Week 10: The Plush Menagerie

Yep, another week devoted to Jonah's stuffed animals. I guess I really have myself to blame. As I mentioned before, whenever I travel, I typically bring back a little something for Jonah from whatever city I was visiting. Most of the time my schedule is really tight, so I end up buying something at the airport, and well, that tends to be plush. Plus, stuffed animals pack really easily!

Anyway, behold Jonah's collection of stuffed animals. He LOVES them. He often picks up as many as he can possibly carry (say 8 or so of them - really) and stumbles around the apartment trying to keep them all in his arms. He loves to snuggle with them and has no fewer than 12 in his crib at all times. Many mornings he will wake up and play with his stuffed animals for quite awhile before we go in and get him. You can hear him singing to them, reenacting school with them and putting them in time out.

He was somewhat willing to take this photo today. We had just come back from the store (which is one block from our apartment) and we let him be a big boy and walk, rather than ride in the stroller, for the first time. He was pretty happy about that. The first couple of shots, he climbed up, sat nicely and let me take the photo. Then he got a little silly, insisted upon putting the truck in the shot (dead center) and then started showing his true personality.

As for the photo - this is my 24-70mm at 24mm and f/4. There are two flashes - one in a 60" softlighter camera right and one in a 28" softbox camera left at one stop down to provide some fill on the animals.

Week 9: Ride Car

Unlike his Mom and Dad, Jonah is a very urban baby. Car rides are a complete novelty and are cause for excitement and celebration. His Mom and Dad not owning a car is certainly a large contributor to this. Every now and then, we rent a car for the day and drive upstate or to Long Island to visit friends, pick apples, etc., but the vast majority of his transportation experience is underground. Whenever Jonah sees his car seat - which normally lives in our storage locker - sitting in the apartment he gets very excited and says "ride car!" over and over. This week we took a trip to Sesame Place, an amusement park just outside of Philadelphia, to visit with some old friends and have breakfast with Elmo. While it is technically accessible via public transportation, it was endlessly easier to rent a car, pack up the three tons of gear required when traveling with a toddler, and drive west to Pennsylvania. I thought this novelty deserved documentation. 

Having two years of parenthood under our belts, we've learned that travel time is best coordinated with nap time, so the drive from NYC to PA was, for the most part, not very photogenic. We got to the hotel, got settled in and awaited our friends' arrival. When they got in and settled we took all the kiddos to the nearby park - despite the Africa inspired heat. This shot is right before we headed to the park - Jonah was wisely getting hydrated before we played. It was 95 degrees - no exaggeration - which is quite warm for May.

The photo - my 24-70mm at 25mm and f/2.8 and straight sunlight. 

Week 8: A Major Accomplishment

Meet Jonah's Potty.

It's been a big week in our house and in the world of our two year old! Jonah officially used the potty for the first time this week and has done so on multiple occasions. I'll spare you the details, but he's doing a good job. We still have a ways to go, but we are celebrating the big step forward. Jonah's pretty proud of himself and we're pretty proud of him, too.

I decided that this was a big enough accomplishment in the life of a two year old toddler (and his parents' for that matter) that it was worth documenting - to some extent!

Without going into the details of Jonah's accomplishment, I'm not sure what to add to the above, so I'd like to share my excitement about the above photo. I've been working on learning light for awhile now and have been making progress but felt like I was up against some sort of ceiling. So, for my birthday this year, I asked to attend a lighting workshop here in NYC that took place this past weekend. After two fourteen hour days, I feel like I've broken through that ceiling and a lot of things that I've been circling around for awhile now clicked into place.

Granted, the photo above is no Pulitzer Prize winner, but I had an image in my mind and was able to accomplish it - quickly. I thought I knew what to do - I set it up, took a shot and it was wrong. Sigh. However, this time I instantly knew what went wrong and how to fix it! I changed light modifiers, roped Kristi into substituting for a piece of gear that I don't yet own (boom arm), set it up and voila! So very satisfying. . .

So, the photo - this is my 50mm at f/8. The light is coming from a 28" softbox directly above the potty, tilted slightly toward the camera and in VERY close. It's just out of the frame. Still a lesson to learn, though. I should have put a black card off to camera left to eat the spilled light. You can see the reflection of the baseboard in the side of the potty on that side.

Week 7: Birthday Brunch

We celebrated my birthday today by going out to brunch at Melba's for Chicken and Waffles with some great friends. We had a wonderful time! I had been instructed by Shelly that she wanted me to bring my camera and take photos - seems she was jealous that I posted photos from a dinner with some mutual friends of ours and had neglected to bring the camera last time she was in town. So, I happily obliged. It's so nice having Jonah a little older now and being able to go out to restaurants. It can still get a little dicey if we don't bring things with which to entertain him, but we've learned our lessons.

As we were preparing to leave, Jonah started getting a little restless and wanting to explore. I was up keeping an eye on him and he ran into this beautiful little pool of light. I didn't have my camera on me at the time. He ran back toward our table, played a bit and took back off toward the door - so I grabbed the camera and followed. He walked back into this little pool of light and I snapped this photo. I liked it so much that I decided it was the photo for this week.

Photo info - 50mm at f/2. Straight up sunlight.

Week 6: Bath Time!

Jonah loves bath. He always has - since he was an infant. He splashes around, slides back and forth on his belly, plays with toys, bubbles, the list goes on and on. He almost always stays in the bathtub until the water is rather cool and then only gets out when we start to encourage him to call it a night. So, when I realized that I needed to get in a photo early on this week to fit in with my travel schedule, I quickly thought that bath would be the answer. I set up a light and away we went. We were running a little behind tonight, as well, so he was particularly tired - and silly - for bath. I had to clean the splashes off my lens several times! Thank goodness these cameras are weather sealed!

I had a particular shot in mind tonight - I never got it. I did however learn another lesson. When photographing young children, go in with a general idea, set up a broad spot of light and let them play. The photos will be better for it. I had a hard time choosing a photo from this set. I narrowed it down to 11 and then had trouble choosing a favorite. I thought this one told the story best; so, I chose it. The 11 shots are viewable here:
http://web.me.com/rwdavi/rwdavi/Albums/Pages/Crazy_Bath%21.html
Did I choose the right one?

Photo info - this is my 50mm at f/2.8 with a flash in a reflective umbrella up camera right. Just add water, bubbles and a towel for dad.