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Isn't it so sweet when you can tell that siblings really love each other? These too remind me of my brother and myself when were younger. Only I think we fought a lot more! right Mark? Happy Birthday little bro!
Kids always love this! and I love whipping them into a frenzy.
Last week Sam and Chanda celebrated their 13th wedding anniversary and so the girls hung out with us while they celebrated so we had a little celebration of our own. Alec and Hayven were kind enough to have us all over for a weenie roast and then we took care of a family tradition... the annual burning of the Christmas Wreath! We typically do this while camping but this year we forgot to take the wreath! Yes, we actually save our Christmas wreath for 6 months or so and then burn in a blaze of glory!
Ally - throughly enjoying her hot dog
Melissa and Megan roasting their dogs
Myles - preparing the wreath for its cremation.
The wreath in it's final blaze of glory! Crispy wreaths actually make beautiful kindling.
Yes, we are allowed to have fires in our back yards with out a permit, however, I think that this actually exceeds the 36 in maximum flame height rule. One year I burned our entire Christmas tree in our back yard and that made a 12 - 15 ft flame - It scared me a little bit and from then on we just let the boy scouts take it.
I'm sure I will get some interesting comment's on this post - bring it on!
This post has been a long time coming...
My best friend form college (Melissa Skaugset) is in her 4th year of med school and is on rotation at Children's hospital is Seattle. She has been living with us this month while she works in the endocrine clinic. This has been a nice rotation to have her because there is no "on call" for endocrine clinic and so she has not been insanely busy. Simon has taken to her and loves that she reads him stories all the time.
Melissa is busy applying for residency programs and she needed a picture for her application so we took a few the other day. Nothing spectacular as the light was pretty bad but at least Eric, he husband can now remember what she looks like : )
more later
I just returned from Jodie Otte's Studio Lighting Naturally workshop. It was amazing! Jodie is one of my photography idols, I have followed her work for years so it was a real treat for me to actually get to meet her in person and watch her work. She was so sweet and kind to us and a real inspiration.
One can read all the books and participate in all the discussion forms but nothing compares to physically watching someone work and explain what they are doing. I think I learned more in two days than I have in the last year combined. Jodie is an amazing teacher and I highly recommend her books Studio Lighting Naturally and Just Lighting Naturally. She is a wealth of knowledge and she was an open book to us. Sadly this was the last workshop that she is teaching for a while but she is offering one-on-one mentoring and I recommend looking into that option if you are the "learn by doing" type like myself.
The icing on the cake was that when my mom brought Simon up for his lunch Jodie used him as a model. Here are some of the photos that she took of him during her demonstration. All I can say is WOW.
If you want to see more of the photos from the workshop check out Jodie's blog. I have to say the that the other workshop attendees were all amazing women and it was wonderful to get to meet them and to also pick their brains and discuss photography with them. I love to talk "shop" and honestly Myles gets a bit sick of it so it's always fun to be around a bunch of other photographers. I also want to publicly thank my mom for making it possible for me to attend this workshop. She flew across the country with Simon and I and took care of him while I was busy learning - how awesome is she! All round it was a great experience and I think I will be on a photography high for a while!
I just love it when little kids can't help but let their true personality shine! This little girl was amazing, so happy and she had so many expressions! This is truly one of my favorite ages. I know everyone says to treasure the stage your child is in and I do but I secretly look forward to when Simon is in the teen months (you know just before the terrible twos hit).
You can really see his one tooth in this one and the other one that is almost out. He also has the top two coming in. 
Don’t let the title fool you this is not going to be that complicated : )
Which image is better and why?
#1
#2
Hint: it has nothing to so with Simon
The answer is #1.
The first photo is a better image because of the subject background separation. The background is out of focus, drawing your attention to the subject. In the second photo, the background appears more in focus. It is cluttered and distracting. Your attention is drawn away from the subject and to all the weeds growing in my backyard.
What’s the difference?
#1 was taken at an aperture of 1.8
#2 was taken at an aperture of 9.0
Aperture is the hole in your camera through which light is admitted; it can be compared to the iris in your eye. When you walk into a dark room your eye automatically dilates, letting in more light. Like your iris, your cameras lens can dilate and contract. The wider the dilation or aperture the shallower the area that is in focus in the resulting image. The amount of area that is in focus is known as depth of field - the larger the aperture, the shallower the depth of field. Image #1 has a very shallow depth of field and image #2 has a deeper depth of field. The counter-intuitive part is this: the smaller the number the larger the aperture. This is because the number is actually a denominator in a fraction - but I am not going to go into the math behind it. The important thing to remember is simply the smaller the number the shallower the depth of field. And shallow depth of field equals good subject background separation.
The aperture numbers I have been referring to are actually called F-stops (the F stands for focal). On your camera F-stops are a series of numbers that look something like this.
1.4 1.8 2.0 2.8 4 5.6 8 11 16 22
On an SLR/DSLR these numbers are written around the edge on the lens. On a point and shoot camera they may only be displayed in the menu (but they are there).
F-stops on the low end of the spectrum give you shallow depth of field (1.4 – 3.5). And for portraits this is where I primarily hang out.
