Week 18: Inside the Artist's Studio

For quite some time, Jonah just wasn't interested in coloring or drawing. We tried; they certainly did several projects at school. However, Jonah's always came back with a few marks that were his and plenty of areas that looked like his teacher was helping and encouraging him along. Recently, though, he has really seemed to take an interest in it and, in fact, today, requested we do a "project." It was very hot outside today, but he was begging us to go outside. So, we took some pages for him to color out onto our patio and taped them to the fence. The idea was to use colored bubbles and blow bubbles at the pages - didn't work so well, but Jonah had a great time with the markers! It was pretty short lived as, even this morning, it got hot pretty quickly.

I had to get a photo in early this week as I have some work travel coming up and time is going to be tight. So, I decided to try to capture something this morning. This was an experiment with a different angle and I kind of like it. Something new for me. Different post processing, too, just to try something new.

Photo - this is my 24mm at f/1.4 and straight sunlight.

This was the finished "project", by the way:

and may more photos of the process here, if you are interested.

Week 17: Sometimes They Bite Back. . .

It's been a rough week. The sleep issues that I wrote about last week have persisted, although they are a bit better because mom and dad have taken turns sleeping on the floor in Jonah's room the past several nights. As long as we are in the room, he's been OK in his crib; if we leave the room, he wakes up and is upset.  We're working through our options and will keep you posted if we find the solution. Additionally, dad's been down with a nasty summer cold and mom has been busy with work, so Jonah's been a little more on his own than usual. All in all - it's been a rough week for all of us.

Jonah has, understandably, been a bit more cranky than usual this week. He's certainly tired and I think he's frustrated with the whole situation, too. Things apparently came to head today at school. As the incident report reads, his class was outside on the little "rooftop" playground toady. Jonah was on a scooter and one of his friends decided they wanted it and pushed Jonah to get off. (Jonah does his fair share of pushing right now, too, so he's no innocent bystander) Jonah was upset and bit his friend on the arm. His friend was, understandably, upset by this and bit Jonah - on his cheek.

So, no lipstick marks on his face up there; those are teeth marks. He's fine; no real damage. If history repeats itself, the marks will be all but gone in the morning. Important lesson for Jonah this week, though - sometimes they bite back.

Photo: this is my 135mm at f/11. The light is coming from a Profoto head in a 1'x4' stripbox to camera right.

Week 16: The Goal

What a week.

A friend of ours, who is expecting her first child, recently asked, "do I ever get to sleep through the night again?" My response was "nope." Then I think back to all of the times that my mother begged me to get out of bed because it was time to get ready and go to school. So, it seems that, at some point, children start sleeping through the night - logic tells me that is true. However, in my bleary eyed state, I have lost sight of logic.

When Jonah was an infant, like most infants, we were up a lot. Many night time feedings, etc. We worked with Jonah as he got older and got him to the point, over much time and effort, where he would sleep through the night. Oh, what a blissful time! Then, we went to Missouri for Christmas. Gone. Done. No more sleeping through the night. The slight timezone change and the disrupted routine just did him in. So, we started our sleep training from scratch. It was harder this time - he was on to us. However, we got there. He slept through the night again. Nice. Apart from times when he was not feeling well, he slept fairly well.

Then something changed. I, to this day, have no idea what it was. He just suddenly stopped sleeping well. This week everything came to a head and we had to start pushing back in a deliberate way. This week Jonah started waking up, nightly as we were going to bed. The only way to get him to settle down and stop crying was to bring him into our bed. He would calm right down and go to sleep. The rub is that, like many toddlers, he has a misconception about his orientation in our bed. He feels the appropriate way to sleep is with his head snuggled into one of us (typically Kristi), his body perpendicular to the bed, leaving his feet to kick wildly into the other (normally me). He ends up pushing the person on the "head end" off the bed and pummeling the person on the "feet end." The only person sleeping is Jonah, and he doesn't sleep well. So, we would get him to sleep, pick him up and take him back to his room. However, the moment you crossed the threshold into his room, he would wake up, cling to you with a death grip and start wailing. . . so we repeat. . .

