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One of my VERY rare planned and posed pictures. Usually I'm a photographer of opportunity, but this photo I actually had in my head and worked it out! Vital statistics on the methods used to create this will be posted to my flickr account.
Have a Happy and safe New Year's Celebration!
See you next year!
Yesterday, I posted a few photos of our visit to the St. Louis Zoo's "Wild Lights" exhibit. (Tonight is the last night of this exhibit! Click the link for more info.) I found that it was hard for me to capture exactly what it felt like to be surrounded by all the lights. So I had the idea of setting the camera for a slow shutter speed, and walking through the lights.
I know, this sounds brilliant, doesn't it? Problem is, it didn't really work. It was too bouncy, and not enough movement in the final photos. Then my wife suggested just moving the camera instead of myself. DUH! Naturally, this worked. Momentarily frustrated that she broke out of her assigned category of genius (she's the MacGyver of Craftiness!), I then proceeded to take dozens of pictures using this technique. All taken with a Nikon D60, 18-55 mm f3.5-5.6 lens, and shutter speeds ranging from 2-8 seconds.
This shot was the first using the technique and it was very promising! Then I launched into more controlled experimentation.
Both of the above shots were taken of the same lighted fence line, with different amounts of "camera swirling." Click on the photos for larger versions of each.
A lighted Christmas ornament that was hanging from a tree over the walkway.
More ornaments, and probably my favorite photo of the bunch.
Created by changing the zoom during the exposure.
This one is unique in that the center points of light were just 5 or 6 strobes in the tree. Since they fire very briefly, during the zoom they fired multiple times and so created all those points in the center, while the regular lights streaked. I can't remember whether I zoomed in or out, but one of the directions definitely worked the best!
This last shot is just pointing down the sidewalk. The larger smears of light are the streetlights along the walk.
That's all for now! Hopefully, I've given you enough information to try this for yourself before all the lights are gone around town!
Sunday night, a whole gaggle of "One Dad's Life" family members including my parents, uncle and friend, my sister, her husband, my niece and nephew, and my whole family traipsed off to see the "Wild Lights" at the St. Louis Zoo.
This is the second time that my family has seen this holiday lighting display, and I'd recommend it for all you St. Louisan's before it disappears for another year! You have only two more chances, tonight and Tuesday (Dec. 30th). Click on the incredibly handy link in paragraph one (1) above for more information.
The first time we saw it, it was raining and really quite cold...but it was still fun! So don your winter gear, and have a nice stroll through the beautiful zoo lit by animal themed lighting displays. Besides, it wouldn't feel like Christmas time without it being a bit a little cold, would it? Besides, you'll look cute/handsome in all your winter gear! It will be good for your ego. Try it.
This picture show, (l-r) nephew Benjamin, Rebecca (turned 13 on Christmas, go with her a happy birthday here!), niece Emily, and Rachel. This shot was actually taken at the end of our walk, just before enjoying some Kettle Corn and fresh funnel cakes. Yumm!
The walk extends from the Zoo's main south entrance, to the Merry-Go-Round and back. You can pick up hot chocolate along the way and even enjoy some story-telling around a fire.
The Merry-Go-Round is in full operation and looks even more spectacular at night with all the lights.
The little slightly less blurry girl in this picture is my niece, Emily. You can't tell, but that row of the Merry-Go-Round is actually all the kids! I liked this picture the best, though.
After you get the Merry-Go-Round out of your system, it's just a short walk to the penguin and puffin display...where you can also go to warm up! Yes, you heard that right, it is the WARM place in the Zoo on these nights. The walk way on this side of the Zoo is completely packed with lights.
Come back tomorrow for some "artistic" shots from "Wild Lights" that I took with very long exposures. But, tonight, your assignment is to pack yourself, and anyone else you can get away from the TV and head to the Zoo for some real winter fun!
Tell them that "One Dad's Life" sent you...just to see the confusion on their faces!
I'm funny like that.
