Green couch

I had two little couches recovered for the studio. I picked this cool, kind of retro-ish green for this one. You can't see the whole couch here but this color suits its era, I think. I wanted green so that it would blend in well for taking it outside, too. We have so many cool fields around here. Derek groaned when I mentioned it, because for its size this little couch is remarkably heavy.

I like this one because you can see his dimples.







A little overexposed, but I thought his expression was sweet.

a series

Grace playing Don't Break the Ice. She pretty much just hammers away until it finally collapses. I like how the shutter speed on the iPhone was slow so the hammer is just a blur.



She's laughing becuase she's waving the hammer in my face.









This is where she asks me to put it back together so she can whack it some more.

Wide angle

I rarely use a wider angle, although I am often drawn to the look in the work of others. For this shot I wanted to leave alot of white space around Eli and I only had a few feet to back up, so I broke out the 17-40 lens. It is just how I envisioned it (which rarely happens). I love it.





You can't get this shot with my preferred 135mm focal length, unless you have a ladder I guess. Even still I think the persepctive is a big part of what makes the image.







This one's for Derek. He laughed when he saw it on the back of the camera. 17mm.



Keeping with the wide angle theme, here is Charlotte on the climby thing at the zoo playground. These show her typical nutty preschooler playfullness, I think. And the typical skinned knees, too. Charlotte wiggles and bounces and hops and skips everywhere. Sometimes the constant motion drives me a little crazy, but mostly I envy her energy and enthusiasm. It does lead to a few extra trips and spills.




This is more typical of what I usually use (70mm). She's in the same spot as before. See what a difference it makes? Now all you can see of the background is the leaves and fence. It's useful for keeping distracting things out of the frame and also for getting nice shallow depth of field. I think sometimes it's a bit of a cop out, though. A new year's resolution is to play around with new things like shooting wider.

Swimming

Both Grace and Charlotte had alot of fun swimming this vacation. They are getting bolder in the water, which I am glad about. This summer I really think we can get them swimming for real. I hope so.




The baby was not as entranced with the water. I love his concerned expression in these.



Are you sure, Dad?


No, I definitely think this is a bad idea.




In his defense, the water was really prety cold relative to the air temperature.

Back on dry land, Eli returns to his usual happy little self.

We spent 2 weeks in Florida

and all I took were these lousy portraits.

I feel sometimes like my kids are going to be adults and look back on all the pictures of them growing up and think they lived one continual portrait session. I think I should try harder to take alot more pictures of what we do and who we do it with. I am actually quite bad at that. Alot of that is because when we are having fun I like to leave the camera at home. I sometimes take pictures of the kids when I want to try something new or practice something in particular. Honestly though I mostly shoot the kids when I am bored. Exhibit A, these images I took when Eli and I stayed behind at the hotel while the girls and Derek and Ron and Laura went to Busch Gardens on the second day in Tampa.

So here are the first few from our vacation that I have edited. They don't look particularly like vacation pictures to me, but look at that wonderful light in our hotel room. And that very cute baby in our hotel room.






There was this kind of cool, funky couch in our hotel room, too.






There are lots more to come, and some of them actually do look like Florida vacation pictures. So stay tuned.

6 months

Today is Eli's half-birthday, a day we like to celebrate in my family. In honor of the occassion, I gave him his first real food, some avocado. He did pretty well. Here's some pictures of his first meal, all courtesy of the iPhone.







Lest you think all that grimacing was an indication of his mood. He is just the smiliest little baby these days.




Derek and the girs are still on the road and they have my camera, so I couldn't have used it even if I wanted to for these. I have to say, though, that it is incredibly liberating to use the lousy iPhone camera. They're a little soft and the color is bad, but it's not my fault. See that odd shift in white balance for the image in the middle? I don't have to care. I love them all. I especially love that 6 month old chubby little boy, who is sitting on my lap as I type this. Happy half-birthday, Eli!

Avocado was Charlotte's first food, too. I had forgotten how curly her hair was, even when she was so small. She was just over 4 months old here.

Eli at JFK

our flight's delayed but he's in good spirits.

Sometimes the cuteness is almost overwhelming

Killing some time at the playground.