Just One For Now

So what do photographers do on vacation? Go to cool junkyards and oogle the photographic possibilities. On our first day in Phoenix, my friend Doni took us on a day trip up to this very cool old car graveyard. I only managed this one of the girls together. That little red headed guy in the background is Doni's son Tanner who is the sweetest, nicest 8 year old boy I have ever met. The girls had a great time playing with him and his siblings Ty and Tori all vacation long.



I went away for 5 days and managed to come home a week and a half behind. I am not sure how that math worked out. I have lots of fun pictures to edit, but they will probably wait until next week.

Been a long time

Well hello! It has been awhile since I posted. It has been awhile since I took any pictures of the kids. I have some plans for pictures of Eli, but haven't even picked up the camera (for fun) in a month. This week, the girls and I travel to visit a good friend of mine who is also a great photographer and we have lots of plans in store. So hopefully next week I should have lots to post here. In anticipation of the usual photographic resistence from Grace and Charlotte, I took them to the mall yesterday and let them each pick out a new dress for the trip. They had alot of fun with that, we even went in the fitting rooms and tried them on and they twirled in the mirrors. Think pink. Lots of pink.

Today, Eli is home sick from daycare and I had to reschedule my morning session but the studio was still all set up. Charlotte let me shoot her for a few minutes. The blanket is typical. The girls like to carry the blankets from their bed around and wrap themselves up in them.

Charlotte wrinkles her nose when she smiles. Here is the first one, in which she is giving me her gratutious smile-for-the-camera smile.


Here, a second later, I must have said something that genuinely made her laugh. Can you see the difference on the web sized versions? It's subtle, but it makes a difference, I think.


The first one cropped in close. I like this one alot.


More Charlotte giggles.



Then, Charlotte wanted a turn so she took the camera and I sat for her. She shot these with my 70-200 F2.8 IS lens. For non-photographers, that thing is really heavy! This first one was her uncropped first frame (I did edit out the bags under my eyes, I admit). YWhy yes, I'm still in my pajamas. Who are you to judge me?


Then, I snagged Eli and she took this one of the two of us (I cropped this). Be still my heart.

Baby Model

So I joked a few posts ago about how Eli loves to be photographed and that he is like my little baby model. Tonight just before bedtime, Derek and I dressed him up and brought him into the studio. He absolutely lit up. I think Derek was even surprised. He ran over and climbed onto the box and laughed and laughed. He is fast and he gets up and down and runs around alot, but he definitely gets that he is "on" and he performs. I can work with that! Plus, I know I am totally biased but isn't he one of the cutest little baby models you've ever seen?






There are lots more I could show, but being the end of the day and all we really should have washed his face before shooting these. I got tired of editing his dinner (and probably some lunch, too) off his face.

Another snow victim

Gracie very good naturedly agreed to come out into the snow today for a picture or two. She didn't last too long, but I was really happy that she went for it in the first place. I hope that my neighbors never paint their garage.



it is so frustrating to me how lousy this looks at web size. It looks much better in print. You'll have to take my word for it.

Nothing on my kitchen counters is safe anymore. Eli steers the chairs around to exactly the spot he wants to access and then climbs up. We moved the higher chairs we had because he could get up onto the counter from those. Not so good.

I sitting on the couch and could hear him crunching the apple so I wasn't really monitoring him. Derek did warn me that he likes to take bites out of all of them, but I guess I forgot. Notice how he sampled 3? It made me laugh. He was reaching for a fourth when I intervened. He redeemed himself by clearly saying, "ah-pull" to me. That makes a grand total of 4 words he says. And that's counting generously. The doctor this morning said to give him until he's 2 ( he turned 1.5 yesterday). I'm really not worried at all, but it is fun to hear him saying some things all of a sudden.

My muse

Looking back over the pictures, I think it was about 18 months that Gracie became annoyed with me photographing her. And by annoyed, I mean shrieking, screaming and running away whenever she saw the camera. Eli however continues to have a grand old time when I shoot him. I bought this little shirt for him before he was born and just found it in a drawer the other day. I put it on him and put him down in the middle of the comforter. He laughed and mugged for me for a couple of seconds. Then, he got up and ran around and ran over to push the buttons on the camera and I figured we were done. Then he suddenly ran back over to right where I had put him at first and climbed on to the bed and turned around and smiled big for me again. And then he got up and ran over to me to see the picture on the back of the camera. And then back again, over and over and over. We probably did this 12 times. These two images I picked came from some of the later shots so his willingness to play the game with me definitely got us the best shots. Is it possible I have a little cooperative baby model? My heart sings with joy.

Sledding

The girls wanted to play outside yesterday after Charlotte got home from school. Derek makes a little sled hill out of the stairs off the deck. It is short but steep.

My favorite series






The focus fell on her feet on the last one, but I kind of like that.

I am bad about getting adults in the shots. Often, I find they don't really want to be photographed and I am not good at being pushy (or sneaky, I guess). I thought this was a really cute picture of Derek and the girls together.


I like the look on Derek's face in this one. He really gave them a good shove to get their speed up.




Charlotte's turn to be in front.

Earmuffs

Charlotte put earmuffs on her Christmas list. She agreed to model them for me Christmas morning, so here she is! Does my girl have beautiful brown eyes, or what? She gets them from her Daddy. Grace and Eli's are blue/greenish like mine. Charlotte's are brown like Derek's. I love them.