catching up: halloween

Yep, I told you I was behind. One whole holiday, to be exact. And the worst part of it is that I just realized I have no pictures of Walker, and on this, his second Halloween. And he is even wearing my favorite costume - the cute little frog. I may just have to put him in it again to get the pic. Bad mom.

Here come the costumes (why does Halloween always take place in the dark? So hard to take pics).

Some explanations are probably necessary. Seth is dressed as Leif from the book series "Deltora Quest." When he told me he wanted to go as Leif for Halloween I almost fainted. Who? What? But luckily we found pictures on the web of another boy whose mother was a much better mom than I and knew what Leif would look like if he actually existed. It is a great series, by the way.

Tate went as a Lego guy. When he told me he wanted to go as this I was thinking that it might just be easier to cough up $40 per costume for each kid. This was getting ridiculous. Doug came to the rescue and designed most of this one. All whining aside, I ended up loving this costume. It was fun and cute and different and didn't involve weaponry or gore.

And finally, Max. My wonderful, sweet, fabulous Max. He wanted to go as "Mix-up Man." Mix-up Man is a costume made up entirely from the contents of our dress-up bin. Love this guy. Especially on this particular Halloween. Here he is at the church Halloween party. See the top photo for the complete get-up.

catching up

I am way behind in this blogging thing. I would love to write ten or so excuses, except I am not quite sure why I haven't been able to find the time to do it. But this is catch up week for me, so we will see some events over the next several days that are woefully out-of-date by now.

Doug has most Tuesdays off, and while the weather was still nice we went on a lot of walks with Walker. One of our favorite places was this park. The path runs for a few miles and the trees are everywhere. This fall the leaves have been beautiful, and plentiful trees = beautiful leaves which meant we took some breathtaking walks.

Apple Picking

We do live in New England, and it is fall time, which means yet again, more apple picking pictures! It was a bumper crop this year due to our crazy summer weather.

Doug and the three older boys were out of town, so Walker and I went with Abby

and these two monkeys

and Becky, Amanda, and Sarah. I didn't do a very good job taking the rest of the Williams' pics. They are now in my mac's trashcan. I am such a hit-or-miss photographer.

I know he looks solemn, but I swear he had a lot of fun.

See? A lot of fun.

Ok, now I am only three weeks behind in posting.

Photography Class, part Three

Ok, here we are with my third week of class. This was a tough one! The first two pictures are of backlighting, meaning the light source (sun) is coming from behind the person. It was a bit overcast, so the effect is a bit subtle. The first pic is without a reflector:

Second pic is with a gold reflector. But it is too low - see the shadows under his eyes? It isn't as flattering as it could be. See the blue mustache above his lip? NOT my photography. That is blue Gatorade. There is only so much I can expect out of my subjects, and a clean face just isn't it.

Ahhh, taken in the garage. It is pretty dramatic for a child's picture, and as my instructor noted, a bit underexposed, but I love his eyes and skin. If you could only see how messy our garage actually is behind him, you would really be impressed with this picture. But you don't even see it because the light isn't shining in more than a few feet. And for a few other reasons I won't totally bore you with. And he is wearing this tacky Old Navy sweatshirt. I love that you can't even tell.

Ok, definitely my favorite. Didn't quite follow the assignment, but had to put it in there. Supposed to be in deep shade - no light at all shining in. Well, couldn't find any deep shade on the says I set out to shoot, and ran out of time. I had taken this the week before at Cushing Memorial Park. Walker is under a huge maple tree with gorgeous leaves - brilliant reds and oranges. I didn't think I used a reflector, because I don't remember having one with me, but my instructor thinks she sees one in his eyes. There is definitely something reflecting there, I just can't figure out what it is.

Photography Class, Part Two

Ok, here are some pics from my next assignment. As I said, these are pretty much the only picture I have taken lately, except for a few lame ones from Halloween. Why did I wait until dark? I digress. Here we go.


This is Seth, sitting by a window in our house. How do you like the pen on his forehead? He is a boy, after all. Heck, sometimes I even look in the mirror and see pen on my chin or cheek. I swear I am turning in to my 9th grade math teacher.

Ok, here is Seth again, same palace, same time, but using a white reflector. At least that was what I was supposed to do. Can you see the difference in the light? How his face is a bit less shadowy? Well, if you can't, that is because I JUST REALIZED that I used a diffuser, NOT a reflector. What a bonehead.

Here is Max. We are in the cemetery in Ashland. It has very pretty trees and leaves. And it is close by. We just barely caught the light. He is supposed to be in the shade for this assignment. I thought I had him in the shade, but the sun was shining on him more than I realized, I am guessing because it was pretty low in the sky. My instructor basically told me, nice shot, but didn't follow the assignment. Oh well. Here he is without the reflector.

And here is the same shot using a gold reflector. It filled in the shadows a little bit on the right side. I think.

This last one was supposed to be in full shade with a reflector directing the sun on him, acting as the only light source. Again, I think. Anyway, she liked it. I think I used the gold reflector again here.

Photography Class, again!

Ok, I'll admit I have been slacking off on posting. I have a million excuses (I always do, right?) but here is part of the reason for my absence. Photography class! I love taking these classes. This is the second one I have taken from PPSOP. It came highly recommended from my dear buddy Macy (you have got to check out her site here - she is amazing).

So, in lieu of posting pics from our day-to-day lives (which are piling up in my "to edit" folder), here are pics from my first assignment. It was all on lighting patterns, and how the light falls across the face of your subject.

This one is called a Split lighting pattern. It is supposed to be half of the face in light, half in shadow. Mine turned out ok, but not dead-on. Ideally the dark would be much more dark - more dramatic. And the light side would have no shadow on it at all. When I saw a few real splits from my classmates I could see that the light here was too soft, But I think on Abby it looks good. She is a cute, sweet 9 year-old. Who needs drama there?

This one is the Rembrandt - so there is a little more light falling across her face. Or there should be. I should have turned her more towards the light than this. This ends up being more like a split. Kind of. Did I mention I didn't exactly nail these?

Ok, this is called the Loop lighting pattern. Even more of her face should be lit up - not in shadow. Again, she should be turned more than this towards the light. Too many shadows on the right side. This is actually more like a Rembrandt. But WOW. Does she ever have beautiful skin? And Abby here was a fantastic model. She was patient while I turned her and moved her from room to room and took a zillion pictures.

The final shot was to be a Butterfly pattern. In this lighting technique the subject is turned fully towards the light source (the window, here). There should be very little shadow on the face, other than accenting the cheekbones and a tiny bit under the nose. I had the hardest time with this one. I kept looking for that little shadow under the nose. The only way I could sort of achieve it was to have Amanda look down. As it turns out, it doesn't HAVE to be there (the shadow). The point is that the light is full-on. My instructor said that though this is the right pattern, she would have liked to have seen her eyes. I agree. Amanda has gorgeous eyes, and what is the point in taking a picture when you can't see them? She was a great help - she photographs very well. No cheesy smiles, just very natural. Her skin tones are perfect. And I LOVE her eyebrows and eyelashes.

soccer

After years of watching his brothers play sports, Max finally got to play a real, actual, town-organized sport. It is fall, and around here that means soccer. He had to miss his first game (darn swine flu!) but here he is at the team's second game - his first. This kid gave it his all and had a blast.