Our oldest daughter's birthday falls EXACTLY on Christmas Day. It's very common for people to ask her whether she feels "ripped off" having her birthday on Christmas. She actually feels the opposite. What better day could your birthday possibly fall on? I'm sure that her birthday traditions and Christmas traditions are all kind of swirled together, but we do separate the two events. In the morning, we open the presents from Santa and each other before heading out for a Christmas Day church service. I always play the pipe organ for this service, and always end by playing the "Hallelujah Chorus."
Usually my wife sings during the service, but this year we had some of the singers from our contemporary group do two duets...and then Rebecca and one of her friends sang a duet. She's carrying on our tradition!
After the service, we head to my parents house for an incredible brunch that we ALL look forward to for an entire year. It's just that good. Plus, there is bacon. Hmmmmm, Bacon!
Then we all open gifts from my parents (who are prolific Christmas gift-givers) and gifts we give the nieces and nephews. Once all this gift giving is over, our family heads home to prepare for the Christmas dinner. Every year, we make the same thing: Beef Tenderloin w/roasted vegetables. (BTW, all photos in this post can be enlarged for a better view by clicking on them. If you enlarge the tenderloin photo, I think you can actually taste it!) This is my favorite meal, and also Rebecca's. Even though it is her birthday, it's a good thing she likes this meal so much, because I'm pretty inflexible on what that is going to be. She DOES have total freedom in picking her deserts, though. She prefers pies over cake, and always has a pumpkin pie and one other pie. This year she picked cherry. The pies must also be made with this butter crust recipe I found in a magazine, of all places.
After dinner and desert, we open Rebecca's birthday presents. So, you can see that this is really a nice day all-around!
Well, this year, Rebecca turned thirteen. Yikes. Where did the time go? She is growing up very fast in many ways. Somewhere between 12 and 13, these days, it seems a switch is flipped and one day they are suddenly mini-adults.
One areas where this was very evident this year was the yearly trip to visit Santa. Each of our children gets a single Santa gift each year, and they ask Santa for this when we visit him for the annual photo. Just so you know, Rebecca "gets" what Santa is all about, and has from Kindergarten or before. The girls know that when they ask Santa for something, it is nearly a sure bet, so they ask carefully. This year, we had no idea what Rebecca was going to ask for, and were very curious...in particular because our Santa visit was only 2 days before Christmas. That doesn't give the elves much time to work, if you catch my drift!
We waited in the line and when it was our turn, Dianne (the wifelet) and I strained to hear what Rebecca was telling Santa she wanted.
I'm sure you are dying to know, aren't you? Well, Rebecca asked Santa that her Christmas gift be donated to "Nurses for Newborns", which is her favorite charity!
So, on Christmas morning, there were a few presents around the tree from us to the kids, and propped on the "Christmas stools" (two seats that the kids traditionally sit on to open presents) where the gifts from Santa. On Rachel's stool was the doll w/ Christmas clothes she asked for, and on Rebecca's stool was an actual note from Santa. The note indicated how proud he was of her choice and how he was sure that her parents were proud as well.
We are very proud. Our little girl is growing up!
Happy Birthday, Rebecca!
And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
- Luke 2:9-14 KJV
Today's post is a continuation of yesterday's, where I posted five (5) photos of the doll house my wife, the MacGyver of Craftiness, built this past summer. Well, now it is decorated for Christmas (though not as much as our real house), and here are some more pictures for your enjoyment. Be sure and check out yesterday's, if you haven't seen them as well!
All photos taken with a Nikon D60 dSLR, 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 lens, SB-600 flash, and LumiQuest LQ-107 softbox mounted on the flash head (on camera). I adjust the flash compensation and exposure to try to duplicate what the house looks like in our room under the normally dark room lighting.
This is the front porch of the house, complete with working lights. The window on the left is the living (showing the lighted Christmas tree inside). The window on the right is the kitchen. All of the wreaths were made by my wife.
Another shot of the living room, seen through the window in the first picture, and in another view in yesterday's post. (Go check it out, sometime!)
Another shot of one of the upstairs bedrooms (third floor), complete with its own Jack-in-the-box!
