This last week our son Brian turned 18!! Yesterday and today was his party. Last night his friends arrived for a night of pizza, soda, and X-Box 360. (Notice that the word “sleep” was not mentioned in this at all….some of them may have slept for a little while but some of them were up all night.) Tonight we catch up.

Today they had more games, basketball and airsoft at the local park, and the new X-Men movie. (It was a good movie – shorter than the others, but plenty of action. If you haven’t seen it yet, all I want to say here is don’t leave when it ends. Stick around until the credits are done…)

From our post a few days ago, you know that we turned our photo studio temporarily into a sound studio for everyone to jam in. Among his friends was his cousin Tyler who also plays the drums, Taylor who plays the drums and bass, Sean who plays bass, and guitar and Phillip who plays bass and guitar. Hos other cousin Juli plays the piano, but we didnt get any shots of her. They all loved to mess around on all the instruments, and it looked like they had a great time. Who knows, perhaps these photos will be archival pics someday for some of them when they go on to become famous musicians!

We took some pics today (of course!) and here is a slideshow I put together from the pics Kerri and I took:

www.lydellphoto.com/slideshows/jam

 Enjoy!

Mark

A couple weeks ago I was up in Auburn with my son for his drum lesson. It was the first time at this music store – his previous drum teacher, Joel Sandvos moved away, so he hooked us up with his teacher.  As we left the house, I grabbed my camera, not knowing if there would be anything to shoot, but I knew that after I dropped Brian off, I’d have about an hour to kill.

As I turned the corner on the downtown area, I saw a huge line of old cars – apparantly the first Friday night of each week is “Cruise Night” where anyone who has an old car or a rebuilt car comes downtown for a night of cruisiing and showing off. I got some pics, and here are the best of them. The colors on all the cars was amazing!

I couldn’t stay long, as we had a dinner to go to, so I had to leave early to be back home on time. Next time I go there, I’ll be prepared with better lenses, more time and my family so we can hang out after.

Pretty cool cars!! Makes me think of all my old Matchbox cars I had when I was growing up.

   Mark

Well, we are closing in on getting our studio ready. It has been way more work than we thought it would be, but we are SO EXCITED!!

What started with the studio has now expanded into our entire back yard. We realized that we had many places in our yard that would be perfect for pictures, so we have taken out several trees, yards of ground cover and trimmed away anything that moves…

When we are done, and have someone come to our studio, not only will we will be able to take great indoor studio pictures, but will have at least three outdoor settings we can use, and I’m sure we’ll “sculpt” more into our yard as time goes on.

This week the studio is getting a different initiation. Our son, Brian is having his 18th birthday party starting monday night. Since we are waitiing for our lights and some other backdrop equipment to arrive, the studio is sitting for a few days, so it’s been turned into a sound studio.

Brian moved his drums out there, and we brought the piano we have into the room. (we only have it for a couple more days, as its on eBay…)

His cousin Tyler plays drums, and his other cousin Juli plays the piano and they both coming. Two of his friends play bass and there are others with musicial gifts so it will be exciting!! We already talked to the neighbors to make sure we wouldnt be distrubing anyone – they all work or are gone during the day on Tuesday so they should be able to wail away with no worries.

When I looked at the pics I took of the studio today, I realized there there was something creepy going on in our studio – There was a mysterious figure who was apparantly playing the drums. 

I got Kerri – i told her that I thought someone must have died in the garage ‘cuz there was a figure that kept showing up in my pics. She came over to the computer to see what I was talking about and then realized I was messin with her.

For those who want to know how I did this – the light in the room was low, I wanted to keep my ISO low (100) and I wanted to get as much in focus as possible, so I pushed the aperture to f11, which meant that my exposure was around 6 seconds. Plenty of time for me to walk into the shot with my flash unit in my hand. I sat down at the drum set, pointed it at my head and flashed myself.  

We’ll post some pics from the jam session! Pray for us – the invasion starts Monday at 5:00 PM!!

Mark

Here are a couple of photos we took of the doggies when Robin brought over her studio lights. What a blast to be able to play around with studio quality stuff! Even the doggies think so! Josie is our little girl with the long curly hair and Sydney is our guy….we just love them! They are going to be included in our local “lifestyle magazine” that we will be advertising our business in soon…It for a pet collage page. Should be cute!

It’s hard to see but Sydney is kissing Josie here…

Hope you all have a wonderful and safe…..

Memorial Day Weekend! 

We send up prayers for all those who are away from home fighting the war and those who did not make it home from any and every war we regretfully but thankfully remember your sacrifices toward serving your country…

 God bless and comfort your families.

Last week Kerri, Lindsay and I took some pics for a friend to go on his website.This was the Rescue Safety Equipment Shoot. At the end of the day, his wife and youngest daughter were part of te last shoot. Afterward we took a couple quick shots of them in the park. Here is one of them. What a photogenic family!!

We’ve been working A LOT on the studio conversion. Today we painted. Tomorrow we put the cabinets back in, and start putting things away. Our backdrop systems should be here Friday, and our lights will arrive within the next two weeks. WooHoo!!

