I Heart Faces - Best Face Photo of May

I am not all that crazy about the i heart faces "people's choice" challenges, where people vote on the photos, since if I win I like to know that someone was actually judging my picture rather than how many people I know to vote for me. But this week the founders will be going through the entries too and picking their favorites so I decided I might as well enter, and for once I actually HAVE a favorite face photo from May. :-) I would appreciate a vote on Thursday. :-)

Birthday Goodies!

With all the wedding craziness (and the craziness of life in general), I had neglected to post the camera goodies I got for my birthday, which I said I would post (now I know that saying such things is a bad idea). But, better late than never, as the saying goes.

My dear parents gave me two remotes, a wireless one (top left) and one that plugs in (bottom right). The plug-in one is more reliable and you can auto focus with it, but the wireless one has the convenience of not being tied to the camera. They also gave me a big ol' reflector! (top right). It has four options - black, silver, gold and white, and it collapses up into a little case. This is useful for indoor portraits when you have shadows on the side of the face not facing the window.
My lovely sister gave me that adorable camera strap cover from SewTamz! (bottom left, obviously). It's stylish and so comfortable... you'll hear more about that later as I'll be doing a review of it later.

I'm also going to be getting very cute, very nice camera bag at some point, but alas, it is on backorder. :-(  In the meantime, I'll play with all my other fun things. :-)

At last!

Finally, our tulips are blooming!

Now, I have to wait for the lilacs...

Look what I get to play with this week!

At the end of this week I will be "unofficially" shooting a wedding. The bride is a dear friend from church, and she's hiring a professional photographer for the wedding day, but I get to be photographer for the rehearsal, and the morning of the wedding while the bridal party is getting ready. And of course I will be taking pictures during the wedding too.
My friend Wendy was so kind to lend me some gear for it which is pretty exciting. :-) As you can see in the picture I've got a battery grip which is a lot of fun, and the Canon 17-55mm 2.8 lens, my favorite feature of which is the image stabilization (whoo hoo!). I feel all professional. LOL!