By now, you are certainly aware that our home decorating for Christmas knows no bounds. This past summer, my wife (who I referred to as the MacGyver of Craftiness yesterday) built a wooden doll house that is REALLY for her, but that the kids play with.
The doll house has been mentioned a number of times on this blog, and even has been in the corner of several pictures....but not many close ups. I've received numerous emails asking for more photos on the dollhouse so today is your lucky day! My wife, Dianne, and the two girls have decorated the doll house for Christmas. Here are a couple of photos of the decorations. All photos taken with a Nikon D60 dSLR, 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 lens, SB-600 flash, and LumiQuest LQ-107 softbox mounted on the flash head (on camera). I adjust the flash compensation and exposure to try to duplicate what the house looks like in our room under the normally dark room lighting.
The house is fully electrified and lighted! This is how the house normally looks in its corner of the dining room, lit by its own lights and ambient Christmas lighting in our house.
The snow covered roof-line and the Christmas lights on the eaves!
A shot of the living room, with it's own lit Christmas tree, decorated by my wife, and stockings, garland, and gingerbread house. All made by the crafty missus.
If you are a regular reader, you know that we spent a part of a recent Saturday volunteering at the Christmas Tree lot operated by our church's Men's Club. It was a very windy, and COLD day (though given this morning's temperature of close to zero Fahrenheit, it now seems relatively temperate!) and I spent at least some of the time, while there weren't any customers, chasing around a flock of pigeons, trying to get a good photo of them against the gray sky.
I don't know where they get their tree supply from, but the trees are generally quite gorgeous! (If you are still looking for a real tree or wreath, check them out NOW at Christ Memorial Lutheran Church, 5252 S. Lindbergh at a greatly reduced price while supplies last!)
In fact, the gorgeousness of the trees was actually the start of a small problem. Almost immediately upon entering the lot, our youngest daughter Rachel started asking to get a tree. Naturally we replied no, partially out of well-homed parenting instinct, parental knee-jerk reaction, and/or the fact that we have a very nice (but artificial) tree already taking up a considerable amount of our dining room. Check out the link, if you haven't seen it already. It is beautiful!
So, no space, combined with parental instincts kicked in to save the day. Unfortunately, in equal measure, if not a bit more powerful, 7-year perseverance and endless NAGGING also kicked in. Whether out of genuine desire to help, or some evil vendetta against Dianne and I (still to be determined), one of the overly helpful Men's Club members (whom we'll call Eric because that's his name) found a SMALL tree. Darn you Eric! (See photo above - click to enlarge if you have trouble finding the tree in the picture).
Well, we still had the whole "we aren't going to buy another Christmas tree" line working for us, with an emphasis on the BUY portion. With no serious source of income beyond the change that the kid scrapes off the dressers, we figured this would just about solve the tree question.
Naturally, as is the case in an annoyingly high percentage of the time, we were wrong.
The power of the nagging 7-year old is not to be discounted, let me tell you. Although she didn't actually wear Dianne and I down, she DID outmaneuver us. Somehow, she either convinced, or annoyed into submission, the Men's Club staff, because before we knew what hit us, they offered to give her the tree for FREE.
Checkmate. Well played, Rachel, well played. Now, with all of our best objections deftly defeated, we were boxed in a corner. It was too late in the game to come up with a NEW list of objections, which were admittedly centered around the concept that we had said "no." You see, we couldn't turn down the kindness of the Men's Club for wanting to GIVE the tree to Rachel, but we also couldn't let Rachel have the tree to begin with, because we had said "no" and she bullied us.
Well, I said she could have it. I'm not certain it was the right thing to do, but I'm also not certain that saying "no" in the first place was the right thing to do. Regardless, I do know that we need to come up with some better reasons. Also, she truly adores the little tree, so how could we remain mad for long? (See the 2nd picture - click to expand).
