bring to our lives. Plus, it’s for a place he really respects and doing work that he loves to do. Everybody wins!

Saturday morning started out kind of rough. Fig was pretty cranky. It seemed like no matter what we did, she just wasn’t a happy camper. After her nap, she was even grumpier so we packed up some snacks and hit the road. We went to Galveston State Park and we got there right before 5pm. The sun was starting to set so the light was perfect for me to do my photography class assignment.

The assignment was to take pictures in backlight. For the first photo, expose for the subject, which means overexposing the background, and the second photo was to expose for the background, which would put the subject in shadow. The final photo was to be in front light. Fog was already starting to roll in so I was worried it would make the light too diffused, but I think it was just perfect. I used my husband and daughter as my subjects. Adam was better at standing still, but Fig was a cuter model. Sorry, Adam, but she’s just too cute.

We started out in the grassy picnic area. Fig’s frown flipped upside down and she loved running around in such a wide, open space. She found lots of sticks to play with. But she wasn’t about to put down her snacks or her milk. haha.

The photos above and below were my experiments with backlighting and exposing for the subject. I had trouble getting the exposure right on my subject. They’re a little overexposed, I think, but we’ll see what the instructor says. I still like the photos.

He’s cute. I like him.

After running around in the grass for a while, we walked to the beach. Because why go to Galveston if you aren’t going to set foot on the beach? This next photo is backlight but exposed for the background. Again, I don’t feel like I quite got the exposure right, but with such an active subject, I was just trying to keep up. She wasn’t too sure about the whole sand thing.

And here’s one of my front light photos, with my reluctant model.

I let Adam take a few shots too. I’m not a fan of pictures of myself, but I’m trying to do more #momstaysinthepicture. And I don’t hate this one.

So outing #1 of 2017 was a big success! After we left the beach, we went to Mario’s on the Seawall for some awesome Italian food and then we drove home. A pretty perfect evening with my little family.

Also, how great is it that I’m on such a roll with posting?! 4 posts in 4 weeks, go me!