Gracie found a little quiet time during the pre-Christmas craziness, to curl up with a good book. There’s some thing about the ambient light that the Christmas tree adds to a room that I really enjoy his time of year.
I love the holiday season. Today, I got to spend a little time in my youngest daughter’s 3rd grade classroom helping her make a “Gingerbread House.” Although it was actually graham crackers over a milk carton base, it was a ton of fun to work on with her!
Our youngest attended a birthday party sleepover this past weekend, and created this little guy at the party. The clay is sort of a foamy type modeling material. The plastic feet base came with the kit. Totally cool. I have never seen anything like it. Great work kiddo!
This afternoon, I had a senior portrait consultation. While there, we did a few test shots for an idea we have of shooting portraits while jumping on the trampoline. To get an idea of how it’ll look, I had Nick jump a few times. I snapped 3 quick shots. This is one of them. I think when we actually shoot these for real in a few weeks, we’ll have a lot of fun, and they’ll be great!
We had a quick rain shower roll through earlier tonight. This double rainbow lasted for about 10 minutes. Luckily, I was able to capture it. Looks like the pot-o-gold can be found at our neighbors’.
Ah Memorial Day. The unofficial Beginning of Summer. Many families around the U.S. spend the holiday enjoying the outdoors. Our family is no exception. It was a gorgeous day; a gorgeous weekend.
We started into the weekend with a list of chores to do around the house that have been nagging at us for months. We indeed did get a few things done over the course of the weekend such as: remodel a bathroom, till and plant the garden, dig and cement a post for a basketball hoop, mow our jungle of a yard, fit in a Monday afternoon softball practice, and a few other small chores. But the most memorable part of our weekend was the time we spent together exploring and hiking at the Palisades State Park. The girls have been wanting to go see it for a while now, and there really was no better time like the present.
This is a panorama of our neighborhood, looking out from our driveway.
My wife is a wonderful pianist. Every so often she treats me to a little music. Tonight she played some Billy Joel while I enjoyed a glass of wine.
Our oldest turned 10 this morning at 6:32am. Tonight we had birthday cake and pizza with our family. The big party with her friends is this weekend. One of her brithday gifts tonight was an “M” ear ring holder. As you can see in these photos, she has quite the collection of ear rings.
The four highest points in the small town of Tea, South Dakota. From left to right in the photo are: The grain elevator, the older water tower, the large water tower, and the new radio tower.
The meteorologists were right! The big storm of the 2009 holiday season is upon us. It’s been snowing and blowing for the past 36 hours. It finally let up a little so the girls’ could get out and play. There’s a 6 foot high drift right in front of our door.
Gracie found this little guy, and like kids will do, decided she wanted to keep him as a pet. After a night cooped up in an old milk jug, we convinced her that he would be better off back in the wild with his family.
Just a select few frames from the many that I took at the Air Show this afternoon. A great show as always.
We took a little family road trip to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Pageant in De Smet Friday night. If you haven’t been, it’s a good old-fashioned, low-tech family fun event. Volunteer actors audition for the roles of Pa, Ma, Laura, Mary, and the whole cast of Little House on the Prairie characters. Right after we rode the horse-drawn wagon, the girls got to pet the horses.
Had a lunch meeting today, and on my way back to my car, I passed by this set of chairs on the patio area of the restaurant I was at. The negative space aspect of this photo intrigues me. Instead of seeing the actual subject matter (people at a table) you only see their shadows.
On the river, we hooked up with friends Jack and Joelle who have a house boat. It took a little coaxing, and seeing dad do it, but finally the girls put on their Brave Faces and jumped off the top deck of the house boat. It’s about a 15 foot drop, and was even a little intimidating for dad at first. These 3 shots are a sequence of one of Gracie’s many jumps. View Post
The day started out a little gray and gloomy, but at least we didn’t encounter any rain. As the afternoon progressed, we finally saw the sun! We had a great few hours on the boat with our friends Dave and Stacy. This photo is of Maddie and Gracie on the tube behind the boat. View Post
This is a shot looking down the 3rd base line as a girl makes a hit, at my oldest daughter’s softball game. View Post
Here’s some shots of the Main Street carnival blended together into one panoramic shot. This view is a nearly 180 degree view. The Police Station on the left, and the Body Shop on the right are on opposite sides of the street from each other.
Two days ago, I posted the photo of the cows looking at the camera, as if they were waiting to have their portrait done. I was re-visiting the raw images that I snapped on Sunday, and noticed this one. I love the “expression” on this cow’s face. It compliments the story idea that the cows noticed their portrait on my blog, and came back to make a statement. It looks like he wasn’t too happy about the previous image. Interesting how something taken out of content can be so funny.
On my way home from Rapid City, I stopped for fuel and a quick break in Chamberlain, SD. These guys were standing in a pasture right behind the gas station. I barely gave them a second thought, as I was in a hurry to get home. But as I was pumping gas, they kept staring at me as though they knew I had a camera in the car, and were begging to have their picture taken. Fine guys. Here you go. You are on the web. The next time you’re surfing the web, stop by this blog and let me know what you think.
I’ve been experimenting with different lighting schemes the past month or so. Back in April, I found some success using hand-held flashlights, multiple exposures, and compositing. A couple nights ago I went back to the fire house after dark, and took new shots of our Ladder truck and Rescue truck. This is a collage I put together of the two trucks. The flag and flames are stock images. The phoenix logo I designed a couple years ago. This piece will be used as part of a framed collage of portraits of all the firefighters’ on the department. This portion will be at the bottom of the frame, with 35 cut-out holes in rows above for each firefighter’s portrait.
We tried 3 times to catch the fireworks show at Magic Kindgom, over Cinderella’s castle. Our girls were too tired to stay the first time, and we were rained out the second time. Finally, on our last night at Dinsey World, we were able to catch the show. It was well-worth the wait. We have memories we’ll never forget.
Disney doesn’t waste a single opportunity to immerse visitors in an experience. this metallic statue of Goofy sits right out side of Tony’s Italian Ristorante, where Lady and the Tramp have their famous spaghetti encounter.
To get anywhere at Disney World, we rode our Resort’s bus. Sometimes we’d have some down time while we waited for the bus to leave.
Part of the show at Festival of the Lion King at Animal Kingdom Disney World. Everyone else at the show was using their point-and-shoot cameras with the flash. This one turned out nice because of the slower shutter speed that captured the motion of the twirling flame. I love how the glow of the flames lights up the crowd.
