Reflective Mom

In this first one, I thought she looked like she was reflecting on the day, maybe remembering something that happened with the kids or my nonsense from this morning.

Tired Mom

Then I asked her to just kill the smile for a second, and she looked tired, like she had just put the kids to bed and sat down for her first moment of peace, thinking “I really don’t want to put away the groceries now.” (Fortunately I’d already taken care of them. I rock like that.)

Thoughtful Mom

Finally, in this one she just looked lost in thought. I think if I absolutely had to pick a favorite, it would be this one, mostly because I feel like the light was a little more subtle.

I think the only thing I might have change next time is take a little more time to set up, maybe set up the tripod and make sure I can crank the ISO down as low as possible to eliminate more of the noise. I also need to take the time to start polishing my post-processing skills so I can work a little more on noise and sharpness then.

Black and White and (lots of!) Gray

This time I had two challenges. First was getting my eyes into sharper focus, as the camera kept finding my goatee and knuckles first. Second I tweaked the aperture to properly blur the background, as well as positioned myself to block out the bulk of the shapes behind me.

Two things will make this easier in the future:

First, tracking down the software so I can tether the camera to my laptop. That will help nail down the focus instead of having to do so many test shots (and having to reset the camera between each). Second, I need to find a proper backdrop. I tried having my wife hold my open gi jacket, and while it obscured the background it introduced its own folds and shadows. Our blankets, etc., have patterns, so they wouldn’t have done any good. A simple white cloth and a simple black cloth will probably provide plenty of versatility in the future.

The Photo Friday shots to date can be found here.

Get the rebound!

I’ve never been a big basketball fan, but it’s fun watching the little guys run around and do their thing. The Midget is having a blast, and even though he’s never played before, he’s learning quite a bit and has improved with every game. There have been several mornings we woke to the “thump thump thump” of his dribbling practice, and he’ll often dribble some more while he watches TV.

There hasn’t been much I’ve been able to offer him in terms of advice. The Wife played basketball in high school, but I wrestled and we weren’t big fans of the pumpkin bouncers. I more or less tuned out during basketball rules lessons in PE, and I constantly got called for fouls that I didn’t even realize were fouls. For example, if I stand firm and the guy with the ball crashes into me and falls on his ass, why is that a foul on me? Why should I have to give up ground for my opponent? I’m not going to give him a free shot at the basket!

I digress. Point is, I tried to give the little dude advice from the sideline once, but the Wife told me that was the opposite of what he needed to be doing at the moment. So I keep it simple now: “Go go go!” and “Nice shot!” That way the coaches don’t look at me like I’m crazy. It doesn’t matter much this year, but he says he wants to play throughout his school career. If that’s the case, I guess I better start learning how this shit works so we can practice in the driveway.

Yeah, we have a hoop. Inherited it when we bought the house. Only time I’ve ever paid attention to it is when I’ve had to mow around it.

Photography-wise, the lesson this week is a lot like last week’s: spot focus is tough at a distance with a low aperture setting. I need a fast zoom lens, but they’re way out of my financial reach. On the plus side, I got up and moved around the gym a bit, exercising a little more sneaker zoom than usual. The habit of staying in the bleachers with friends is one I need to break if I want to take better pics.

C'mon 6!

I really liked the setup for this one, but I wish I had the focus on her face instead of her hands. I couldn’t recreate the same combination of expression and angle, unfortunately, to get it right. Lesson learned: practice more with manual focus.

I posted two other pics from the same shoot here and here. Also some minor things I’d have changed, but when you’re working with a three year old excited to take her turn, it’s not exactly easy to give direction. Heh.

The Photo Friday set of all pics so far can be found here.

I decided to mimic that opportunity tonight. The kamiza is held by candlelight, and every karateka in the ceremony carries in their own candle. I had my candle at home, so I lit it up and started playing with the camera.

In the dojo, or in the living room?

Something I learned from this pic is I need a remote. I kind of like the pic, but the focus could really be better, especially since I used a low aperture resulting in a very narrow depth of field. I may retake this one when I get a remote, and play with the exposure to capture the flame.

Bonus pic:

I like the halo around the flame

While I was playing with the camera and the distance, I caught this picture. I did a quick crop, otherwise it’s straight off the camera.

For this Photo Friday I grabbed my humidor, staged a quick pic, set the lens to macro mode, and started shooting. I had to fiddle with the flash and a hack diffuser (read: a couple of tissues), but finally got something about what I wanted.

