Category Archives: Sponsored

3 Tips for Visiting Japan

Today I am pleased to introduce you to one of my featured sponsors for July. Her name is Lisa and she has touched my heart with her photography and gorgeous family photos. She is a mom to her adorable son and cute dogs, Jasper & Coco, and expecting her next bundle of joy soon. She also shares my love of travel and is taking over my blog today to share with you a combination of travel and her photography hobby. Make sure to introduce yourself and share some ACR love her way.

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Hi, A Compass Rose readers!

My name is Lisa and I blog at expandng.com.
I blog about my family and also my photography hobby.

Reflected temple (after) | copyright Lisa C. Ng for expandng.com

I’m so honored to be sharing 3 tips for visiting Japan to you today on Bonnie’s lovely blog. In my former life (before marriage and kids), I lived in Taipei for two years and traveled to Japan twice. Once with some friends, and a second time all by myself. Japan really is one of the countries I’d visit over and over again. I love the food, culture, and how tourist-friendly it is (at least the cities I visited). Hope you enjoy the tips!

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Tip 1: A little Japanese goes a long way

I know two Japanese phrases, and they took me a long way while visiting Japan. Need directions? Have a question? Just say “Sumimasen“, which means “Excuse me“. Another I used all the time, “Arigatou gozaimashita“, which means “Thank you very much.” Listen to the locals use these words for their correct pronunciation.

Flag over river (after) | copyright Lisa C. Ng for expandng.com

Tip 2: Trains, trains, and more trains
I visited the Kyoto region on my second time to Japan and took trains just about everywhere. If you’re planning to take a lot of trains, look into a Japan Rail (JR) Pass. Be sure to read the FAQ page to find out the details on the pass. For longer-distance trains, I reserved seats and got my pass stamped at the various stations – Kyoto, Osaka, Tokyo. It was fun collecting them.

Tip 3: Restaurants with food displays are everywhere
When in doubt, eat at a restaurant with a food display. I once took a waitress outside to the window to show her what I wanted to eat. A few times cold noodle dishes were served when I was expecting a warm dish, but it certainly didn’t affect my appetite. Japanese food is one of my favorite cuisines.

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Hope the tips are helpful!

I’ll leave you with one of my

favorite photos from my trips to Japan!

Please let me know when you visit Japan,

so that I may live vicariously through you.

Follow Lisa on Twitter!

Best Week Ever #4

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Another week is wrapping up this summer and it has been quite warm. How hot has it been here in England? Well to give you an idea Betsy at Betsy Transatlantically wrote about it in Heat Wave! I honestly love having a summer in England and I know I will miss it once we go back to freezing in coats for the rest of the year and the beginning of next. I will say that not having AC is making me want to wear not much more than a bikini in the house. At night especially I feel like I am melting.

Wales is also experiencing the heat which means we potentially have a great week ahead of us for our Vow Renewal! I am more than excited about the possibility of not being rained out *knockonwood* and have been getting a nice tan this week in preparation for wearing my white wedding gown again. Overall despite the high heat it has been a really productive week and the last week of school for my boys. After school today my boys are officially on Summer Vacation and that makes this:

the Best Week Ever!

I have been featured on two different blogs this week. Here about The Craziest Thing I Have Ever Done for a Boy with Patricia at Kisses and Croissants and Painting Pictures: Passort to the World with Rachel Pieh Jones at Djibouti Jones. The later is about Third Culture Kids and how I view my past in relation to my future. It was a fun piece to write as I love sharing the insights of being a TCK.

1. Self Portrait Saturday. This Saturday my portrait was entitled ‘In the Wings‘. Which was pretty perfect for the weekend given that I went to my first audition in about nine years. I would have gone sooner but have let my accent hold me back. I’ve finally decided to start really working on softening it and start going to auditions. I grew up in the theatre as a girl and acting became the one constant in my highly nomadic upbringing. I majored in Theatre in Uni and it was how I met my husband. However after having kids and being a military wife I knew I would have to put my passions on hold for a while. Its been really nice to come out of the shadows and start pursing an interest that has been hidden inside for a while.

2. A Perfect Sunday. I love my weekends the best because it is family time. Last sunday we went for a lovely stroll along the canal into town and I posted about it on Sunday. This weekend we spent a perfect Sunday by taking a taxi into town of Lansdown. It is the location of a battle from the English Civil War and we went for a total 8 hour country walk in Lansdown and then walking back to our home.

3. Weekly Wishes. Another entry for the link up with Melyssa from the Nectar Collective. I talked about my situation with the wedding dress I wore ten years ago this August and what I’m attempting to do to wear it again for our vow renewal in Wales.

4. Travel Tuesday. Our Second #TravelTuesday with my beautiful cohost Belinda of Found Love. Now What? was my second part of the Pompeii series. Last week I shared the Darker side of Pompeii and this week I shared the Lighter side of Pompeii. Did you link up?

