Week 52: I'm Three!

I thought this shot from tonight was the most appropriate - and more than ever, it was tough to choose the one to feature. As I type, "I'm Three!" I have The Who blaring in my head (I'm Free from Tommy), so I thought this was Jonah's rocker pose. He's trying to make a three with his right hand. . .

What an amazing year it has been. What a FAST year it has been. Jonah has changed so much in this past year that I can't even begin to put it into words. We started the year with a toddler and now we have a full blown kid. Jonah has been very verbal for quite awhile, but now he speaks in complete, clear sentences and doesn't stop talking. All things considered, his Terrible Twos weren't so bad. The jury's still out on the threes, though!

We had Jonah's Birthday Party this past weekend, a week early, at the Children's Museum of Art here in Manhattan. What a great spot! We were fortunate that so many of his friends, and our friends, could come join us in celebrating our little boy turning three. There was lots to do including a group mural project in the style of Jackson Pollock. Lots of fun! Photos from that are here.

I'm so glad that I took a leap and dove into this project. I feel I've grown quite a bit as a photographer over this year - more as a dad, though. It was great to force myself to slow down from time to time and take note of things. I needed some details to focus on and bring to life in photos. This helped me gain that focus during an insanely busy part of our lives. Thanks to everyone who has expressed such kind words to me about the blog and about the photos. I truly appreciate them. So many of you have asked if I'm going to continue this - and I will. I may not hit every single week like I have this past year, but I'm going to try. I've got some more leaping to do as a photographer over the next year or two - stay tuned.

So, thanks to everyone who has followed along. I hope you keep reading and keeping up with us.

I'll indulge, since this is the last post of the first 52 weeks and leave you with a few of my other favorites from tonight's shoot:

This was my original concept:

 didn't read as well as I'd imagined.

I ALMOST chose this one for the lead photo:

Couple of others that are cute:

All of the photos are me going Joel Grimes on Jonah - minus the cool HDR backgrounds. So - three light setup. Strobe back camera left in a gridded stripbox; strobe back camera right in a gridded softbox (because I only own one stripbox currently); and the key is a strobe in a 53" octabank high above the lens. The full body shots are 50mm and the closer shots are 135mm - all at f/2.8

Thanks again everyone!

Week 51: Yet Another Portrait

As I mentioned in the last post, I wanted to close out these last few weeks with a few portraits of Jonah to capture him at this point in life. I wanted to capture him as he appears physically - he's just changing so quickly! However, I didn't fully anticipate just how much personality would come through, as well. I'm not sure why I didn't foresee that. . . guess it was the photographer side of me thinking more than the dad. Jonah oozes personality, both for better and for worse, at every moment.

This photo is more or less what I wanted to get this week. . . probably closer to the less, but again, that's the photographer speaking more than the dad. The light is more or less right. The reflection is more or less right. However, the boy and the prop are a bit different. I had a different train in mind. Jonah decided that he wanted a ball. Great! Jonah has been taking a soccer class at school lately and it's all he really talks about at home; a ball was a great prop for this portrait. Then he decided he didn't want the ball. I tried to encourage him to "make a picture" with the ball - bad idea. He eventually chose this train and instantly started driving it in circles around the white plexiglass "table" it's sitting on. The sheet of plexiglass is 2'x4' and the rate at which he was moving covered the two feet window of shot opportunity faster than I could get the camera focused and the shutter depressed.

Kristi was a saint and helped me get him wrangled. He stood and "smiled" for a fleeting moment and I just got the shot in before he was off again. Jonah is where I wanted him - the train, not even close. Oh well, this is a more accurate portrayal of Jonah than what I had envisioned! Jonah is very opinionated anymore and is constantly on the go. Getting him to do what you would like him to do at the time you would like him to do it is becoming increasingly difficult. I have a sneaking suspicion that the terrible twos will much more likely be the terrible threes for Jonah. We'll see.

Photo - this is a piece of white seamless paper as the backdrop and a sheet of white plexiglass set on two footstools as a table. Lighting is pretty simple - there is a gridded strobe camera right and focused on the seamless. It's aimed low to give the gradient as you go up. The key is a strobe in a 53" octabank camera right. 135mm lens at f/8.

Week 50: Another Portrait

It's really hard to believe it's been almost a full year since I started this project, but here we are. Jonah has changed so much in the past year. He's definitely a preschooler now - not even a toddler anymore. He's grown so much physically but even more mentally. So, as we start to wrap up the year I thought I would take a couple of portraits. Not a lot to say - just a testament to how much he has grown and changed in the past year. Here's the first.

I had been wanting to experiment with this lighting for awhile and finally got the shot in. This is three lights. The background is a strobe in a 3x4' softbox firing directly back into the camera. There are two strobes in shoot through umbrellas directly in front of the camera - one low aimed up and one high aimed down. The 135mm lens is directly between the two umbrellas.

Week 49: The Gift to be Simple

My thoughts this week are an outgrowth of last week's post and also bit repetitive. I never ceases to amaze me watching Jonah play. Needless to say, he's growing up in a time of enormous growth in technology and he's certainly pre-wired to use it all. He knows how to use my iPhone as if it were second nature. He has plenty of toys with lights, wires, music, noise makers. . . any kind of distraction that you can imagine.

All of that said, though, the toys that he turns to most often look like the one in the photo for this week. He has three wooden trains. He loves them all and gets a lot of good out of them. He has old-school metal Tonka trucks - loves them. One of his favorite games is taking the cardboard boxes from items we have delivered and hooking them together to make a train he can pretend to ride. He has all of the more advanced distractions, and they catch his eye from time to time, but that attraction has always been fleeting and he returns to his simple toys like I played with. Like my father played with. Like his father played with.

I just came back from a business trip to Boston and Providence this evening and had to get my photo in for the week. The last meeting I had before getting on the real train back to NYC was with a superintendent with whom I'm just beginning to work. After the business was discussed we started chatting about our families. She has two boys that are both grown and she was giving me some pointers and things to expect. She asked Jonah's age and started giving me birthday present tips - her number one tip was to go buy cardboard boxes, duct tape, string and a bolt of fabric for creating forts, tunnels, castles, etc. She said that was the best money she ever spent on a toy for her children. I believe it.

When we were back in Missouri this past week for Great Grandpa's funeral, Jonah instantly saw the wooden train that Great Grandpa had made some time ago sitting up on a shelf. He wanted it. Badly. We tried to distract him with other things as we weren't sure how Great Grandma would feel about Jonah playing with the train - could have gone either way as our emotions were certainly on our sleeves. Jonah was persistent and eventually got his way. That train occupied him for hours over the course of multiple days. The train stayed with Great Grandma, but I know that Jonah will remember to ask for it the next time we're in town.

It really is wonderful watching him use his imagination. It's heartwarming to know that he'd rather use his imagination and play with a simple toy (most of the time) than turn to the toy with lights and buzzers. I know it will change when he discovers video games, though. . .

Photo: This is three lights. The train is sitting on a piece of white plexiglass and the white background is a light in a 3x4' softbox set up against the plexiglass. That light is 2.5 stops over the main exposure. There is a light high camera right in a reflective umbrella for highlights and the other light is low camera left in a reflective umbrella. That light provides the main fill and exposure for the train. This is shot on my 135mm lens at f/8.