While we wait for the lights, we will finish sorting out everything we took from storage, and have a yard sale somewhere along the way…

Sooooo, if all goes as planned, within the next month we will be able to start taking studio quality pictures in our own house!! Very cool. We have some portrait sessions we are looking forward to scheduling when this is ready.

We are also meeting with an advertising representative tomorrow with a local magazine to investigate an ad to announce our studio to the community. All in all, it’s been a very busy few months since we launched our business. It’s hard to believe all that has happened since we launched on Feb 1st.

On an interesting note, this last week I received an email that I could tell wasn’t meant for me, but someone like me. Turns out there is a photographer in Virginia named Glenn Lydell….and get this……his business is called “Lydell Photography”!! And….his oldest son’s name is Mark!!!!!!!!! I will be hooking up with him this week to talk more. I have only met a few other Lydell’s in my lifetime, so to meet one who is also a photographer is amazing!! We must be related somehow

http://www.SearchGodsWord.org/desk/?query=2+Corinthians+2:14-16

I’m sitting here and can’t believe it’s Sunday night once again. Another week, and where did it go?

So this will be a little long, but I felt the need to catch up with what has been happening with us over the past few days.

We are making progress on our studio, even tho it doesn’t feel like it. The past few days have been filled with us sorting out the various boxes we took out from the garage, attic and basement. I don’t know who many times I would look at a box and ask myself  “WHY DID WE KEEP THIS??”

Friday morning we had our VERY LARGE tree trimmed as well as a couple other small trees removed. We are cleaning up the yard as there are a few places we see we can ‘sculpt’ as locations to use for outdoor pictures. We want to be able to take as many pictures as possible in our studio or yard.The weather cooled down for us on Friday, but then it started to rain late Friday afternoon.

Friday night we were invited as guests of honor to a dinner by many of our friends from the church we just left. For those who don’t know, after months of prayer, we felt that our season at The Rock of Granite Bay was over. Our last Sunday was last month, and this was a wonderful evening. Food, Friends and Fellowship. It was great to get together with friends and just hang with each other for a night. They ended the night by praying over us. We felt very encouraged, and it was a great way to end one season and celebrate the transition into the next.

Saturday we worked in the yard (again). Kerri continued to sort and pack away while I ran to the dump twice and then to the Goodwill Donation Store twice. Except for one last load to the Goodwill store, we are now down (we think) to all we want to keep and are now just deciding where it will be stored. Then more rain.

Today we went to the new church we decided to attend for a season., and the worship was great. The pastor started a three part series on The DaVinci Code. Although the author of the book claims his book is completely accurate, there are MANY “facts” in the book that just don’t stand up to scrutiny. If you are interested in learning more, go to http://breakthedavincicode.com/.

Then we went to our dear friends, the Fiorenza’s to celebrate their daughters college graduation. We took a few pics – the one at the top was from the party. We saw many of our friends again,as well as a few we hadn’t seen in a long time!!

Then came the intellectually stimulating part of the day – our son had a couple DVD’s he had borrowed from a friend of the series “The Office.” Very random, and pretty much makes ANY work environment appear normal.

And now here I am writing this. It’s raining out still, but i think it will clear up tomorrow so we can get out into the yard/studio again.  Once we get the yard and house cleaned up, we have to finish cleaning the studio, paint the ceiling, walls and seal the cement floor. Then we will get the support system for the lighting and backdrop taken care of. Also, one of our friends is an electrician, and he is coming over Friday night. He will look at the garage to make sure there aren’t any electrical issues we need to take care of.

It all sounds so simple, but I know in practice it will seem like it takes forever before the studio is done and ready to start using. We’ll post more news when we have it.

Bless you!

Mark

Remember Greta, the dancer we posted pics of last week? The same day we took pictures of her in the studio we went to her house and took pictures of her in her yard. It was a beautiful day for taking pictures, and she was so beautiful!

Well, I finally finished editing those pictures, and you can see the slideshow we put together by clicking here.

If you go to our website, and look at our online galleries, there are two new ones – her studio shots and the ones at her house.  If you missed the slideshow for her dancing pictures, click here to see that one.

It is so much fun to see the end result after you’ve taken the time to capture someone.

Have a great day!!

Mark

Resting today in God’s goodness towards us…. our son turned 18 yesterday…and I am reflecting back on the life God has given us and how wonderful life is…even with its valleys which many times feels like walking through hell itself. But I doubt anyone has tasted the true bitterness and eternal unendingness of hell until they truly reach there. With all of the power God has given to us and is available to us we can have such confidence that GOD wants to save all mankind that his heart is that none , not one should have to perish. We should yoke ourselves to that this very minute and start praying for those who are still LOST…I have a few in my life I must begin to beleive for.

Happy 18th Birthday, Brian!!!!

We love you!! 

Today we have an interesting photoshoot!

We are going to be doing a photoshoot for a Rescue Training Company for their website. We will take pictures of different accident scenes where the rescue team will be using various rescue items that they sell on their website.  We are all packed up and ready to go. First location starts at 10 am…Should be fun! Except for the heat!

I’ll get around to your sites to say Hi when we get through this and get caught up with post production on our last 2 jobs.

Today we also got a call from a bride who is getting married in only 2 months and is just now looking to book a photographer! WOW! She has some work cut out for her…my event coordinator part of me wants to help her…cause she is gonna need it!