Domestic Photographic

Today I put Moses in his playpen while I took some pictures around his room. Two of these are of his window, and one's a shot of him begging to be released from baby jail.

Today's photos need a disclaimer. We are all still sick. We are all still tired. We are all running on 3 hours of sleep. And my son had his shots today, which are never fun. I promise my official Valentines Day photos will have actual effort put into them, be properly set up (ie, no wrinkled blanket), properly edited and hopefully I'll have taken the time to wipe the snot from under my baby's nose beforehand. Today I just needed a picture. Here it is:

We're all sick today. I lacked the energy to do anything creative, and Moses lacked the energy to smile for me. This is how we're all feeling in our house:

6 Months Old Today.

Calin decided to let Moses listen to his Ipod today, and he went NUTS! He loved it. I of course had to grab my camera and start snapping immediately:

Bonus: I took these yesterday when Moses and I went for a walk. There's a man by our house who goes skateboarding through the nature preserve with his dog.

A snafu with the post office (read: lost office) was responsible for Moses just getting his Christmas presents from his Grandpa James and Grandma Lori today. They sent a ball rolling toy, a new sippy cup, and a gift card to Sears. These pictures are of Moses playing with the first two gifts. We went to Sears today and try to pick up a Jolly Jumper, but they didn't have any in stock. When we do get one, we'll post pictures of Moses playing with that too.

I'm not feeling well today, so I didn't have the energy to take a ton of pictures and experiment with a lot of different shots. Calin just went to the store to get me some stuff for my throat, and I thought I'd get a picture from the upstairs window of him walking to the car. Unforunately, I started taking pictures of this dad walking his little girl inside, and totally didn't notice that Calin was downstairs until he was in the car and backing out of the parking lot. I wasn't sure whether or not to use this picture since I didn't ask permission, but I know I don't have to get permission to take the picture as long as I'm not selling it, and since you can't see their faces or any identifying information, I think I'll go ahead and post it.

There's something in photo editing called an eye pop. If you looked at the tutorial I linked, it's clear that its a HUGE pain. I'm trying more and more to rely on good photography rather than editing (who has time to spend hours a day in GIMP?). Yesterday I went to my phototography board and asked them to "teach me like I'm stupid" how to get the eye-pop effect (or catchlights, as they're referred to when not edited in) straight out of the camera. Their advice worked! In the photo above it looks like Moses is cheering for me!  In case you're wondering, it was as simple as facing him towards a window during prime sun time. Who knew?

The one on the left doesn't give the best view of his eyes, but I like the fact that it looks like he's cheering me on!

This morning there was tons of snow coming down, so I decided to try to get some photos of falling snow. Moses was cranky and needed to nap, so we let him sleep while I looked on the internet to try to figure out the best settings to catch the snow. I figured out the settings, then almost divorced my camera because I couldn't figure out how to set the shutterspeed and f-stop on it. Sigh. Thankfully some people from my photography board talked me down off that ledge and I managed to get my camera under control. By then, Moses had woken up and was in a better mood, but the snow wasn't falling nearly as hard and the sun wasn't shining nearly as bright. I decided to give it a shot anyway, though, and here's the finished product. I'm not in love with most of them, but I like each one for specific reasons.