98 - Big Wheel

This truck (I think it's a Unimog, but I'm not sure) was sitting outside a barbeque restaurant in Brenham, Texas. I went over to get a picture of The Punisher logo on the driver's door, but then I noticed that the tire was as big as C and decided to get that photo as well. We stopped at the restaurant to eat while driving through the area looking at bluebonnets and other wildflowers, which are currently in season.

This photo is a pretty good example of shooting on an overcast day. This was taken when the sun would have right over head, which would cause very harsh shadows on a clear day. But on an overcast day, the clouds acts as a giant softbox so C's face has a nice even lighting and even the shadows under the truck are soft. Very nice light for portraits, as long as you don't let the sky itself dominate the shot.

91 - Workin' It

My favorite models glamming it up for the camera.

I've had this shot in mind for while. One easy formula to take pretty portraits: Find a pretty landscape, then put people in it. We have several nice little parks in our neighborhood that are great photo settings if the lighting is right. As we were heading home from dinner, it was still over an hour away from sunset but  I noticed that the clouds seemed well-formed for a nice one. So when we got home, I asked the boys to keep their shoes on (they didn't, of course), I slapped together a simple one-light rig that my wife could hand-hold, and I waited until about 10 minutes before I thought the sunset would be at its prime.  Then we went to a nearby park. You have to work fast in a sunset because you have maybe 10 or 15 minutes when the light will be at it's best.

You can really craft the final look of an image when working with mixed ambient and flash lighting. That's because you have independent control over how much the background (ambient sunset light) and foreground (flash) is lit. A camera flash is a very short, but intense burst of light. It's so short that it will fully drench the subject in its light regardless of the shutter speed, up to the "sync speed" of the camera which is typically 1/200 or 1/250 of second on a modern camera.  The shutter speed will therefore control how much ambient light is in the photo, but won't affect the flash at all. Conversely, the flash will have controls to adjust its intensity and therefore the amount of flash light hitting the foreground subjects. Meanwhile the aperture and the ISO speed will affect how much of both kinds of light are in the image.  Between all of these controls you can dial in a custom mix of background and foreground lighting. I went with a somewhat underexposed sunset because that causes the sunset colors to be more rich and saturated.

Now, this works fine with an on-camera or pop-up flash, but it doesn't look nearly as good as it can. Having the flash so close to the lens basically gives you light that is shadowless from the lens' point of view (objects block their own shadows from the lens' view). That is not very flattering light. You get that camera-at-a-party snapshot look, plus it practically guarantees red-eye on anyone looking at the camera. The first way to improve the look is to take the flash off the camera and simply aim it at the subject from somewhere else (which means that you have to have a way to trigger the flash remotely). Moving the flash away from the camera will cast shadows, providing depth and contour to people's faces and other objects. It makes a world of difference. Second thing is to put the light through some kind of diffuser to soften the shadows so there's a smoother gradient between those highlights and shadows you've introduced. In my case, the flash is to the left of the camera. I ran it through a softbox so if you look at, say, the light on the left boy, you'll see a smooth gradient between highlight and shadow on his left cheek and arm, instead of a hard shadow line.  It gives a softer look that is more flattering, especially to people, unless you're deliberately going for a harsh look (like, say, for a sports photo).

84 - THBBFT!!

We spent Saturday night on the USS Lexington, an Essex Class aircraft carrier built during WWII and in commission all the way until the early '90s. It was Cub Scout event and a highlight of scouting here in Houston as far as I'm concerned. The best word I can come up with to describe the Lexington is magnificent. It truly is. The overnight event is a special way to see it because at 5PM they send all the other tourists home and you get the ship to yourself for several hours. For a history buff like me, that's heaven. They also let you into areas of the ship that are generally off-limits, and of course you get to sleep and eat on the ship. You sleep in one of the enlisted bunks, which are essentially cot-size bookshelves, stacked three units high. Not exactly Ritz-Carlton, but more comfortable than camping and hellaciously cool.

The photo above was taken on the trip to Corpus Christi where the Lexington is anchored as a floating museum. It was kind of a dreary day, but the light fog made for nice atmosphere and the wild flowers give a nice splash of color in the background.

82 - Renaissance Man

My older son's class had a "living museum" today where students dressed up as, and educated other students about, influential people from history.  D played Michelangelo and my wife put together a costume for him.  I'm biased but he's gotta be one of the cuter polymaths I've seen, and he makes the beard just work.

78 - Cherubs

Sometimes angels can be stinkers.  ;-)

I had intended to do a portrait of one of the boys using a "soft clamshell" lighting - an overhead softbox and a reflector underneath to lighten the shadows. The original idea was to place him in the middle of a room and nuke the ambient light by using a faster shutter speed so the background would be black. But while I was setting up, I saw the print of Raphael's  La Madonna di San Sisto (actually, it's a portion of that famous painting) that we have in our bedroom and the idea struck me. I got a kitchen chair for D to stand on to get him to the right height. The juxtaposition of his mischievous grin with the angel's innocent expression was planned, but the placement of the angel wings was just a fortunate accident.

73 - Half-Pint Lotus Position

56 - Winner's Circle

He was very excited.  "This is my first award, on paper!"

53 - Where The Heck Did I Put It?

It's true -  he does in fact lose his head when it's not screwed on.

51 - Assessing the Damage

My younger one knocked out two of his (baby) teeth this weekend roughhousing with his brother.  I don't think I could pull off the missing teeth look, but he manages it just fine.

46 - Stacked

I'm very proud of the boys this week.  They both brought home really great grades in their mid-term progress reports.  My oldest one, always angling, asked if he could therefore get an advance on the money we give them for A's.  Hah!  It was an opportunity for a discussion about achievement, rewards, and meritocracies, although I didn't use that word.

26 - Sun and Moon

My kids are going through a stage where they're just less malleable as photo subjects.  They won't stay in a pose for more than a fraction of a second.  They won't look at the camera.  They've learned the Camera Smile - the one where you pull up the corners of your lips but the rest of your face is on another planet.  Or in the case of my younger one, he wants to smile without showing his teeth.

You know where I'm going with this, right?

I took 20 photos trying to wrangle and cajol them into doing what I wanted, but the best of the bunch is one where I gave up and just took shots of them doing their own thing.  The problem isn't them.

For a control freak like me, the hardest part about child photography is going with the flow.