Month: July 2011

Now They Are SixSix years ago, My sister and I had our babies on the same day in the same midwife center, twenty hours apart.  My mother calls them “twin cousins.”  This photo is from their shared birthday party. 

Recently, I was visiting my grandmother.  On her table she had a photo album from my grandfather’s eightieth birthday party, which was about twenty years ago.  Someone had taken photos of the people at each table and lots of candid photos of people enjoying the party.  I was surprised that the least interesting photos to me were of the kids.  Of course my sister who was eight at the time looked young, but look at mom and dad. They were so young. I was also struck by how many people who were at that party had since died, and not all of them in old age.  

The Birthday Girl

My grandmother celebrated her 90th birthday last month.  I brought my camera and made a point of taking photos of the adults.  I did still take some of the kids, I couldn’t resist, but the majority were of the grown ups.  I’m putting together a book for grandma to remember the celebration and to have on her table to show her visitors.  And, it will be there for us to look back on in twenty years and see what has changed.

Here are a few of my favorites from the day:

I am excited that people have joined me in this project.  I find myself looking forward to Fridays to see what will be posted in the flickr group.  If you haven’t joined in yet or haven’t posted, it’s not too late.  Join in anytime.  

Smoochy MoochyYesterday my boy called down the stairs, “Mom! Smoochy Moochy is awake!”  I considered many nicknames that she might have when we named her Augusta but Smoochy Moochy was not anticipated.  Neither was this photo.  With the 40 Friday Photos project, I want to push myself to do things with my photography that I wouldn’t do otherwise.  In this case, it was setting up the camera to take a photo of me and my girl.  This isn’t a creative challenge.  It’s a logistical one.  It’s hard to find a time when the baby is in a good mood and I can set up the tripod without fearing it will get knocked down.  In this case, I only had the boy to distract while taking pictures.  His sisters were both out of the house.  I thought that he’d be happy to swing while I got my photo but I forgot the baby magnetism of little Smoochy Moochy.  He couldn’t stay away.  

While we were outside, I also found her impossible to resist.

I rarely get into photos of our family.  Beyond the dangers inherent to putting a camera on a tripod in a household full of children, it’s hard to frame, focus and time a photo when you’re not behind the camera.  I do it because my favorite photos are ones in which you can see something about the relationship of the people in the photograph.  My relationships with my husband and kids are my most precious and I want to capture moments when those dear connections are visible.  

I’ve had a tripod for years but only recently spent $40 on a remote and made this kind of photo much easier.  In the past, if I was in a photo, I focused the camera on a spot where I would move to after pushing the auto timer on the camera.  I knew that remotes released the shutter but what I didn’t know is that you can also use it to focus.  You press the button halfway and it focuses just like the shutter button on your camera.  You probably already knew that, but it was news to me.  It’s still not easy to get in front of my own camera, but it just got a whole lot easier.

Sprinkler

Summer Snow

Summer — time for some water photographs.  The difference in the way the water is captured in the two photos above is shutter speed.  The first was taken at 1/250 of a second and the second at 1/1600.  Here’s what the first one would have looked like at a faster shutter speed (1/1250):

While we were at the pool, my daughter asked if she could help with a photo.  I couldn’t turn that down.  With such a willing participant, I was able to try both a fast and slower shutter speed and see what I liked better.  I like the motion of the drops in the top photo as well as her expression. (I said to her, “Look like you’re having fun!”)  In second photo, I liked the drops being frozen.  It brought to mind snowy photos from six months ago in weather that is hard to imagine today.