Oops, I meant to do this yesterday and ran out of time.

While teaching during the field trip, I had the opportunity to photograph more of my students. Keep in mind, they were wind-blown, cold, and a bit tired by the time they came to me. I think they look terrific!

These were all shot with my 85mm 1.8 lens at f2.2 – f2.8, ISO 400, various shutter speeds.

When I first met Rachel, I was dating my husband Tracy and she was a toddler. Her family moved down here from MN a couple of years ago. Her parents John and Cheryl are close friends of ours and were our first connection to IHOP, which was just coming into existence when we started visiting in 1999!

Chelsie is super sweet and makes me laugh!

Caleb has a kind heart and I from what I hear, he’s a great musician.

John has a real purity to him.

Samuel is a preacher – a really good one too.

Caitlyn is full of life!

I love Christi’s smiling eyes!

I have a shot of Ana looking at me, but I think this one actually shows her breezy, creative spirit better!

Lillian is a beam of light! She’s been cheering me on in a somewhat difficult project I’ve been doing. Thanks Lillian!

As we were waiting for all the students to go home, I saw Sarah in this beautiful light. The light just added to the beauty that is already there inside and out!

Not a student, but a cute dog in good light. Everything looks better in good light.

A couple of weeks ago, I took my photography class on a field trip – with a lot of help! I have five leaders, and four parents to help guide and instruct about 30 students. The weather was not great – windy and 40s – but everyone still had a great time. We have another scheduled for this Saturday, but the weather is not looking favorable. I am still praying for it to change, or for an indoor location where we might have some fun.

Our morning was spent at the City Market in downtown Kansas City. It was full of color, texture, and interesting people and animals. The students had a scavenger hunt list to take photos that would illustrate words like “prickly” “blue” and “wet”. There were 12 in all.

Here are a few of my shots from City Market:

We called this guy “The Spice Man”. The smell of the spices was really incredible!

Two of my leaders, Deborah and Jess admiring Jess’ photo (or chimping – oooh! oooh!)

Samuel, going for the interesting perspective!

My group met Jonathan, the Salsa guy. They really fell for him and for his salsa. He spent probably 20 minutes with our group, letting them taste all kinds of combinations of his salsa. Here’s his web site – Cool Pepper Sauce – you can buy the salsa at HyVee in Kansas City.

Speaking of food, these guys were making burgers, fries, dogs, and other yummy stuff.

When the students discovered that a plate of fries was $1, we all had a feast!

Before leaving the market, the students asked if we could go back and pray for Jonathan. It is really quite an experience to be around young people with a passion for prayer. Jonathan was really excited about it and sent this note in an e-mail the following week:

“I had four (4) different powerful, public, awesome Prayers Lifted up to GOD @ the booth…… Recipe secrets/suggestions were shared with me……A Graphic Artist and ALL of her Photography Students along with a Prophetic Word From The LORD came to the booth…”

The afternoon was spent at Shiloh, a property owned by IHOP. The Koths have a beautiful house on the property where they are raising a large family of biological and adopted kids. I honestly can’t remember how many there are, but we’ve been talking about family photos and with kids who’ve left, and grandkids, the number was around 21!

We were so thankful they opened their home to us, so could eat lunch in warmth. In the upper right corner, you will see the students descending on a bowl of candy.

After lunch, the students rotated around to each leader, who were in different locations around the property, teaching on different topics. My topic was, of course, natural light portraits! Other teachers/topics were: “Studio Portraits” with Steve Willis (who got to stay warm in the house the whole time!), “Storytelling” with Verna Pitts (my friend from MN who came down just to help teach the field trip! She was out at an old shed and taught about perspective and angles), and “Action Photos” with Jessica Gliserman and Deborah Fraser (the students would jump off of things and the others would take shots.)

Tomorrow I’ll share some of the portraits I took while teaching. In the meantime, check out my flickr set for more photos from the field trip.