Hipstamatic 200 for iPhone 4 ; Helga Viking lens & Ina’s 35 film

Here are a few images for you that I captured the other day via Hipstamatic, looking up into my loquat tree:

I love the sunshine.

Hope you have a gorgeous day!

We had a really fun vacation! It snowed while we were visiting my mother and father in law’s house, and we got to really relax and have fun.

This year was Zachary’s first real exposure to Christmas and the traditions that surround it. Although our family is Jewish and does not celebrate Christmas, my husband’s family celebrates the holiday so it was nice to join them for their traditions. Zachary thought the tree was very interesting and had fun investigating the ornaments & gifts (and trying to rip off the name tags- lol). He also enjoyed decorating the holiday cookies, which was a first for me, too! The first cookie picture were the ones Zachary decorated, and the second were ones that Adrian and I did.

One night we went out to dinner at Cootie Brown’s, a fun restaurant in Johnson City, TN. They have an awesome food selection and a gigantic beer menu. Something I actually love about visiting my in-laws is that Tennessee has a pretty fantastic variety of local beers available, which isn’t something you’d normally think about TN. One night we picked up a bunch of different local beers at the grocery store (since they’re sold individually) and got to try some interesting (and yummy) stuff!

It snowed on Christmas and I was beyond thrilled as I had never seen snow fall from the sky before. You’re probably in shock, but I’m a Florida girl and have only ever seen snow maybe two or three times EVER in my life so this was a pretty major life event for me – haha! I headed outside to take a bunch of pictures including a few selfies :) While I was frolicking in the snow, Adrian and Zachary were taking funny self portraits. The one below is my favorite (and my current iPhone background)!

Here are some fun Hipstamatic/Instagrams I took in the snow:

Amazingly, even the birds were out at the feeder, enjoying the snow:

Zachary loved loved loved looking out the window watching the snow fall and seeing everything covered in beautiful white snow. And he was even more excited to be outside playing in it! He loved touching and walking through the snow, and did not want to come back inside when we were done playing. I took most of those pictures on my real camera – can’t wait to finish editing & post :)

We took an impromptu trip to Washington DC to have some time away just us as a mini-vacation with no baby. It was fun! I took a few iPhone shots on the drive through Virginia. it was so scenic and gorgeous. I’m convinced now that snow can make anything look beautiful. LOL.

We had dinner at Capitol City Brewery and checked out the National Christmas Tree. It was almost time for it to be taken down for the near year – we couldn’t leave the area without taking a look. It was blisteringly cold and windy that night though but after 20 minutes out walking around you pretty much couldn’t feel your hands, feet, or face anymore, so I didn’t mind standing out trying to take pictures of the gigantic tree in the freezing cold after a while. I guess that’s how people survive in cold places, huh? Haha! I took the photo below using my iPhone 4′s HDR mode.

The next day we drove around exploring the area and then checked out the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, which was closed for renovations the last time we had visited.

On our way out of DC we spotted a couple helicopters flying around, and noticed it was “Marine One” – they always travel in groups of three so you can’t tell if the President is on board. We’re pretty sure we saw three of them, so we wondered if this was the real Marine One or perhaps a decoy?! Fun to think about though!

After getting back from DC (which is about a 6 hour drive from my in-laws home) we spent a day relaxing and packing up, and then we drove home. We spent a few more days relaxing at home after we got back from vacation before going back to work/school last Monday.

It was so great to take such a long vacation and spend so much time with my husband and son not thinking about work or obligations. We made so many great memories – I can’t wait to share even more of the “real” pictures with you guys!

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Chilling out with his hat. “Why are you taking so many pictures of me, Mommy?!”

First pic is a b&w conversion of a Hipstamatic photo, the second was processed with Instagram.

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I love this image – some of my shots from Hipstamatic are so perfect sometimes. I want to make a print of this photograph.

Wednesday – I have some cute pictures to share that are not downloaded from my point & shoot yet. In the mean time, check out his turkey handprint from the artwork Zachary made at school!

Thursday – Thanksgiving Day! I played Thomas with Zachary (of course). We played with some stickers, which he covered himself in. And then Maya joined in playing with trains, too! Silly Maya.

Friday – I really did a lot of nothing on Friday. I barely squeezed in a photo when I took this image of some funky light in my room. The iPhone is great for taking pictures of weird light/shadows because of its dynamic range.

On Saturday, we visited with Aunt Amy, Zachary’s godmother and my best friend of almost 20 years. We had lunch at her house and then went shopping. We stayed for dinner, and changed Zachary into a new pair of PJ’s for the car ride home. He loves Amy very much and can’t wait to go to her house again!

On Sunday, I had planned to go out and do an activity, but it turned into a lazy day as we all slept late. I cleaned, Zachary took an epic long afternoon nap, and then again – we played with trains. :)

All of these pictures were taken with the iPhone 4 – Hipstamatic and Instagram, and the first one is just a plain old iPhone pic. ;)

And that brings us to today! Hoping I catch a fun moment with my little guy this afternoon, as I’m off to pick up Zachary from school!