5. A Moment to Reflect. It is okay to not completely plan out posts. While I tend to have a structure going with my daily posts on ACR, I used this Wednesday to just reflect on life. I talked about how Pinterest was making me rethink my wedding plans and what I am most excited about for the Vow Renewal.

6. Throwback Thursday. My photography post on Thursday was a throwback to my Model of the Month project in 2010 with a LookBook shoot in Hawaii. In the digital age where photos can just be forgotten on hard drives it is nice to bring them out again.

Thinking of Sponsoring for August?

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GOOD READS

f r o m t h i s w e e k

Kayleigh (The Way I Wanderlust): 30 before 30 List

Luchessa (Beauty Expression): Essence Peel off Base Coat

Mrs. B (World Traveling Military Family): Homecoming Photos by a Yellow Ribbon Photographer

Jessica (Jessica Lynn Writes): Loving My Tiger Stripes

Lisa (Expandng): Tips on Photographing Butterflies

Belinda (Found Love. Now What?) Five Lessons I Learned in Paris

Jade (An Invisible Crown) My Top Five London Attractions

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Q: How has this been your Best Week Ever?

Link up for BEST WEEK EVER!

Join the Weekly link up. How has this week been your best week ever?

Share your weekly recaps and add this button to your blog.

RULES:

1. Add this button to your post

2. Join the Linkup

3. Hop around to other participants and share with them your BWE.

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also I am linking up with Casey from We Took the Road Less Traveled:

Become a Sponsor for August

Weekly Wishes #3

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Most European calendars start the week on Monday and it is why I love starting off my Mondays with Weekly Wishes. As an update on Weekly Wishes #1, I went on my first audition in nine years yesterday. I know my accent was not perfect, but I still had a lot of fun. In place of being nervous I realised I have a lot of work to do in getting used to cold readings again. There is nothing worse than holding a script in your hand and getting that moment of disconnect when trying to locate the next line. It has fueled the fire of my passion for theatre and I am not searching out for more auditions to attend. I already have one next month circled on my calendar. For Weekly Wishes#2 I have started to make a dent on the weeding out of clothes. Actually I have a great start on my kids’ clothing too! My kids mostly wear school uniforms, dressy casual (jeans and button up dress shirts), and pyjamas. Through outside family they have acquired all these clothes they never wear. I have stacks of brand new clothes that I am going to sell on ebay since the boys will not wear them. So we are getting closer to the finish line with the ‘Spring Cleaning’.

Weekly Wishes # 3

w i s h e s f o r t h i s w e e k

My wedding gown. If you have missed out on the story about my custom made gown I had talked about how the zipper had broken in my ‘Crushed’ Self Portrait post. While I know we could get the zipper fixed I am not going to be able to get a corset in time for our Vow Renewal in a couple of weeks. Since I wore a corset with this dress 10 years ago I have decided to go another route. Today I will be taking out the zipper and attempting to make it a lace back instead. So my weekly wish is that I can accomplish this successfully as we leave on Saturday of next week for Wales. My American expat friend is going to be helping me this week with her sewing machine and we seem pretty confident that we can pull this off. I am going to be wearing flats since we plan to be out in the countryside of Snowdonia and I want to be able to walk without falling down on uneven surfaces. This means I can take up the hem and use that extra fabric to accomplish the goal. Fingers crossed!

Q: What are your Weekly Wishes? Have you linked up?

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Today I would like to introduce you to my beautiful sponsor, Jessica.

She is dear to my heart because she is a fellow USAF wife and is currently stationed in Italy.

You have heard me talk about military moves before, check out her post: 1000 Pounds, What Would You Pack

Her blog: http://www.jessicalynnwrites.com/

Additional Links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JessicaLynnWrites

Instagram: https://www.facebook.com/JessicaLynnWrites

Bloglovin: http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/3943401/jessica-lynn-writes

Best Week Ever/3

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If you are new to my Best Week Ever series this is my way of looking back on each week positively. Every week should be our best week and even when times are tough find something that makes life beautiful to be living. This week I have to say I am happy for the warm weather. It is the first real summer that I have experienced in England. Last year we got two weeks of great weather right at the time Ryan and I were on vacation in Italy. It has been really lovely to see the beautiful blue skies and spend so much time outdoors with my family. This past weekend we went to a local fete and spent time walking along the canal and the parks in Bath, England. Anytime we can be outside as a family is a great day for us. This week has gone by so fast and I am glad to welcome this weekend and all it has to offer.

1. Summer Fete. I learned that it is pronounced like ‘fate’ in American and not pronounced like it rhymes with ‘set’. Have been to three now saying it the wrong way. Luckily I have an awesome friend who is also an American expat that was able correct this blunder this week.