Now I have the urge to light one up

I’m not sure I’ll have time (or a place) to smoke cigars in California, but last year VisionCon was (mostly) cigar-friendly, so next week maybe I’ll get to fire one up.

It’s a cool place, and while it’s not near as remote as it appears in The Shining, once you get up to the hotel itself you can’t shake the creepy vibe the fictional history lends it. As we were walking out, I ran out onto the edge of a walkway out front and snapped a couple pictures of the front of the place, including Tom, Michelle, the Wife, and the Midget (barely a toddler at the time) coming toward me. I caught a few that I thought looked great, including one I thought would make a nice picture for the office. The sun wasn’t quite in the right place and the focus on the family & friends could have been better (it was just a simple point-and-shoot camera), but it was mine and I was happy with it.

Then I promptly lost the picture. I was juggling systems and hard drives at the same time, I procrastinated making prints, and before long the pictures disappeared. I was fairly certain I screwed up and deleted one of my backups that may have included those pics, and I figured that was that.

Flash forward five years. I’m digging through a box of junk and I find a CD labeled “laptop backup” and dated back to ‘04. It had pictures on it, so I imported them to iPhoto. Over time I’ve been going through and sorting them out, tagging them, and so on, when I stumbled across a picture of the elk from Colorado.

Dare I hope?

I scrolled through the pics and boom! Found her:

Guests check in... but they don't check out!

It made my day. I hate losing pictures, but I missed this one and I have no idea when I’ll be able to get out to visit Colorado again. Even if I did go out there and reproduce it with better light and my new camera, it wouldn’t have the same magic attached to it. I still procrastinated on buying a print, but believe me, I’ve got backups!

Now that I’m getting ready to send Tom a copy of my book, I thought he and Michelle would like a copy of the picture. This morning I uploaded it to Flickr, ordered a copy, and the Wife picked it up while she was out grocery shopping. I finally have a hardcopy in my hot little hands.

Of course I forgot to tell her to pick up a picture frame, so now it’ll probably get buried on my desk and collect dust for another year or two.

Oops.

So this year I figure I best start strong. Rather than messing with a focused theme like 52 Weeks or joining another group, I dreamed up Photo Friday. Every Friday, I’ll post a picture or two of whatever strikes me at the time. To get rolling, I took the camera outside to see what I could do with snow. I came back with two pics.

First, I visited the motorcycle in the garage.

Soon, my sweet. Soon.

In all honesty, while the snow was blowing outside, it wasn’t the whiteout you see here. However, the overexposure of the background created a nice deception that I felt worked for the picture. The real trick was keeping our low garage door and the kids’ toys and our van outside of the frame.

(Side note: get a load of the custom floor for Lenore to park on. This keeps the salt and snow off her tires and kickstand. Do I pamper her or what?)

That done, I walked into the back yard. We have some nice, high drifts, but nothing that made for a particularly interesting picture. The snow on the picnic tables showed just how much we received, but it wouldn’t be particularly impressive to anyone living in the frozen North.

Then I spotted the kids’ swings, complete with contoured snow in the seats, swaying gently in the wind.

Won't you play with me?

They just seemed so abandoned, so I pushed through the drifts and snapped away.

The Photo Friday moniker has a nice, alliterative feel to it, and Friday gives me plenty of time during the week to get my pictures taken. Only one problem: the next two Fridays, I’ll be out of town doing some book signings and hitting a convention. As a result, I may cheat a little and post on Thursday night. Or Monday. Or something.

I’m sure you’ll be able to handle it.

The original Enterprise in Lights

I took the opportunity to test my camera on the lights, too. I’ve got a fast (f/1.8) 50mm prime lens and it did a great job capturing the wireframes. The Wife and I actually passed the camera back and forth as there were displays on both sides, and we caught a number of decent pics.

Easily the kids' favorite display

Next year I’ll have to work up a way to keep the camera a little more still. We had to keep moving in the line, and every so often I’d be not quite stopped when the Wife snapped off a shot, or I just couldn’t get the camera still enough for certain shutter speeds. I’m thinking I’ll leave the side doors open in the van and use a tripod or monopod to go back and forth for the various shots. Weather permitting, of course.

One of a handful of dinosaurs in the display.

In general, the camera performed very well. I like that prime lens more and more every time I use it.

You can find the rest of the pics in the set here.