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I’d always enjoyed taking photos with my iPhone, but what truly took it to the next level was when I downloaded the Hipstamatic app for iPhone over a year ago. Yep, today’s iPhone app of the week is one of my absolute favorites, and I am sooooo excited because in addition to my review, there is a giveaway! :)

If you have no clue what this app does, Hipstamatic allows you to take vintage style square format photos and turns your iPhone into a truly awesome camera with different lenses, films, and flashes.

The app has only improved over the past couple months with the latest updates, and Hipstamatic is by far by favorite photo taking app for the iPhone. I’ve bought all of the different lenses & films since I first downloaded the app and it’s pretty fun trying out all the various combinations. Lately, though, I tend to stick to the Helga lens & Ina’s ’35 film.

Hipstamatic also offers the ability to order prints of your photos right from within the app, using the HipstaMart. You can get 15% off the HipstaMart.com print lab using coupon code AUTUMN through December 3rd.

Here are a few of my favorite Hipstamatic shots that I took on our recent trips to St. Augustine & Alaska/Seattle this past year:

The Hipsta-folks were kind enough to provide me with 25 free download codes. so, if you want to get a FREE download of Hipstamatic for iPhone/iTouch, just leave a comment on my blog! The first 25 comments will receive a code emailed to them when I manage to get myself back to the computer after my turkey-induced coma. ;)

Of course, it’d be pretty sweet if you did any of the following (you don’t get anything extra for these things, but it would be awesome just to show support!):

• Tweet this: Visit http://bit.ly/hEaskp to win a free download of @hipstamatic from @karenlisa during #photofunmonth!
• Follow my blog with Google Friend Connect (see sidebar)
• Follow @karenlisa on Twitter and Bright Autumn Sun’s Facebook Page
• Follow @hipstamatic on Twitter and Hipstamatic’s Facebook Page
• Vote for my blog on Top Baby Blogs or  Picket Fence Blogs

If you miss out on this cool giveaway and still want this amazing app, click here to purchase and download from iTunes. At only $1.99 for the base set of lenses, film, and flash… it won’t break the bank and will provide hours of fun. Each subsequent HipstaPack with more film/lenses/etc  is only 99 cents, which in my opinion is totally worth it considering how much fun it is to use this app. I promise, you will not get tired of it.

A few tips – I prefer to turn off the “shake to randomize” setting since I typically like to shoot with the same lens/film combination, and I also have have my viewfinder mode set to Precision Framing since it’s easier for me to take pictures of my kid that way.

Hope you enjoy this fun giveaway and thanks Hipstamatic for providing the free codes!

Disclosure: I already own Hipstamatic and love using the app! All opinions are my own. Hipstamatic was awesome to provide free download codes & a coupon code for my readers.

This image was taken on Saturday, November 20th, the day before Zachary’s birthday. I had just picked up blueberries at Publix and they looked so delicious. I rinsed the box out and started eating some right from the box. Zachary became interested so I invited him to come and enjoy the snack. It was fun to enjoy the simple pleasure of eating blueberries right from the container. He has always liked blueberries and just gobbled them down! After a few minutes, Adrian joined us. I wish someone had been standing there to photograph the three of us – standing in the middle of the kitchen, eating blueberries. It was a fun moment, and I’m glad I was able to capture Zachary at least.

Pictures from Sunday, Zachary’s birthday, will go into a separate post.

These next pictures are from today! First off we have Zachary brushing his teeth. I feel pretty lucky to have a kid who loves to brush his teeth. Every time Zachary walks into the bathroom, he starts yelling, “teeth, teeth!” He is so enthusiastic about it! We brush our teeth together in the morning and before he goes to bed. When I was a kid, I remember that I didn’t really like brushing my teeth very much (and it’s still not really one of my favorite daily tasks, it just bores me, lol), so I’m glad that he likes it.

Yes… note my yellow tile bathroom! It’s oh so 70′s chic and original to the house. That will be changing soon, I hope! :)

Next pic is Zachary making a run for my camera…. he loves loves loves my Canon 5D and tries to grab it every chance he gets. I’m going to show this pic to my primary 2nd shooter Jessica and tell her that I don’t need her to shoot that next wedding with me because I think Zachary has volunteered to shoot it for free… LOL. I was using the camera today to take a good photo of a beautiful piece of photo jewelry that’s showing up on the blog tomorrow in a giveaway – so keep an eye out as it’s truly gorgeous!

The first shot was taken with Hipstamatic, and the last two are from Instagram. I love those iPhone apps.. good stuff.

We’ve been having a fun time lately, me and Zachary. I know I keep saying it but it’s true. So many adventures, fun moments, smiles and hugs. He is such a mischievous little boy now with a wonderful sense of humor. He is our light!

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We’d looked in IKEA at the art section but upon seeing generic abstract art for a hundred bucks or so, I figured I’d check Etsy to see if there was anything comparable or a little more money that was better, and well… original. We spent more than twice as much as the IKEA piece, but ended up with a real, original piece of artwork for our home that was absolutely worth it. Having real art in my house is important to me and I’m glad to have found such a gorgeous piece.

Artwork by the very talented Matthew Hamblen from North Carolina.

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Enjoying my #photofunmonth posts? Please vote on Picket Fence or Top Baby Blogs if you like my blog! And don’t forget to check out the sidebar of the blog for my current Photo Fun Month giveaways!