A couple weeks ago our family and our friends' family rented a quaint lake house in New York so that we could all spend the weekend together. The boys had a bed in the room but it was small and high off the ground.... and they are 4 and 6 and dance and rotate in their sleep. So, the floor it was!
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I thought it would fun to take my new Lensbaby Trio 28 with us to our local fair, because all the fun sights and colors would pair well with this creative and rather unpredictable lens. I wasn't really planning on getting any "important" shots of my boys, because from experience, I know that due to the tight space and the crowds I usually end up with a bunch of the same types of waiting-for-the-ride-to-start shots.
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My son was busy saving the world in his favorite costume the other day, but he couldn't find the cape. Of course, everything had to stop while he located the exact one that came with the costume. (Absolutely no substitutions acceptable!) I had been taking pictures of him jumping off of things- a staple in our house- so I already had my camera as I followed him up to his room to look for the cape. He was pretty sure it was at the very bottom of a big tupperware toy tub (where else?), so he started digging and taking toys out amassing a bigger and bigger pile as he searched.
While he looked, I thought about how I could use the very low, back light in his room.
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I shot this image today, on one of the first warm days of 2017! Everyone wanted to get outside and so we went over to visit Mimi and Pap we schlepped out allllll the toys. Everyone was playing with different things at the same time. (Isn't that what happens at your house when the weather breaks and all the kids and adults shed their winter bonds?)
Of course, because everyone was playing with different toys at the same time, I have a camera card full of one child flying a kit, one launching a helicopter with pap, etc... A while it's nice to have images of these memories, in the end, I like to pick one image for my 365 project (and eventually for printing). Because I know one image will be printed, I prefer to choose the one I feel will best help me hold onto the essence of the day. Today, this was the image I chose because it captured a few stories at once.
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You can probably tell that an image like this is all about perspective. I set my camera on the table and, using a low aperture, shot through all the layers on the table. I purposely framed him so that he would be on the right hand third of the image, because I wanted him to look like just another thing at the table: glass, salt shaker, boy, glass...
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I'd been trying to get a nice picture of my son sleeping for a while. He is right on the edge of growing into his big boy face. Soon there will be no more of those sweet baby cheeks. I was on a time crunch. I was on a mission.
The problem I was facing was the light source. When you photograph a sleeping child, you usually need to add a little light to the scene (unless, of course, your child needs lots of light to sleep already).
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My family and I stopped at the playground one chilly evening after daylight savings. The sun set much more quickly than we were prepared for, but it made for gorgeous fall skies. I had my Lensbaby Edge 50 on my camera because I was playing- mostly shooting sky and nature pictures. In case you're not familiar, Lensbaby lenses are completely manual focus and produce interesting, surprising effects, but the learning curve is a bit steep if it's not something to which you're accustomed.
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Welcome to my October Storytellers Blog Circle post. Since we are in the thick of fall, pumpkin-everything, and soccer every weekend, I decided to pick this image of my youngest son, entertaining himself during his older brother's soccer game a few weeks ago. I picked it because I like the story it tells about our Saturday mornings right now, but I also picked it because it's sort of a rule breaker in the way I exposed him. Let's talk about it!
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I shot this image at my father in law's birthday celebration a few weeks ago. The goal was to get a shot of the way the three little ones "help" with the birthday candle tradition. I'm always drawn to photographing the things in my kids' childhoods that are becoming traditions and/or things they'll certainly remember when they grow up and have kids of their own. And I'm pretty sure this is one of them, because I remember sitting on laps and offering my expert assistance to my own aunts, uncles, and grandparents... perhaps more than blowing out my own!
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