Green Thumbs.

I haven’t got those. Usually when I try to maintain plants they die.
Not so this year. This small box represents the beginnings of what I hope will be a good summer for mixed greens, tomatoes, carrots, and green beans. Wish me luck.

I Used to be This Big.

I’m working on some other new things to share soon, so here’s something from the archives.
What’s funny is that I don’t really remember this time in my life. What’s weird is that, to my eye, I look a whole lot like this.

50mm.

Just a quick note to say that I’m lovin’ the “thrifty fifty” I picked up a few days ago.
I had forgotten how good it felt to be “wide open.”

Joy.

Yeah.
That about sums her up.

Uh-oh.

Working with some stuff for the Small.

She didn’t really spill this but was okay to stand there and take the blame. Special thanks to Joe & Coleen over at Brainchild Collective for the use of their kitchen.

I’m not thrilled with the lighting here but I think I know how I want it to change before I have another go. We shot this entire roll in about 40 minutes, so it was quick and dirty (no pun intended).

Chalk it up to another sketch.

The Sunny 16.

In a fit the other day after dropping my daughter (the Small) at daycare, I threw a roll of cross process film into my camera. I’d had this notion to shoot some of the pretty skies that abound these days in an attempt to practice shooting stuff without people. I got one frame (that I didn’t even scan) and put the camera down.

Then Sunday rolled around and she (the Small) woke up from her afternoon nap in an great mood. She mentioned “outside” in the funny patois that she has so I figured in typical dad fashion, “Why not?”

I grabbed my camera knowing that I probably wasn’t shooting any more sky pictures. The issue with using a Hasselblad with someone like the Small, someone who’s in constant motion, is that there’s no time to meter. There’s barely time to focus. I used the Sunny 16 Rule and did my best, constantly telling her to stop moving so much.

I’m really glad I did:

What A Big World It Is!

So I got this new lens and I’ve been dying to get a shot with it. I was stymied over the weekend after it got here ’cause I had nothing lined up. I shot a number of images through my office window, but none of them were all that interesting. In the end, I had only to look into the eyes of the youngest member of my family to find a subject.

The problem with the brilliance of my plan is that she doesn’t stand still. Like ever. Especially when she’s awake. Go figure.

This is a grab from a quick trip to the playground. She wandered around and fell in the woodchips a couple of times. She managed to climb on nearly everything there, but she was not a fan of looking in the camera. At any rate, this is kinda the way I see her now that she’s both ambulatory and headstrong: from behind.

Poolaroid.

Swung by the pool today with some friends.

I don’t usually shoot Polaroids, but since I had a few errant packs laying about, I dusted off the old NPC back. As luck would have it, the back jammed right after I got this image.

As it turns out, it’s true: It’s all fun and games until some small gets sunscreen in her eye.

Bigger Every Day.

There’s the small — not as small as she used to be. The scan’s bad (contrast and all that), but I love this image anyway. It’s rare to get her smiling without the pacifier these days.

And in other news: Spain beat Germany 1-0 in the EUEFA Euro 2008 Cup. Good times.

The Beach.

I read somewhere that photo editors like to see pictures from the real lives of the photographers that they hire. Whether that’s true or not is moot. I liked this picture. The thing that galls me is that there are no clouds.

I never realized how important clouds were until I found myself pining for them every time I shot pictures outside. *sigh*

Anyway, here’s m’girls. Ain’t they precious?