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Articles Tagged with: kids

Up All Night

My kids tried to wait up for my wife Amy last night. Kegan didn’t quite make it past the floor. Luckily, Lola was there to keep him company. I still had my camera setup from this post, so I cranked up the ISO to 1600 and got down on the floor to shoot this. I did play with the colors and saturation a bit to get that desaturated look.

In unrelated news, I got the email today that every person in their mid-thirties who attended college waits many years to receive. My student loans are all officially paid off. I think I need a drink! It’s a happy Sunday indeed.

Jump Rope For Heart 2012

My boy Kegan has decided to raise money for the American Heart Association by participating in this year’s Jump Rope For Heart.

Make sure to visit his fundraising website and help him reach his $100 goal!

We had a little scare in our family as we rang in the new year as our little Pomeranian Lola was having trouble breathing. Seriously, she started gagging at the stroke of midnight. After a trip to the vet we found out that she’s suffering from a collapsing trachea. Uggghhhhhh. Why make such a happy, loving, and cute dog only to make it suffer from a horrible genetic disorder? Life can be so unfair and it has no bias in who it chooses to pick on. I’m glad that my kids realize that and are motivated enough to participate in fund raisers throughout the year. We try to live our lives by the golden rule over here because that’s what makes life awesome.

So far she’s almost back to normal with the medication she’s on. She had a few stoned days where she was not herself. That iPhone snap above was from the day after the vet visit, and she was just glassy eyed and lethargic. She can stand to loose a couple of pounds too, so she’ll be joining us with our healthy resolution to stick to a good diet this year 😉

Help-Portrait MUSC Kids 2011

Every once in a while you take a photo that reminds you of why you love photography. Help-Portrait is an event where every time you press the shutter you make that picture.

On Friday, our small group of volunteers headed back to the atrium at the MUSC Children’s hospital in downtown Charleston, SC to give portraits to families of children who are being cared for there.

This year, the organizers of Help-Portrait have reversed their stance on sharing the photos of the subjects and have in fact encouraged us to do so. I’d like to share the photos I took of our 13 subjects during the event.

It’s amazing to be able to give the families of these kids something in a situation where so much has been taken from them. There is something about a kid smiling with you despite the struggle they’re fighting that makes you value the life we have.

Amy was in charge of gathering hats for our wardrobe since hair & make-up really wouldn’t work in this situation. For all the hats that we brought, the girls mostly liked the feather boa!

As I’ve mentioned before, the inspiration for us to bring Help-Portrait to MUSC Children’s Hospital came from leukemia survivor Jesse Dasinger. Last year, he was unable to participate due to his health. This year, he’s doing amazingly well and was able to drop in with his family to get his picture made:

I did have on technical problem that arose from a bad cable, and I had to retake Christopher’s photo here because the first attempt failed. He was a trooper, and was able to re-create the magic:

One of the brightest moments for me was when this girl, Amouri, came to get her photo made. She was also the last subject I shot. I grilled her a bit at first and found out she was a cheerleader. I knew she would be a great subject. She said something that made me feel tremendously enlightened about what goes on at MUSC. I asked her how she was feeling, and she said “I feel amazing”.

Another change introduced in this year’s Help-Portrait was the involvement of the participants. We came up with the idea to bring plain wooden picture frames to let the kids decorate them with – they loved it! John Lindroth took this shot of Megan:

Here’s the team photo shot by one of the staffers at the hospital:

Help-Portrait Charleston SC MUSC Kids Team

Drew, John, & Eugene also have some photos of the event that I’ll share soon. All of the photos will be available here. I also participated in the Charleston Help-Portrait group at the James Island Convoy of Hope event yesterday. I’ll be sure to write up another recap of that event soon! Stay tuned…

Coastal Carolina Fair 2011

Much like last year, the year before that, and for 50 something years before that, the Coastal Carolina Fair has come to Exchange Park in Ladson, SC. Actually, they’re celebrating the 55th year of the fair in the Charleston area this year – that’s over a half-century of fried Kool-Aid (or Oreos, Twinkies, sticks of butter). This year I went with the family, but I still managed to get a bunch of shots of the fun. I also wrote up a similar post last year, so feel free to check that out.

This photo of the taxi cab tourist in NYC won an honorable mention in the Division 1 photography contest! Just thought I’d share that with you in case you aren’t able to check out the art exhibits. If you do go there, please notice (and laugh at) my giant self-portrait that is keeping a half-bearded eye on the exhibit hall. Thanks.

We arrived just before sunset, and I have to say that I was disappointed by the sky this evening. The clouds were perfect for a spectacular southern light show, but just after I took this shot, they vanished and we got one of those shapeless sunsets. Oh well, there’s always next year 😉

I did try to compensate for the lack of definition with a graduated pink Cokin filter that I held in front of my lens. I also tried to get creative with this shot:

Something about this guy in front of the balloons caught my attention. I wonder how many times Old Man Jenkins here had his plans foiled at the old amusement park by some meddling kids before he took a road gig?

