taking a break from scrapbooking

i (unintentionally) took the month off of scrapbooking. i did, however, continue experimenting with my camera's settings.  Creative Memories had their huge national convention and made some huge announcement like they are changing their logo, their image and their products...

change seems to have a deer-in-headlights affect on me. even good change. which this is.

so while i catch my breath and catch up on all the amazing changes that are coming, i wanted to share some more 'turn off your flash' picture ideas...

this is Jelly at the beach at dusk....WITH flash:

she's gorgeous, I know.  but you would not know that we were anywhere near the beach. 

this is the same pose with NO flash:

 same time of day...no joke.  the trick for me is i need to work on the blurry image. i hold my breath and i asked her to hold her breath too. but obviously i wasn't steady. i still think it's a pretty image though.

here is a challenge...getting the Prince to hold still. i asked him to hold his breath but apparently forgot to tell him to NOT MOVE.  so while i was very still, the shutter was slowly taking in as much light as possible and i didn't know that he left the scene!

it's now my spooky ghost shot

still pretty cool though...

experimenting is fun!  lots of mistakes and you just might find a keeper: