Photography is Over

So I'll just post a few of the photos I took during the five weeks. You have seen many of these before.

We had to practice taking pictures of this flower during class. 

She was the model for our portrait practice. I did not like the lighting, so changed my camera to monochrome.

We were supposed to take photos of this dance class that meets nearby. But there were only two couples dancing, and that made for boring photos, so I went for the feet with my telephoto lens.

 Any thoughts? I'd like a Nikon Df camera if anyone has a spare lying around. LOL.

Jasmine is 17!

And Adam came home to help celebrate. He took Jasmine to a movie the day before her birthday, and we had cake that night.

Then Sunday, which was her real birthday, I took her on a shopping trip along the panhandle. We got look alike Nikes among other things. Mostly we had fun.

Our photography assignment was to take portraits, but I haven't taken any except a few shots of Jasmine on the trip. We were going to go the beach and take photos, but ran out of time.

Jasmine has decided to collect keys, but they are harder to find than you'd think. And expensive. The man wanted $10 each for these at a flea market (not ours) but let her have them 3 for $20.

We ate lunch at the Destin Panera.

And bought shoes at the Silver Sands Nike store.

Right now we are in the middle of several projects around the house, but I didn't think about taking photos of the work in progress. Guess I'll take photos of the finished projects.

Jasmine's Pageant

Most of you will remember that Kayla, Jessica, and Jessica's girls, Winter and River, were in a pageant in December. Jasmine had a rash on her face and neck at the time. She's still having some problem with it, so we are getting a referral to a dermatologist, but it had cleared up enough with general meds to do the pageant. You will see the darkness on her eyelids though.

Winter wear category. She lifted her sunglasses and smiled at the judges, but I didn't catch that. I was shooting with my Nikon and also doing live feed on facebook on my phone.

Formal wear:

Awards:

She is wearing three tiaras and several medals.

One thing I did not like about the pageant is that the girl who took overall in December showed up again for this one. This is still regionals, and there is nothing higher than overall, so why come back? You only have to be in the top ten to go to state, and the top four get their way paid except for a $100 fee. So someone might came back if they hadn't made the top four and wanted the fee paid, or even some die hard pageant moms might bring their daughters back if they hadn't won their age group. Kayla took first in her age group in December, and I had expected to see the second place girl there because her whole family is all about pageants, but she wasn't there.

Back to the girl who took overall--I asked the mom why she was here again when she'd already qualified for state. She said, "Well, you can never have too many crowns can you?"
Ummm, yes. I think you can.

The girl is not even two yet.

She took overall again. 

They use a scoring system. You have to sign up not only for the beauty judging, but for all the extras to be considered for overall winner. The extras are things like smile, hair, eyes etc.  So not everyone is in the running for the overall crown. Then the judges rate each child who has entered the extra categories on those things. Top score wins.

She beat Jasmine but only a point or two.

Jasmine did this pageant for the fun of it, but the other girl's mom is obviously very serious about it. There is one more regional pageant near us, and the mom has already said she plans to take her daughter and take overall for that one too. 

(The Jessica, Kayla, Winter and River did not enter the extras. Jasmine did because Adam wanted her to and paid for it.)

I chatted with the judges afterwards while Jasmine did an interview, and I off handedly mentioned about the mom planning for her child to win overall for a third time. The director said she hadn't realized it was the same girl who'd taken overall previously until she'd already been judged, but she was not in favor of the mom entering the child in more than one regional because that is not the point, to see if you can scoop all the medals and crowns at each regional. But neither is there a rule against it, because all three of these pageants have a separate theme. The December one was the Winter Wonderland pageant. The one today was the Winter Princess pageant, and the one in March is the Under the Sea pageant.

The girl was a cutie, but I disagree with the mom's thinking. Then again, I'm not really a pageant mom. I do however plan to write a YA book, The Pageant Princesses Murder, so maybe I can count this as research. 😀😀

PS I bought Jasmine's dress at Goodwill for less than $3, same as Kayla's.