After too many nights of this process and too many days of talking to him about needing to sleep in his bed all night long, we decided to get tough last night. Like clockwork, he woke up and started crying. After it was clear that he would not be able to put himself back to sleep, I went in, calmed him down and, after a couple of attempts, got him back in bed without ever leaving his room. When I left the room he cried like I've never heard him cry before. . . however, about 2 minutes later he suddenly stopped and slept until morning. We'll see what adventures tonight brings.

All that goes to say, my mind was not focused on creating a photo for this week. It hit me today that it was Thursday and that something had to happen tonight. Had an idea or two for photos of Jonah, but it was very clear on the commute home that he would not be very cooperative. He was exhausted. So, this seemed like an appropriate image to represent our week. Thanks to Kristi for feeding Jonah tonight while I put this together.

Photo - this was another one that I was able to see in my head and create what I wanted - pretty exciting for me! This is three small flashes. There is a speedlight with a grid on a boom arm pointed down on his pillow - that is the key light and sets the exposure, everything else is built down from there. I wanted his pillow to be the bright spot as that is the MOST important thing for us right now! There is a flash under the crib firing against the wall and the third light is camera right, dialed all the way down, just to give a little light and definition to that end of the crib. This is my 24-70 at 24mm and f/8.

Week 15: Spoiled

Where else can you play outside right before a rainstorm in your pajamas but Grandma's house? (At least he has shoes on!)

We just got back from our annual summer pilgrimage to Missouri to visit family. This year was a bit special because we attended a family reunion for Kristi's family. Kristi's grandmother turned 90 this year, so a lot of that side of her family got together to celebrate and catch up. (lots of those photos here for those who are interested) We had a nice, but short visit with my side of the family tree and then headed to southern Missouri to spend time with Kristi's side.

While we didn't spend much time at Grandma and Grandpa's house, they certainly found plenty of ways to spoil Jonah on the road. For the first time, he actually switched over to Central time - so he got to stay up WAY past his normal Eastern bedtime and he came back to NYC an absolute chocolate addict. He'll be going through detox shortly. Then, this morning he got to play outside in his PJs for quite awhile AND take a ride on Grandpa's tractor - in his PJs! Oh well, I guess that's what grandparents are for.

Photo - this is, yet again, my 24-70mm at 24mm and f/2.8. I under exposed the photo by 2 stops to emphasize the sky and then fired a bare flash camera left that I was holding in my left hand while holding the camera in my right and not looking through the viewfinder. Phew. . . lucky shot. Actually - you get to know what your lens is going to "see" after awhile and don't always have to have the camera to your face to compose the shot you want. The other note on this, for those who are still reading, the flash is fired via a Canon flash on the camera (which did not actually fire) set to control a wireless set. That enables high speed sync - this was shot at 1/3200 of a second - well above normal sync speed.

Week 14: Apple Pie

When I was a boy we went to my grandparents' house (Mom's parents) every Sunday. It was clockwork: get up; go to church; come home to change clothes; go to Holt in time for lunch. This happened every week with almost no exceptions. Every week, with also almost no exceptions, my grandmother would make an apple pie for dessert because she knew it was my favorite. It was always from scratch, crust included, and always delicious. There would typically be a piece or two left over and I would bring it home with me to have the next day.

So, here we are in Missouri this week visiting Jonah's grandparents and he finds a small figurine that I gave to his Great Grandma several years ago. It's a Boyd's Bears figurine of a grandmother making an apple pie while the grandchild watches in anticipation. Jonah really liked it and kept going back to it; so, we decided to carry on the tradition and have Grandma and Jonah make an apple pie. Jonah had a great time, especially playing in the dough!

Photo-wise, this is my 24-70mm at 24mm and f/6.3. There is a flash camera left firing at the ceiling at 1 stop down for fill and a flash camera right through white umbrella as the key.