Last month my Brother and his wife gave birth to their first child. I say “they” but she’s the one who endured the 22 hour labor. Ouch.
Every child is different, but as a parent it can be difficult to not try and share your own experiences with the newbies. Especially the horror stories like “just wait until they vomit in your crotch…on an airplane” and “you’re not going to sleep well for 15 months.” My kids are a little older but the memories of them as newborns is still fresh in my memory. I’ve tried to keep my unwanted advice to myself as much as possible, but I don’t see my brother often so I’ve got to get my abuse in when I can. He’s in a weakened, exhausted state and just ripe for the ribbing. The problem is Grace is too damn cute, and lucky. She has two loving parents who’ve made her the center of their universe. All the exciting possibilities of the woman she is to become makes all the nasty bumps, bruises and bodily fluids along the way seem trivial.
The Fourth of July celebrations got started early this year at Cattail Creek Country Club. My family has been attending this event for the past couple of years but this was my first time. We lucked out with what will probably be the last mild evening weather of the summer and the skies were perfectly clear for the fireworks. The ribs, hot dogs and cole slaw didn’t hurt either.
I just recently joined the Taproot Foundation which is an organization that aims “to lead, mobilize and engage professionals in pro bono service that drives social change.” I’ve been looking for a way to use photography to give back to the community and I’m really excited about getting assigned to my first project.
June 22, 2010 was the DC chapter’s second anniversary.
Tonight was the DC meetup for fellow “Linchpins” who are big fans of marketing guru Seth Godin. Many thanks to Seth for motivating such an interesting group of people to gather and to Zainab for organizing the event at the Science Club. If you’re unfamiliar with Seth you can read his wikipedia bio, reviews of his seminars and what Google thinks of him.
From the freezing blizzards in Maryland and Massachusetts we briefly escaped to an oasis of an island with perfect sunsets every evening. White sand, crystal clear blue water and deep orange skies are the perfect recipe for relaxation.
The Great “Snowpocalypse” of 2009 delayed our family vacation to Aruba by two excruciating days. Who’d have thought a mere 20 inches would delay flights. After many, many hours on hold we finally got an American Airlines agent who had the brilliant idea to route us through Boston. “Really lady, you don’t think it makes a little more sense to fly away from the storm.” Having grown up in the Hub I knew for sure that if it was this bad in DC then Boston would be a nightmare. However, as my wife can confirm, I’ve been wrong before. In the end it all worked out great. We took a freezing cold water taxi ride across the harbor, dined at the historic Durgin Park restaurant in Fanueil Hall and as a bonus we were treated to this amazing sunset/moonrise.
The rumor is that a major storm is heading our way and threatening to drop up to 18″ of snow. The best thing about snow in the DC area is the absolute panic it causes. Grocery stores are mobbed by folks storing up water and firewood. Gas stations develop lines because there won’t possibly be any fuel left on Monday when the snow melts.
After many years I finally had the chance to go back home to Melrose, MA and visit some friends I hadn’t seen in a long time. We all have kids around the same age (see below) and it was awesome to finally meet them. I had an amazing time catching up with everyone and I’m kicking myself for having put off traveling back for so long. We’re definitely going to have to make this a habit.
My friend Fozia asked me to take some portraits of her young daughter and her three close friends. The girls would be going to different schools next year and the mothers all thought it would be a good idea to have a nice keepsake. As you can imagine keeping four 5 year olds in one place long enough for a group portrait can be a bit of a challenge. Fortunately there were swings and other fun obstacles everywhere. These images were captured in all natural light with a 50mm lens.
Our good friend Siobhan Davenport won the Mrs. Maryland America Pageant 2008 and I was honored when she asked me to take some headshots for her in her crown.
Even though it drizzled on the day we scheduled to shoot the overcast skies provided us with some amazingly beautiful light. Instead of trying to recreate the light myself indoors I gambled a little with the weather and decided to set up the background outside on her front porch. The cloudy sky acted as a gigantic softbox and I supplemented it with just a small flash unit over the camera for a little “eye pop.”
Ever since I’ve started shooting with the Nikon D2x and more recently the D3 I’ve kind of avoided ever really learning or fully embracing the speedlight control system Nikon calls the CLS(Creative Lighting System.) Basically it uses a series of pulses of light from the on-camera speedlight to control one or several off-camera speedlights. I’ve cautiously employed this system on weddings in manual/dumb slave mode but after reading Joe McNally’smost recent book The Hotshoe Diaries I’ve decided to start playing around with the possiblities of the other modes.
My over-sugared nephew and son were willing test subjects for this little experiment. Holding one SB-800 in my left hand(with the sensor pointing towards the on-camera flash,) another SB-800 on the body as the master and the D3 in aperture priority mode in my right I tried to get a sense of how it all works. The on-camera flash was set to — so that it would not fire and only control the hand-held which was being told to fire in TTL mode.
I found the results a little eractic, but when it worked it worked well. Tilting the camera up or down just a small amount, seeing a little more or a little less sky, caused the sensor to make extreme adjustments to the exposure and the flash output. As with all things there is a bit of a learning curve but I hope to figure this out soon so that I can continue to keep carrying less gear on my jobs. As I learn more I will post more.
Continuing the birthday theme for this month, we celebrated my good friend Mark’s 40th at the Sugarloaf Mountain Vineyard this past weekend. The winery put on a tasting in his honor and I was shocked pleasantly surprised at how good the wine was. As always it was a blast seeing old friends, making new ones and catching the birthday boy drinking out of a mystery jug. Seriously.
We had a little party today to celebrate our daughters 1st birthday and I still can’t believe a year has past this fast. Every piece of advice I got on being a father always included “…enjoy it now because it flies by.” I certainly don’t always slow down enough to put it into practice, but this was a great reminder.
I want to give huge shout-out to kindermusik teacher Becky for doing an awesome job entertaining the little ones. And also to big cousin Jupes for graciously sharing his birthday with his little cousin.
Lynn and I are grateful to everyone for stopping by and sharing in the celebration.
The row house in Logan Circle where my father-in-law grew up is finally close to being completely renovated. I got to go in with realtor Matt Zanolli and take some promo pics for his website and brochures. It is really amazing what Lynn was able to do with this space. This thing was totally gutted and brought back to life in a very stylish and creative way. It’s got a sweet, two-level owners suite and two split-level rental units. I’m going to post some “before” pics as soon as I get my hands on them. Hopefully my photos will do Lynn’s hard work justice.
Welcome to my new site on the web, I hope you enjoy your stay. My goal is to just share some of my work and thoughts. If you have any feedback please feel free to share via the comments section. Please check back as I will be updating my images soon and adding more stuff. Thanks for visiting.
