Charlie

I had the pleasure of spending this afternoon with Mr. Charlie Hartman. Charlie is my friend Sarah's son. I was itching to try out a new lens, so in typical me overkill style, I shot about 200 pictures of Charlie over the course of a few hours.

I still don't know how my lens works though.

These first few pictures of Charlie are rare ones, because he's almost always smiling. He's a dream baby, always happy as a clam.

Valerie was his nanny for the first year of his life, she came over for some Charlie love.

Charlie's into saying hi to everyone, cheerios, and kissing things.

This, this is typical Charlie. He cracks up at everything. He'll just look at you and laugh. Or maybe it's just my face.

Next up - the twins at two months!

Fashion Week Day 1

It's never too late to jump on a bandwagon, right? Marianne and Summer started fashion week yesterday, but I didn't read about it until today. I love street style fashion blog stuff! Even better if it's people I know! I have to play along! Luckily today my sister was around to help take the photo, tomorrow I'll have to figure out the timer on my camera.

Tuesday

Shirt: Charlotte Russe clearance rack

Pants: Anthropologie clearance rack

Shoes: Garage sale

Scarf: Target

Accessory: Charlie (on loan for the afternoon)

At Last

Goodbye Fuji FinePix.

Hello, new love.

Here we go!

Zeb Was Right: Salsa Edition

I love it when Zeb turns out to be right in the end. After I fight him tooth and nail over some trifle, to be finally proved wrong has just a touch of bitterness, for sure, but mostly just strengthens my admiration for the superior being I married. Such was the case with salsa.

When I'm gone for an evening Zeb tends to eat chips and salsa for dinner and I used to feel guilty about it and pester him to eat something 'real.' I'd always thought of it as boy/junk food. 'Boy' because I've known quite a few who think salsa is its own food group, and 'junk' I suppose because of the slimy version that comes with Mexican fast food. Z kept insisting that salsa was good for you and I kept scoffing when he said it. Then one day he broke it down for me - fresh tomatoes, fresh garlic, fresh onions, fresh herbs, maybe some black beans - and a light went on! I believe in all those things. Salsa is good for you!

The remaining issue for me was taste - slimy fast food salsa had left a bad one. But one day the CSA was brimming with tomatoes and peppers and Zeb found a recipe that changed my mind about salsa forever.

Salsa
(Feeds a boy and his wife for several hours)

3 large tomatoes, seeded and chopped

1/2 - 1 tsp salt

1 medium mild or sweet onion, chopped

2 fresh jalapeno peppers, chopped

Juice from 1 lime

3 T fresh cilantro, chopped

Mix.

This salsa knocked my socks off. Not too spicy, amazingly flavorful, highly addictive.

I know, I know, I'm probably the last person in the world to discover the joy that is a good simple salsa. Zeb was so right on this one. And he didn't even rub it in, he just welcomed me to the salsa club and asked if I'd prefer plain or Hint of Lime Tostitos. Now, if he knows what's good for him he'll rest content in this victory and lay off the campaign for the frozen mini tacos.

Sail Picnic

Axon pointed out that my blog's pretty quiet right now. I'm choosing to not feel guilty about that, but it's hard.
That whole staying on top of things? That went away. But things will slow down again soon, I know it. It's all fun and good stuff, I just have to prioritize. Last weekend sailing was a priority.

It's crazy how, doing Euclid again, I see triangles and angles in everything. I'm pretty sure there's a proof for the Pythagorean theorem somewhere in these sails.

So...I'm really good at choosing recipes, and Zeb's really good at cooking the recipes I choose, I'll share some of those soon. But this is it for the moment.

Rob + Therese

A few weeks ago a co-worker asked if I'd be interested in snapping some candid shots at her sister-in-law's wedding. They couldn't afford a professional, and I'm not good enough to charge anything so we were a good match! I wanted to use the event, though, to really learn and practice so I recruited a hunky assistant named Zeb, borrowed two cameras, and ordered extra memory cards and we made a day of it!

They ended up contributing to my 'camera fund' after all, so it was kind of like my first professional gig.

We had an absolute blast. I can imagine that the fun of it, for the photographer, could all hinge on the bride and her mood. This bride was so pretty and chill, she just wanted to get married and have a good time. So we just photographed a pretty girl and her friends having a good time and it was great! The groom even insisted that my assistant have a beer while on the job. That's grounds for firing in my book but if I fired him who would make me coffee in the morning? So I let it pass. And I had a sip of his beer.

I made some mistakes. But learned from them and tried to work with them. I was scared of low light and indoor situations so I shot most of the photos on too high an ISO. When they came out a tad more grainy than I would have liked I decided to go with it and edit up the vintage, sunshiney look, my favorite look anyway.

I hope that's the look she likes.

She looks so happy! She was so happy!

These photos were all taken about ten seconds before the sun went down and we didn't have flashes, so I'm kind of amazed, and grateful for how well they turned out. It could have been a disaster.

Then we moved indoors and they just kept dimming and dimming the yellow florescent lights. It got hard to get any shots at all. Real photogs - how do you do it? Black and white does help salvage bad lighting.

I love it when they make the groom do a little dance before he gets the garter. It's so funny. She thought so too.

My co-worker caught the bouquet. Her boyfriend, the bride's brother, caught the garter. They put on quite a flirtatious little show before he finally put the garter back on her.

And finally they dimmed the lights so totally low that all I could get was a shadowy blur, but that's about how it was in real life anyway.

It's taken me almost two weeks working at it every day to edit all the photos. I have a newfound understanding of why wedding photographers charge what they do. And I'll do it all over again the next chance I get.

A Post Saying Not Much

I'm still here, alive and kicking, not swamped yet, loving my schoolwork, adjusting to new roles around the house and in the marriage, and trying out yet another camera here (Nikon D40). Life is more full, for sure, but I still feel just a step ahead of it. We'll see how long that lasts. This weekend I shoot a wedding, and get paid for it! Breaking out sweaters, a dinner party tonight, and editing a million photos along with a long Lucretius reading and an herbal medicine test - it's a good thing Monday is a holiday. Happy Labor Day to everyone!