Blogging and Christmas don't mix

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. We've been celebrating Christmas with Jared's family in Detroit. Harriet enjoyed taking a bottle from Jared's Grandmother for her Christmas dinner.

Adventures

Here's a shot of Win, just after he left Camp IV in an attempt to become the youngest American to summit Mount Everest. In a stunning turn of events, he decided at the last minute to forego a gasmask with supplemental oxygen in favor of a frozen drool-beard. He also decided on Old Navy smooth-soled slip-ons instead of the more popular crampons.

Or, maybe its just really cold in Michigan.

Computer Monster

We've been watching Sesame Street on YouTube with Win lately (he's obsessed with Cookie Monster), and we found this old gem. Enjoy:

Harriet

Harriet has been trying to coo but all she can do is make a gurgle sound.

Why Winfield has such a hard time falling asleep during his naptime.

He doesn't trust his parents. They might just go and bring a tree into the house while he is sleeping.

ATV

Winfield has been giving meaning to the phrase "all terrain vehicle."

Don't you hate it when you get a rock in your boot?

While celebrating Christmas at my parent's this weekend Win got a set of construction vehicles, complete with 9 boulders, and a set of Lincoln Logs.  Because his finger dexterity isn't quite up to stacking those logs and building things he found another use for them.

The boulders found a new home in my boots.

Grandma and Grandgirl

We spent the last few days hanging out with Grandma and Bahh (Rudy) Dean in Fort Wayne, celebrating an early Christmas with the Dean Clan (minus Jed and Sara and kids). We had lots of fun hanging out, playing with the kids, catching a racoon, and doing other Dean holiday events.

Here are a couple super-cute shots of Grandma and Hattie.

Fort Wayne

We are in Fort Wayne celebrating Christmas with my parents. I found this picture of me with my parents and my older brother, Jed. This picture was taken in the fall of '79 when Jed and I were almost exactly the same ages as Win and Harriet are now. I was a born a burnette and I turned red. We'll see what happens to Harriet's hair.

BAA! is Win's name for Grandpa Dean

Zoom: It's about more than getting closer.

These pictures of my niece, Jordan, are a great example of a photography tip that I've wanted to post.  It's an important concept in photography that most people are not aware of.  It's the idea that zoom has more to do with composition than it does with where the photographers feet are.

Most people associate focal length (a.k.a zoom) with how close they have to be to their subject to get a decent shot.  Although that is one function of focal length, I wouldn't say that it isn't the most important to me.  I use focal length to set the mode of the image more than I ever use it to make my subject bigger.  I'll explain.

There are 2 directions that you can go with your camera.  You can zoom wide or far.  I'll use these terms because they are less confusing that "in " and "out."  Wide shots are easy to conceptualize.  Most people know what an image from a fish eye lens looks like or the look of someone's face through a spyhole in a door.  Those are extreme examples of wide images.  Wide shots include larger sections of the room that you are photographing.  Wide shots also make items in the room look farther away from each other than they truly are.  The "OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR" warning is an example of this.  Think about looking through a spyhole in a door.  Doesn't their nose look really big and close and their feet about a mile away.  That's the distortion of a wide focal length.

Far is the other option.  That is a little more difficult to describe.  It is best to think of it as the opposite of a wide angle.  Zooming far makes the objects in the image look flat and closer together.  All focal lengths have their place in creative photography, but my suggestion is that most non-professionals could benefit from zooming far more.  Instead of just picking up the camera and taking a picture, try picking up the camera, zooming it as far as it can go and then taking the picture.  In other words, step back with your feet and get closer with your camera.

Here are 2 images that I took over Thanksgiving.  I took the first image f Jordan but I didn't like it; the background was too cluttery.  So I stood up, walked about 10 steps farther from Jordan and zoomed farther with my camera.  Jordan stayed roughly the same size, but the tree behind her appeared to have gotten a lot closer to her.  You too can move large trees in 10 easy steps! 

Look what happens to the tree behind Jordan.  

In summary, wide images tend to feel less focused and can easily be busy.  Far images tend to isolate the subject more and make faces look more pleasing.  If you want to understand this more try this.

Find a doll or a very still model.  Kids are too wiggly.  You are going to take 2 pictures of the doll.  First zoom your camera as wide as it can go.  For the first picture put the dolls nose in the middle of the picture and fill most of the picture with it's face.  For the second image zoom your camera as far as it can go.  Again put the dolls nose in the middle of the picture and walk away from the doll until it's face is roughly the same size as it was in the first picture.  Try it.  You'll easily see the effects of focal length on a face.

Win

Friend Lute

Win has names for all of his Henderson cousins.

Ehda=Ezra
E.T.=Eden
Gooey=Chloe
Jojo=Jordan
Ki-yah=Kiah
Wootu=Winfield
Lute=Luke
Wiwo=Willow
Lella=Stella
Hattie=Harriet

Win and Luke (2 months younger) bonded over Thanksgiving. They really liked driving driving cars around the house together. Win found this picture of Luke and it has become a new toy. Enjoy.

Earning His Keep

Win has gotten over his fear of the broom. Win loves to mimick every thing that Jared and I do. Lately, his favorite game has been to help me clean. He love to drive the broom around the house and every time he finds a dryer sheet he begins dusting the nearest surface. It's really cute.

Hattie Hat

Win loves this hat.  The other day he decided to share it with Hattie.  She was a good sport about it.

Trust No One!

Last night Win set his stool down between Jared and I and climbed on top of it. He then proceeded to do something that he often does on the couch, bed or on one of our bodies. He did a trust fall--to no one. He stiffened his little body and fell straight onto the floor, making no attempt to catch himself. At first I thought that he might have fainted. Really, he just made a really dumb decision.

Cribs: Episode 1

You're in the right place

I made a few slight changes to the blog.  All must now pay homage to my css wizardry.  Oh, and Rachel's site has a new splash page.

Photography Tip: inspired by a walk down eBay Lane

I was on eBay a couple of weeks ago and I saw this.

My heart leapt with childhood delight at the memories of playing with this lovely toy. Oh, the pure pleasure of putting a car into an elevator, turning a crank and listening for the clanging of the little bell as the car reached the top and was released down the slide. I remember wondering why my parents never brought us to a parking garage. I wanted to be in a car that rode in elevators and went down slides.

I put this toy on my eBay watch list. As I watched it get bid over $180 dollars I realized that there are many other people (28 year old parents I presume) who share similar memories. It also reminded me of this post that I read on a blog about a year ago.

Here's the idea, it's easy to take pictures of our kids, but sometimes memories aren't only in our kids faces. Try taking pictures of the things that represent our kids in the stage that they are in right now. Like the Fisher-Price Action Garage, memories can be caught up in the things that our kids play with and tools that they use. Have you ever looked through old pictures with your siblings. Sometimes it's the clothes, toys, furniture and other details that bring the most comments.

I took about 5 minutes and shot some pictures of things that represent our life right now.

These are Win's shoes. He LOVES his shoes. I think he loves them so much because they mean that he gets to go outside or in the car.


This sight is very much a part of my life right now.


This little stool was painted by a friend of Jared's family before Win was born. The racing bear is in honor of Win's first marathon which he completed 4 months before he was born (shameless bragging here). I wanted to take a picture of this stool, but more importantly I wanted to take a picture of the scratches on top. Nearly every day Win turns this stool upside down and "drives" it around the house. It's a part of his life that I don't want to forget.

Pictures

Here are some pictures of Harriet under Win's clothes. This activity was so fun that he did it twice.



I like her little feet in this one.