a little blog (& lens) talk...

First off, let me address you (all) by saying I'm not really sure what to do with this blog... meaning, when the blog started out, it was more or less a diary.  And when I had my blog set on private (which was a good 2+ years) it was definitely like a diary. 

I turned my blog public for my mom & dad (hi ma & pa)... since they've relocated to Florida, and we only see them every couple of months, I wanted them to be able to see what was going on in the kids' lives.  So I'm sure you're asking yourselves,  "Well why didn't she just add her parents to the reading list?"  I did- or should I say, we tried that- my parents, who are brilliant people, could not figure out how to access my blog.  And it killed me to know they had stopped reading it because of some stupid technical thing they just couldn't figure out.  SO... I went "public."  The funny thing is, I went public as a ton of my fellow bloggers went private.  I started to think about the huge world out there, and how anyone and everyone could look at pictures of my family, read about our day to day lives, and that kind of scares/scared me. 

Instead of posting 24/7 about our lives and what the kids are doing every second of the day, I've started to do more photography stuff.  It has been a complete blast!  I have met so many wonderful, talented, helpful photographers who want nothing more than to encourage and uplift, and that's been awesome.  I've had way too much fun doing all of these "contests" and participating in project 365 and scavenger hunt sundays, etc.  Okay- where am I going with all of this?  While on the phone with my mom the other day, she informed me that she doesn't read my blog much anymore because and I quote, "it's all about photography."  Well hmmm.

Apparently, I'm having a tough time finding a happy medium :/....

Anyways, with that said- I want to apologize to my mama (because this is yet another photography post) and say to anyone else out there who used to read my blog for the gory details of life post partum and giving my son enemas, that I'm sorry I haven't been more "open" with our daily life... I've got to find the middle here... and I will, so just bear with me.  :)

Okay- SO... lens talk.

I basically use ONE lens all.the.time.  It's my 50mm/1.8.  It's not the crazy expensive one- in fact I think it was around $200.00.  But I love it.  I hate using the flash (and very, VERY rarely do) so the wide aperture is a great feature to have.  For Christmas, I got a 17-85mm lens with  image stabilizer (thank you grandma!)  that is a nice, "all purpose" lens.  I barely use it, because as I said before, my 50mm is pretty much glued on 24/7 but  it is nice to have that range.   I also have a very nice "used" L-series lens (ooh la la!), sold to me by my photog friend, Suzie.  It's a wide angle lens, and the quality that lens produces is pretty sweet :)

Ryan and I were talking last night, and I said that I think I was "complete" with my lenses.  Well- I take that back, I'd like to upgrade my 50mm/1.8 to a 50mm/1.4 with IS, but we'll see if I can ever swing a thousand bucks for that ;).  I seem to like a very narrow depth of field, which is probably why the 50mm lens appeals to me so much.  I'd like to get better at shooting with a higher aperture, but I have a hard time capturing what I see in my head, and putting it into the camera... does that make sense? 

Anyways...

My questions are, what is your favorite, most used lens, and why?  What lenses are on your wish list?  Are you a "narrow depth of field" kinda gal?  Or do you like to take it all in?  If you like to work with a high aperture, what lens do you generally use?

Thanks for letting me chat photo for a second... and mom- I'll be back to posting about the kids tomorrow ;)