The big star of the show for me is always the big Ferris Wheel. I just love the patterns of light and the plethora of angles to capture them. This year I decided to go head on.

Kegan found out that he does not like heights on the skylift.

Here he is, holding on like a trooper:

The kids made good use of their “all you can ride” hand stamps.

I’m pretty sure I’ve taken this same shot of these same ducks every year I go to the fair. As fun as the fair is, it really is very consistent. And by consistent I mean it’s the same dang thing every dang year!

In the petting zoo, I thought I would get all artsy with this close-up of a cow’s head:

But then she did this, and I couldn’t resist:

The fair wouldn’t be the fair without some of that newfangled country music I didn’t grow up listening to. From where I stand, the new country folks basically took all of their cues from 80’s hair metal but got rid of the distortion pedals and added a fiddle. But, there was a huge crowd of people there to see Colt Ford, and I snuck up to the stage to grab a couple of shots and see what all the commotion was about. By the way, the security are always really cool at the fair if you ask to take some shots first!

Good old Colt must be a big deal around here, because even the people not watching the concert were singing along as they walked around the food court in earshot of the show. We started to head to the car when I got taken by surprise by the fireworks show. I really shouldn’t have been surprised, because they do it every night at the fair. It was a pretty good excuse to pull the camera back out.

And with that we hurried to the car so we could wait in traffic. Another successful family trip to the fair. I can’t wait until next year!

Lola Fishing

Let’s talk about this photo for a minute. This represents the number one reason I love photography. Technically, the photo is an utter mess. The main subject is in the middle of the frame and out of balance, the color of the light is totally mismatched (and speaking of the light, there is a lamp growing out of the back of his head), there is a lot of distracting clutter (thanks to my kids sleeping on the couches because their mother is out of town for the weekend – which translates into instant domestic anarchy), and the composition is rushed so that the context of the bowl of pasta becomes just a bowl and it’s hard to tell exactly what it is my son is feeding Lola, our Pomeranian pooch. On paper, this photo is crap.

I love it.

Why? Because it’s real. I could set the same scene up and get everything right, and I bet I could make it look spontaneous as well. But, this is a real moment that was happening. I had my camera out and I was busy doing some stuff on my computer when I turned around and caught my son sneaking the dog some of his dinner. I crept up and put the camera down on the table and let the shutter rip. This was the result. I know what it is, I will remember it, and one day if my son has his own kids and they do what every kid seems to do if they have a dog, he will have a photographic moment from his childhood to make him smile about it. That’s the reason I was initially drawn to photography – To capture life’s moments so that we can look back or share them and connect with each other.

A photo doesn’t have to be perfect to have meaning. Capturing the moment is always more important than the technicality of the shot, although capturing the moment perfectly is always what we strive for. Careers have been made by the perfect blend of skill and being in the right place at the right time. A perfect shot of a lost moment is meaningless nonetheless.

It’s also another reason of why I love my iPhone. Today, my son Kegan had to tail me as I did some work with a client of mine, which happens to be a veterinary emergency hospital. He had a blast playing with the dogs there, and I was able to grab this shot with my phone as he let a Chihuahua play “King of the Mountain” on him:

Practice

I ordered a new backdrop last week for an upcoming event and I needed to set it up, iron/steam it, and test it out with my lights. I grabbed my kids as my test subjects and started to fire away. On my camera’s LCD, the shots looked great, but once I imported them to my laptop, I noticed that they were all underexposed. Sounds like a case of check the histogram! Digital cameras make a lot of things easy, but this is an example of the easiness working against you.

As you can see from the shots above, I was able to brighten these photos up in Lightroom. Sure, that’s a solution to a problem, but it’s a bad solution. The shoot I’m doing this for will be of a lot of different subjects in a short period of time. This means I need to get it right the moment I click the shutter. I will not have time to fix these shots, so I need them to be correctly exposed. I moved my lights to fill in more shadows, I added a reflector to the setup as well. I also increased my aperture by 1/3 of a stop to let in more of the flash. Most importantly, I turned on the histogram on my camera’s display so that I knew that the shots weren’t under-exposed. I’m also going to tether my camera to my laptop and not even bother to judge my camera’s screen.

This is the reason I like to test everything out on my own time. Sometimes very basic things will plague you, and I would rather make those mistakes during practice than while real paying customers are in front of me. I should make use of a light meter and test the backdrop and subject to find the right exposure, but I’m not shooting with studio strobes, I’m using speedlights. I am manually setting them even though I could use Nikon’s iTTL system, because I really want to have full control over the exposure. If anyone has a good light meter they want to give me, I’d be glad to make use of it 😉

I think we all have had plenty of occasions where we took a bunch of photos that looked great on the camera’s LCD screen, but once we looked at them on a computer screen the problems became very obvious. What’s your horror story of a blown shot?

