Sunday with my boys

We took the boys to Laumier Sculpture park since it was such a beautiful day.  I got two pictures.  Two.

I reminded them in the parking lot that they owed me a few posed shots as a mother's day gift.

::sigh::  Maybe back home we'd have better luck...

Better but no one is having fun - least of all, me.

So I drop all expectations and just capture life as it happens

A lazy Saturday adventure

A quick trip for a slushie; permission to take his seatbelt off while we checked out bison and elk; a walk through the woods (possibly in a patch of poison ivy); and discovering elk scat (lots of scat).

 

 

I can't believe I haven't been to Lone Elk Park.  How did I not know they had a World Bird Sanctuary?

I had actually been on the phone with them twice this past week regarding an ailing baby robin but didn't realize until we were at the sanctuary and saw the Wildlife Hospital sign.

By the way the Wildlife Hospital has very friendly staff who does not laugh at you when you're trying to help a baby bird and who will let you in all little known facts such as sometimes baby birds have more than one father.

Capturing the night

The witching hour... well its actually more like two hours: 4PM to 6PM.  Since the day we brought our first baby home this has always been the hardest time of the day to get through.  Everyone is cranky, it coincides with trying to prepare dinner, daddy coming home so much all at once.  The nerves get frazzled.  

But then you see the light at the end of the tunnel and here comes 7 PM, the winding down hour.  Baths and milk... preparing for bedtime... and the ever present story time.  My personal favorite.  The nighttime hours are when my kids are the sweetest.  Its when I want to capture them the most.  Its when there is the least light.

Evan is reading on the Kindle these days.  Using a slow shutter speed allows me to use the ambient light from the Kindle screen to illuminate his face.  

Settings: f2.0 | ss 1/25 | ISO 800 | 50mm lens

This is the reason I shoot in RAW.  Look how much detail that was lost in the shadows can be recovered.  It can be a real life-saver when you over expose or under expose a picture.  For this type of shot I'll stick with the above photo. While the below photo is a good example of the benefit of shooting in RAW format instead of JPEG, it was not the look I was going for.

Shooting at such a low shutter speed means you risk a lot of movement blur if your subject moves (or if you move).  Here I've got the camera pressed against the wall to stabilize myself but he heard the beep and lifted his face. Movement + slow shutter speed = blur.
Settings: f2.0 | ss 1/40 | ISO 1250 | 50mm lens

Aiden, seeing an opportunity to delay sleep, made a rare request to have his picture taken.  Without the ambient light from the kindle it was a bit more challenging however there was a small amount of light coming from the window just above him.  It was dusk so it was a very soft light. but still rather dark.  I slowed my shutter even more to 1/15, a speed I don't dare do handheld on so I stacked a game and book up and used it as a tripod.  The higher iso, underexposed picture resulted in a lot of noise (or grain) so converted it to black and white.
Settings: f2.0 | ss 1/15 | ISO 1250 | 50mm lens

Before the Kindle they boys read by flashlight, usually under a blanket.  They wiggled and giggled and moved so much it was almost impossible to get a shot of this nightly concurrence that I loved so much.  So we faked it using a little Photoshop magic.
Settings: f2.2 | ss 1/125 | ISO 500 | 35mm lens.  This is what the REAL image looked like:

After Photoshop it looks like their nightly routine that I tried so hard to capture.

Family of Five | St. Louis Family Photographer

We lucked out with beautiful fall weather that felt more like summer.  Three kids who were all in a great moods, two parents who know how to keep their kiddos entertained, and one bunny pez dispenser armed with bribes adds up to some sweet family portraits.

Oh, double trouble!  but the sweetness with these brothers is doubled as well...

Jack | 6 Months and Growing

I swear it was just last month I was taking pictures of Jack newly born; it is so hard to believe he is six months old already.  But there he is sitting up, all smiles, determined to eat his entire fist  :)   Six months is a fun age.  It seems like they learn something new every minute

 

I'm not the only one who thinks he's adorable... his mom and dad were obviously head over heels for him.

Lots of smiles and laughs with these three...such a happy family.

Thanks for letting me photograph this milestone.  Your family rocks!  Jack is such a cutie...goodness they grow so fast, my [not so] little ones got extra cuddles when I got home.  ;)

the sweetest things | Bond Family Photo Session

As Audrey Hepburn once said "Happy girls are the prettiest."  And these two were happy... happy to lay on a blanket, happy to be silly, happy to come up with a few "creative" poses - some sweet ones too, and happy to [gasp!] look at the camera.  A small sample of what five minutes of goofing off equals with these two... happy; pretty; sweet.

And here the whole family.  Very dear, old friends (the friendship is old not the friends).  Our kids are about the age that we first started jumping the fence between our yards to play some thirty years ago.  If Audrey Hepburn was right I must have been looking rather pretty myself that morning; I sure was happy hanging out with good friends and sweet girls.

Thanks Jenny for being my friend all these years and thank you both for letting me capture your family!

~E

On a side note: I have no idea what is up with the low quality pics on the blog.  Blogger? Photoshop? User error?  Anyone else having this issue with blogger?