So now, a week later, on Saturday night, we decided that now was the time to put the little tree up. I went out and purchased a new tree stand (so much for "free") because we both thought that we got rid of our live tree stand years ago...I think a leg was even bent or something. In any case, neither of us felt like looking too hard for the tree stand, and Rebecca was busy texting somebody or something, so I ran off to the corner Walgreens and picked up a stand. When we set up the little tree in the stand, Dianne noticed that if we moved our box of Nintendo games, the tree would look very nice next to the TV cabinet in our living room! Rachel was agreeable to the tree not being in her bedroom (which I was happy about as we could better monitor the lights and watering this way), so that's where we set it up. We found a new, unused set of green and red miniature lights in the attic (thanks to a previous post-Christmas sale at Target) and they looked perfect on the tree.
Also, again due to searching laziness, we didn't want to look for ornament hooks and I had seen those at my last trip to Walgreens, so off I went again! I'm glad I did, too, because they had these cool GREEN clips that don't show up so much in the tree.
Also, while I was there, I looked around to find something special she could put on her very first tree of her own, and found an 18 ft. piece of gold metallic garland that was basically a thin cord, and little gold stars. I thought that Rachel would really like the garland, so I bought that, too. The "free" tree just went up in price another $4.00 thanks to the garland and the hooks!
Dianne, being a crafty and home-made genius, also thought she could just "whip up a tree skirt" - apparently out of thin air. She's like the Macgyver of craftiness, I think. Well, she was right, because in a few minutes she had conjured up a white, red, green and black tree skirt that featured snowmen and Christmas Trees.
I think that after Rachel was done decorating the tree, and Dianne had applied her crafty genius, the tree looks pretty good! Click the above photo for a slightly larger view.
The garland also gave me some fun, as I captured the shot below this morning before I left for work. You can click to enlarge this a bit, too!
So, while I'm not entirely sure we did the right thing letting Rachel take the little, free tree home, we DID gain another beautiful Christmas decoration for the year!
Tomorrow, the LONG awaited pictures of the dollhouse Dianne made, complete with Christmas decorations and lighting! Y'all come back now, y'hear?
We have a life-size Hannah Montana cardboard cutout at our house. Our neighbor thought that perhaps the girls might like it, and while I was initially skeptical of having a life-size replica of ANYTHING in the house (we have a small house and unlike the children and pets, life-size replicas don't always get out of the way!), it has proven to be great fun.
Here's why: Every single one of us in the household tries on a daily basis to place the life-size Hannah Montana cut cardboard cutout in the house in some location that will scare the pants off of someone else. For this reason, it is common to find Hannah Montana behind doors, in the shower (where the scary blue people live that don't want the shower curtain closed according to my oldest daughter), at the top/bottom of darkened stairs...almost anywhere that surprise is likely.
Usually, we are unsuccessful. In fact, I think that most frequently it backfires when we put the life-size Hannah Montana cardboard cutout someplace and forget we did it...then scare ourselves.
We are not a bright family.
However, today was different. Today, I scored a success in life-sized Hannah Montana cardboard cutout placement! I am so cool! Nothing can touch me today!
I put the life-sized Hannah Montana cardboard cutout in the kitchen, around the corner, in the dark. My oldest daughter, Rebecca, is usually the first one up in the house. Well, this morning I learned that it actually worked!
She had gotten up, went to the bathroom, and stumbled her way into the kitchen to make breakfast, or get a drink or something. In any case, she related to me later that indeed the life-sized Hannah Montana cardboard cutout had "like totally scared the pants off her." IN FACT, she also mentioned that it was a good thing she had already gone to the bathroom!
Isn't that great?!?! I am on top of the world, today, baby! This is better than that time I hid giant rubber spiders peeking out of the drop ceiling in the kids room! (To be fair, that was payback for a rubber snake in our bed, though)
I will now probably find all the insanity and unreasonable demands placed on me actually funny rather than annoying, for today at least. Why?
Because, I KNOW THAT IF I WANTED TO, I COULD SCARE THE PANTS OFF YOU WITH A LIFE-SIZED HANNAH MONTANA CARDBOARD CUTOUT!
You are powerless to resist me.
Life is good!
This is a classmate of my youngest daughter, Rachel. Picture taken on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at a K-2nd grade Christmas program. Nikon D60 55-200mm f4-f5.6.