2. Wedding dvds. I have a really good friend named Sally. She was my husband’s neighbour growing up back in Illinois. She has always been really nice since I met her and probably one of my biggest supports. I am almost always getting online to find a sweet comment that Sally left for me on one of my photographs. She sent us a care package this week with a wedding dvd her husband made at our wedding in 2003 and a dvd of her daughter singing at her wedding this summer. It was so thoughtful and I just wish Sally and Arlie could be here this summer for our vow renewal.

3. Scars. The portrait for this self portrait saturday was focused on one of the scars on my neck. It is a memento from after I was born with being a premie and surgeries for a disease. Read more about it on Self Portrait Saturday. Remember there will be another post tomorrow and you can link up with us!

INSTAGRAM: Therese were a few of my favourite Instagram photos from the weekend. We walked into town on Sunday along the canal, which is one of my favouite ways to get there. We also got to enjoy the view from the Pulteney Bridge where we stopped for ice cream. This bridge is like the one in Florence where it has shops all the way across it. The weather is really ~~warm~~ hot out here and there has been lots more drinking of Pims. You can follow me on Instagram here.

Weekly Wishes: I discussed my weekly wish, my plan to get rid of my wardrobe and the reasons behind it.
Travel Tuesday: A new link up with my cohost Belinda. This week I take you to the Darker Side of Pompeii.
Life in England: A Sports Day recap with a special VLOG on Third Culture Kids by my son, a TCK.
Photography: This week’s photography post was an instruction on how to take your family portraits.

This has been my first week using the Disqus app for my comments. You might remember I had tried using it before for a day but went back to the blogger comment format since I like being able to email back and forth with my readers. I will say having not been able to respond with everyone do to the ‘no reply blogger’ issue I finally decided to give Disqus another try. Right now I really love it. I am still able to have a continual conversation with you as we get email notifications to reply back to each other and I have found more people are leaving comments now than with the old system.

So I wanted to ask how do you like it?

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WHAT I HAVE BEEN

r e a d i n g i n b l o g l a n d :

The Way I Wanderlust – Magnetic Island, Australia by Kaylie

Expandng – Tips on Photographing Butterflies by Lisa

With Love, Rachel – The Right Way to Make a Mojito by Rachel

World Traveling Military Family – Local Tourist Pt. II Montgomery AL by Mrs B

Starletta Designs – Handmade Jewelry Designs by Tara

Jessica Lynn Writes – 1000 Pounds What Would You Pack by Jessica Lynn

Found Love. Now What? – 4 Things I Did to Grow & Change my Blog by Belinda

An Invisible Crown – Weekly Wishes by Jade

Beauty Expresssion – Tops & Flops by Luchessa

Q: How has this been your Best Week Ever?

I am also linking up with Casey:

Tweet this Blog Hop!

How to Take your Family Portraits

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Family Portraits. We take them all the time to capture those we love and the memories and moments in time. Sometimes we even jump in front of the camera just in time to be in the photographs too. With families getting together for summer vacation, I have been asked to give some advice on how to take your family portraits. There are many variables to consider. The number one thing I have to stress is to have fun! Sometimes things just will not go to plan. Some of my most favourite family portraits are those unexpected moments that just happened to get captured on camera. In the image below my kids were not dressed especially for the occasion, nor were they matching. I was testing out a new lighting set up and they wanted to be included in the process. In the end this was my favourite shot from the session.

How To Take Your
F A M I L Y P O R T R A I T S

Prepare.
You can surely take an impromptu family portrait and love the results. However you could also prep for a more stylized family portrait and take them yourself. Look over this list of points to keep in mind before taking your portraits is key to satisfaction. But do not forget about your equipment. Make sure your camera batteries are charged and with you, that your memory cards have available space (and not just becoming storage to unbacked up photos) and double check your camera settings. If you shoot in lower quality for selling items on eBay, make sure to change it back to RAW or a higher res for your portraits to save from crying later.

Coordinate.

I do not suggest having everyone wear the exact same outfit. Just as I would not suggest those that travel to Hawaii to buy all matching ‘Aloha’ shirts and have their photo taken. The key is coordination and simplicity. Choose a colour palette and and let everyone dress accordingly. For balance check ahead of time what everyone has and what they are thinking of wearing. Otherwise you may have someone’s uncle showing up in blue jeans instead of the suggested khakis simply because he did not have any in his wardrobe. It will become a case of the ‘one of these things is not like the other‘. Especially if you are taking a family portrait on vacation you cannot plan on everyone having something that will match. Plan ahead of time so that you do not run into this problem.

