Young Women – nancy merrill photography

Thankful November 25th: Heat

Today is our first real snow storm here in Utah, and it’s supposed to last the entire week. Yay us. Sort of. Today, I am grateful for heat. Well-built fires, forced-air vents, a down-filled coat, a simple knit hat, a sun-heated beach. These are a few of my favorite things.

Thankful November 24th: My Faith

You are getting two post today because yesterday was too full to do a post (gone from 8 in the morning until 11 in the evening). And the first one today was for fun (see Thankful November 24th: Chocolate for reference.) This post will be much more serious. I’m sure that many people who follow this blog and read my posts are aware that I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (sometimes known as the Mormon Church). I haven’t tried to make it a secret. I have also tried to not be overbearing about it. I was born and raised in Utah in a family that is very actively involved in this religion. When I was 22 years old, I served as a volunteer missionary to Wisconsin. I married my husband in the beautiful Mount Timpanogos Temple in American Fork, Utah. I have been living my religion as best as I can for almost 53-1/2 years. Having faith has grounded me, given me hope as I see things happening in the world around me, and provided me with a community wherever I have moved. I am a firm believer in Jesus Christ. I have faith in a Heavenly Father, who loves and knows me. I’m grateful for scriptures I can turn to for comfort and guidance during difficult times in my life.

Whatever your religious (or non-religious) life may be, I hope that you find love, happiness, and joy in the Christmas season this year. I love celebrating the birth of my Savior with the entire world.

A Photo a Week Challenge: Squares and Circles

round_nmp

Sorry about the late posting for this week’s challenge. I guess my photo is my excuse. Yesterday was insanely busy, and I didn’t realize that I missed the challenge until I was in bed last night. This week’s challenge is all about mixing squares and circles. Photography is a rectangular activity. Even though our lenses are round, the output is not. You can create a round image using post-processing methods. You can also create a round image using scissors on a print (very old-fashioned). I used the cropping tool in Photoshop to put my round pie into a square.

For anyone who is interested: my pie is a take on a blueberry sour cream pie recipe that I found online. A friend asked me to make a pie for a church fundraiser dessert auction dinner that’s tonight. When I mentioned the blueberry pie, she asked me to it with raspberries instead (she’s not a fan of blueberries) because she wants to buy it. I hope it tastes as good as it looks.

IN A NEW POST CREATED FOR THIS CHALLENGE, SHARE A PHOTO OR TWO (OR MORE) FEATURING SQUARES AND CIRCLES TOGETHER IN YOUR IMAGES.

Everyone is welcome to participate, even if your blog isn’t about photography.

Here’s how it works:

Each week, I’ll come up with a theme and post a photo that I think fits. You take photographs based on your interpretation of the theme, and post them on your blog (a new post!) anytime before the following Thursday, when the next photo theme will be announced.
To make it easy for others to check out your photos, title your blog post “A Photo a Week Challenge: (theme of the week)” and be sure to use the “postaday″ tag.
Come back here and post a link to your image in the comments for this challenge.
Follow nancy merrill photography so that you don’t miss out on weekly challenge announcements.

A Photo a Week Challenge: By Firelight

by_firelight_nmp

Growing up, Christmas always included Christmas trees next to wood-burning fires, multi-colored tree lights and the smell of baking cookies. Our current house does not have a fireplace, so I have to find my firelight shots at other times of the year. This one is from our church young women’s camp this summer.

Firelight can be fun to photograph, but you have to account for so much with lighting: too much warmth from the fire, creating good exposure for any subjects in the photo. Post-processing software is great for getting just the right warmth (or coolness) in your image. I used Photoshop to get this one to look how I wanted.

IN A NEW POST CREATED FOR THIS CHALLENGE, SHARE A PHOTO OR TWO (OR MORE) THAT USES FIRE AS THE MAIN SOURCE OF LIGHT.

Everyone is welcome to participate, even if your blog isn’t about photography.

Here’s how it works:

Each week, I’ll come up with a theme and post a photo that I think fits. You take photographs based on your interpretation of the theme, and post them on your blog (a new post!) anytime before the following Thursday, when the next photo theme will be announced.
To make it easy for others to check out your photos, title your blog post “A Photo a Week Challenge: (theme of the week)” and be sure to use the “postaday″ tag.
Come back here and post a link to your image in the comments for this challenge.
Follow nancy merrill photography so that you don’t miss out on weekly challenge announcements.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Gatherings

Tim and the Boys

Friends

Comfort

Tim and Juillanne

Family craziness

True happiness

Siblings

Jen & Ryan

The whole Cole family

For more from this challenge, visit Weekly Photo Challenge: Gatherings.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Shadowed

This young lady has quite the flare for the dramatic, and it works great for this week’s challenge. I love how the shadows and light play across her face.

For more from this challenge, visit Weekly Photo Challenge: Shadowed.

A Photo a Week Challenge: Shy

Most photographers have had to deal with at least one subject that just didn’t want to be photographed. This young lady actually has a lot of photographs taken of her (her mom is a professional portrait photographer; you can see her great work at Melina Moore Memories), but last night she was just not in the mood for me to take her picture.

IN A NEW POST CREATED FOR THIS CHALLENGE, SHARE A PHOTO OR TWO OF RELUCTANT SUBJECTS, HUMAN OR OTHER.

What do you consider your most challenging photo get? What subject was the hardest for you to convince to finally sit for a photo or not? How many of us have pictures of the back of a head or a hand in front of a face? Now is the time to post them.

Everyone is welcome to participate, even if your blog isn’t about photography.

Here’s how it works:

1. Each week, I’ll come up with a theme and post a photo that I think fits. You take photographs based on your interpretation of the theme, and post them on your blog (a new post!) anytime before the following Thursday, when the next photo theme will be announced.

2. To make it easy for others to check out your photos, title your blog post “A Photo a Week Challenge: (theme of the week)” and be sure to use the “postaday″ tag.

3. Follow nancy merrill photography so that you don’t miss out on weekly challenge announcements.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Infitine

This weekend, I had the opportunity to work with some of the youth from our church at a service project to do some gardening at Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City. I don’t know if they realize it, but to me they represent infinite possibilities. If they are a sample of what today’s youth are capable of, the world will be in amazingly wonderful hands with the next generation. Well done, my young peeps.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/10/11/photo-challenge-infinite/

Weekly Photo Challenge: One Shot, Two Ways

Everyone had a great time soaking their feet after a long, cold hike in the Uinta Mountains. (I know that neither shot is vertical (portrait), but I thought they still captured the essence of the challenge pretty well.)

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/08/09/one-shot-two-ways/