Keep Shooting

I made the shot above after pouring a bowl of Cap’n Crunch for my son the other day. I liked the natural light coming through the windows and the vibrance of the colors of the cereal and bowl. After I shot it, I was working on my computer and I looked over as he was eating and saw a whole different shot of the same scene. I remembered being a kid and reading the entire cereal box while I would eat my sugary breakfast. Kegan was doing just that and when I picked up my camera again to capture this:

Same scene, but two completely different shots. I couldn’t say which one is better or more effective, but instead of one shot, I now have two that I love! I also recently parked near a church in downtown Charleston and decided to break out my camera. I started with the straight “real estate” shot:

First Scots Presbyterian Church - Charleston, SC

I walked around the church looking for interesting shots, and the view of one of the doors through the iron gates just screamed Charleston to me. Iron gates are one of the signature elements in the Holy City, as are the many churches.

I then recomposed for a vertical shot which turned out to be a very different photo:

As you shoot, it’s so important to move around and look for different approaches to the subject you are shooting. Joseph Stalin once said, “Quantity has a quality all of its own”, and as nutty as he was it makes a lot of sense. The more you do something the better you will get at it, and the more you produce, the better your chance of capturing the perfect moment or composing the perfect scene. In short, keep shooting.

Perseverance

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race”

-Calvin Coolidge

I’m proud of my son. There he is up there in the middle of all those kids with his running face on, ready to win. This morning we woke up and he didn’t want to participate in the 2011 Windsor Hill Hawk Trot. He didn’t want to get up early on a Saturday only to run and get sweaty, but him and his sister are part of their school’s running club and they had agreed to run in this race beforehand. I told him that you can’t break a commitment like this just because your not “feeling it”. He reluctantly got on his running shoes and headed over to the race. Soon after we arrived, he started to get excited about the event.

I patiently awaited with my camera up to my eye at the starting line for the race to begin. I snapped a few shots and seconds after this shot above, there was a pile up. The kids in the back trampled over some of the kids in the front, and poor little Kegan was on the ground with a bloody skinned knee. I quickly ran over and scooped him up and brought him to the first aid table. When a young kid starts to see their own blood, it’s never a pleasant experience. I got him bandaged up and his sister, who had just finished her age group’s race, was kind enough to offer up her medal that she received for completing her race. He wasn’t happy about it though – he wanted to earn his own medal.

I told him that even though he wouldn’t win, he could still finish the race. I told him I would do it with him for support and he limped on over to the starting line.

By the time we got to the finish line, Kegan was able to sprint over it (because they were about to take down the clock). His official time was 26:10, which is including the time he spent at first aid. I think he did fantastic. He turned his attitude around from not wanting to even run the race, to getting back up after being knocked down and finishing the job. During the award ceremony, he was presented with his own medal, and he was proud to wear it.

Palmetto Islands County Park

On Sunday we took a trip with some friends to the Palmetto Islands County Park in Mount Pleasant, SC to let the kids burn off some energy and enjoy perfect spring weather.

The kids had fun on the Big Toy Playground, and eventually we moved the fun over to the observation tower, which has another play area built off of it. This is great because the kids can climb and slide while the parent relax up top to enjoy the view.

While up at the top, my wife spotted this little bluebird on the branches of a tree right next to the tower. When I zoomed in on the bird, I noticed that it had caught lunch in its beak!

The park is called Palmetto Islands because it is a series of little islands in the marshland connected by boardwalks. We decided to take a hike and explore a little.

We made it to the last island which was home to some fishing docks. I had this great shot of the kids all lined up looking into the water off the edge of the dock and before I could squeeze the shutter, they decided to get up and go to the other side. Darn you meddling kids! Luckily, our buddy Krista had the mom-like reflexes to tell the kids that there was an awesome turtle on the other side and they all came back wide-eyed as can be looking for a reptilian swimmer. Hence, I was able to get this shot:

As we hiked along, I took advantage of the plethora of palm fronds and tried to manipulate my position and the palms themselves to catch the sunlight in interesting ways. The photo up at the top of this post was magnificently back-lit, while this photo was taken half in shadow:

Cooper River Bridge Kids Run

There was no river and no bridge, but there sure were a lot of running kids! A day before the infamous Charleston Cooper River Bridge Run, the kids get their shot at racing glory over at Hampton Park in Charleston, SC.

The day wasn’t only about the big races – there were games, pony rides, snacks, and weird people dressed up as fruit!

But of course, the real attraction was hundreds of running children…

Every kid got a medal, and as far as I know, every kid finished their respective race. They did a great job, and you can see the looks of determination in their faces (even if they were painted).

Check out the full set of 38 photos on my Flickr stream.

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