My last family portrait was taken at Christmas time by our home here in Bath, England. I let my family know ahead of time what the colour palette was and sort of kept tabs on my mum and sister about what they would be bringing. When it came to plan out the outfits I let everyone ‘punch’ the colour of red in a different way. I wore a red cardigan, my sister wore red shoes and red accessories, my mum wore a red hat, my eldest son wore a red tie, and my youngest had red stripe detail in his dark plaid shirt. My husband did not have anything with red but matched the palette. Since we all punched red into the photo in different ways it did not matter that Ryan stayed neutral because it became a cohesive balance.

Timing.

A good rule of thumb for what time of day to shoot is the ‘Golden Hour’, which is the first and last hour of sunlight during the day since the lighting is softer. You can check online for sun calculators to determine what time you should be outside to do your photograph. I suggest working together and trying to get it done as efficiently as possible to avoid family members getting restless. I always tell my boys that if they work really hard to help us get the shot then we can move on quicker to something more fun. A little bribery never hurts.

Location.

This may be an integral part of your shot if you are on vacation in a place you would like to remember, like on Lanikai beach in Hawaii. It may be good to location scout first to make sure the place works and that it is a safe location. Simple is best and try not to have too much going on in the background. I have used brick walls, hedges, and even an open field to set the scene. Depending on your camera, the lens, and your settings you may want just the focus on the the group with a soft blurry bokeh background. I suggest keeping away from other people or anything that may clutter the shot and take away the focus. Let the outdoors be your photo studio and keep it simple so that it works with you for the shot.

Tripod, Timer and a Remote.

The family portraits I have shown where I am in the photograph have been taken with my camera on a tripod (or another surface) and with a timer. Easier would be a remote. It is how I take my self portraits for Self Portrait Saturday. I definitely recommend looking into all three if you do not have or know how to work them yet. The photo above where I am reading with my kids was taken with the timer.

Elements. Sometimes the best made plans can be tested by the circumstances like the weather. You could have a beautiful set up on the beach, perfectly orchestrated morning to get everyone looking just perfect and have the wind mess everyone’s hair up. Two of the family portraits we have done in England have been while it is raining. Of course the rain did not happen until the camera was set up on the tripod and we were ready to start. At this point you have two options. You can reschedule or you can attempt to do the best that you can given the circumstances.

Tips: Keep it fun. As soon as someone starts getting stressed out or upset it is going to show in the face or body language. If you are dealing with the wind turn your bodies so that the wind works for you, not against you. If you are dealing with the rain my best advice is to know what shot you want to get and get it. If you are not comfortable with the lighting and cannot get a good test shot, don’t force it. Go back out when the weather is better.

Lighting. Not enough and your portraits will not turn out. Too much and you will get harsh shadows on their face. Be aware of the lighting situation. When we lived in Hawaii if I wanted to shoot in the morning I would have to shoot early because by 1000 it would be too bright. In England where we have cloudy skies often it becomes one of my favorite lighting situations as it acts like a natural light diffuser. If you are shooting outside it is good to have your subjects in the shade with the sun light in front of them. I used this method above while shooting family portraits on a bright sunny day in Arizona. I also love shooting with the sun behind my subjects for backlighting.

Tips: If you are still practicing with backlighting try shooting your subjects with trees behind them and shoot so that the sun shines through the trees. Keeping your subject far enough away from the backdrop with a low aperture, can result in a nice bokeh affect of the sunlight through the trees. If you are still learning about shooting in manual and ISO settings check out the ‘Sunny 16 rule': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_16_rule for shooting in sunlight.

Kids & Animals. They infamous quote is you should never work with children or animals. However of course those will be the two categories we want to focus on in our photographs. Keep the little ones in mind when going planning each stage of your family portrait. If you know the kids will be tired during a certain hour, obviously do not plan to shoot at that time. It is better to work around the little ones and their schedule. Make sure the kids present are neither tired nor hungry when it is time to pose. Bring treats and have something for them to look forward to after the photographs have been taken.

Props. They can be fun. Especially with the right group of people a few key props can pull a theme together. Kids especially will love things they can wear or play with and will be drawn to the excitement. However make sure you get your standard portraits first. Always aim to get the shot you want in the beginning and then from there have fun. It could be the shots you do not plan that may surprise you and turn out the best in the end.

Attitudes. Sometimes it is not the right time to take photos. If anyone is uncomfortable in front of the camera it will read in the eyes. If someone is upset it will not only show in their face but will affect the other people in the photograph. I have taken family photos as a portrait photographer where the husband was in a really nasty mood. It not only affected the child but made the wife very anxious. It did not matter what I did to get the mom and the child to smile, the husband was grumpy in ever single shot. For this very reason on family vacations with my husband’s family I have second guessed my decision to take family portraits. The camera does not lie and there are some things you just cannot fix in photoshop. Bottom line, do not force a photo shoot if the situation is already stressful.

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