Almost all cameras allow control over the aperture and it is not as complicated as you might think. Photographers utilize what is known as the exposure triad, the components being aperture, ISO, and shutter speed. When you shoot in “auto” or program mode, your camera selects the combination of the three. Unfortunately your camera is really just a computer and it has no idea what you are actually trying photograph so a lot of time it selects poorly. Learning just a little bit about the Triad will give you incredible control over your photography and improve your photos a lot. However, learning to manipulate all three elements of the triad at the same time is a little like learning to ride a bike. At first it is awkward to balance and try and steer at the same time. But with practice you gain better control and over time it just becomes second nature and pretty soon you don’t have to think about it at all. To simplify the learning process camera manufactures have given us training wheels (if you will) in the form of Aperture Priority mode. This allows you to choose an aperture value while the camera selects the correct shutter speed and ensures proper exposure. Aperture Priority mode is a great place to start if you want to improve your photography.
On most cameras, an “A”, “AP”, or “AV” delineates Aperture Priority mode. As far as I know, all DSLRs have an Aperture Priority mode. Right now the Canon PowerShot A590 IS is the most popular point and shoot camera in the U.S. and even it has Aperture Priority mode. So it’s worthwhile to check your camera manual to see if you camera has this mode. If your camera doesn’t have an Aperture Priority mode, “portrait mode” usually allows you to accomplish the same technique but with far less control.
Practice Exercise:
In the first several images the background is very out of focus but you can see that as I “stopped down” my lens the background comes more and more into focus. The first three images are preferable over all the others. In the first shot, the background looks almost like a creamy painting and it brings your focus right to Simon.
Now it is your turn to try it out. And to encourage all of you to get out your cameras and get them out of auto mode I have decided to have a little contest. Take a picture in Aperture Priority mode at your widest aperture opening and email it to me at [email protected]com
All entries are due by midnight PST on September 30th 2008. On October 1st I will put the names of all the applicants in a hat and allow Simon to draw out one name. Whoever’s name is drawn will receive their choice of one of the following prizes.
A Starbucks gift card
A copy of Understanding Exposure By Bryan Peterson
A copy of Understanding Shutter Speed By Bryan Peterson
One entry per person. This contest is not restricted to U.S. residents – feel free to play no matter where you live. And yes, if you win I will mail you your prize (providing it’s legal) to you even if you live in the Amazon rain forest. By emailing me your photo you are giving me your permission to post it on my blog. Feel free to tell me a little about yourself as well.
How will I know that you actually used Aperture Priority mode and that you used the widest aperture possible? A little thing called Exchangeable image file (EXIF) data that is recorded when you take a picture.
As always feel free to leave your questions, concerns, or suggestions in the comments.
I can’t wait to see your photos!
Last week we decided to let Simon finally try some real food. He's 7 months old and I have been holding out based on our pediatrician's recommendation. Everything I have read also states that there is no advantage to starting solids early and that delaying them can help prevent food allergies/sensitivities. I do have some rather "different" ideas about food and nutrition, but mainly I am just trying to do my best to help Simon establish healthy eating habits. So I baked up a sweet potato for Simon and took pictures as Myles fed him his first bites.
He tried to grab it off the spoon before Myles even got it close to his mouth. 
"What is that!?"
"Hum.. I'm not so sure"
"OK, maybe I will try a little more"
"Pretty good mom!"
After a few more bites we just gave him his own bowl and let him go at it. He really enjoys squishing it between his fingers!
I am not trying to criticize anyone else's methods or feeding philosophies, I am a big "do what works for you" proponent but we really want to avoid the picky eater scenario where I have to make a separate meal for the kids. I was a horrible picky eater (sorry Mom) so I guess I get what's coming to me but the theory that I am subscribing to is that if we avoid getting Simon used to eating bland texture-less food then he will be more likely to develop a broad pallet and be willing to try new things. Hayven loaned me her book Feeding the Whole Family: Recipes for Babies,Young Children and Their Parents by Cynthia Lair and I would highly recommend it. Lair, a Bastyr nutritionist, talks a lot about exposing kids to a verity of whole foods but also having the policy "what's severed is served". She comes across as very loving but firm and I like her approach. Also Heather sent me the book In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michale Pollan which is an excellent read and will probably forever change how I think about food. Pollan theorizes that a lot of the extreme increase in what he call "Western Diseases" (crones, diabetes, colitis, celiacs disease, etc) are directly related to the amount of over processed, nutritionally deficient "food" that we American's consume (think soda, cheetos, etc). Our pediatrician is on the same page as us and does not recommend rice cereal, the traditional first food. When I thought about it skipping rice cereal made a lot of sense to me. Rice cereal is just over processed white rice, we don't eat white rice (only brown, or wild verities) so why would I feed it to my baby? This is why we decided to start Simon on sweet potatoes, and I didn't make them thin and watery. Since this first feeding we have also tried avocado. He really seems to like both.
Today's test of the Large Hadron Collider actually went off with out a hitch. Despite the doomsday predictions of Walter Wagner and his group "the Citizens Against The Large Hadron Collider" who filled a lawsuit to stop the test.
The fear is that the LHC could create microscopic
black holes that could devour the Earth. That didn't happen today, however, we are not out of the woods yet! Pretty soon they are going to start crashing protons into each other and then who knows what might happen! As far as death scenarios go perishing into a black hole does not sound all that bad to me - do you think it would be painful?
Here is a little educational video about the LHC that we found hilarious. The best yet since school house rock. Thank you for the entertainment you partial physics geeks!
