I realized just the other day that every single one of my pictures last week featured flowers somehow. This week, I very nearly did it again. Hungry for colour much? The colour of the week seems to be pink, inspired largely by the lilacs and apple blossoms that my camera (and my nose!) simply can’t resist.

And of course, these two lovely girls who came for porch portraits last weekend are also pretty in pink.

I bought myself a Mother’s Day present with some of my Getty earnings and it finally arrived this week even though I’d bought it on eBay weeks before. (Argh, now I know why I don’t buy stuff from eBay more often. What a convoluted, annoying process!) I have a few favourite prime lenses, notably a 50mm f1.4 that I use almost all the time. As I found myself occasionally tripping over branches or running out of space in a room trying to “zoom with my feet”, I began to covet a decent zoom lens to upgrade the 18-55mm kit lens that came with my Nikon D40 back in the day.

Everyone seems to love and recommend the 24-70 mm f2.8 lens, but the price tag near $2K put it way out of my reach. Way. After quite a bit of searching and researching, I found a used 35-70 mm f2.8 for sale on eBay. Nikon stopped making these back in 2007 or 2008, but all the reviews I read said it was nearly equivalent to the 24-70 mm at about 1/5 the price (and it weighs less, too.) I was very leery of buying camera gear via eBay, but I lucked out. The lens arrived in perfect condition, and I love it. It’s a beast compared to my tiny little nifty fifty, but it’s a sweet lens and it has something I’ve never had before – a macro feature. So now I can get up close and personal with my lilacs!

I liked that one so much, I went back for more later in the week, and stacked on a texture, too.

(You wish Flickr had smell-o-vision for these ones. Heavenly!)

Speaking of Mother’s Day, this is how our Mother’s Day adventure in Almonte looked. (There is a blog post to be written with much more detail. Consider this a teaser.)

This is me in the grass. I spent a while thinking about how to do this one, but I’m still not sure about the self-portraits.

The caption on Flickr says it all for this one. I called it “happy”. Because I am. (And that’s a good place to be.)

Tristan is taking a few extra guitar lessons to make up for ones that had been cancelled earlier, so last night I walked him over to the music school after dinner. On the way home, I put the new lens through its paces, and came up with this – “an evening walk in Manotick.” It’s a kind of a companion piece to the collage I made almost exactly a year ago.

Here’s to wishing you a picture-perfect long weekend to launch the summer season!

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It’s been one of those weeks when I look at the pictures from earlier in week and think, “No way, that wasn’t this week. Surely that has to have been longer ago than just a few days!”

It’s been so crazy that I have two full blog posts to write about photographic fun, one about a great porch session with a fun family of five-year-old triplets and one about a fantastic walk I want to tell you about – but I haven’t had a chance to write either one yet. And then there was stuff that I didn’t take any pictures of (gasp, scandalous!), like the fabulous Kym Shumsky’s Les Nôtres vernissage, the stuff we did and I will probably never get around to blogging, like the seasonal opening of Watson’s Mill, and the pictures I can’t show you, like an amazing Grade 4 class trip to the National Gallery, the Ottawa School of Art and Sugar Mountain. Phew, what a week!

Here’s a teaser of the pending blog post about a capital walk that you simply must take. I promise I’ll pony up the details next week. This is, in my humble opinion, the best view of the Parliament Buildings, especially in tulip season. I’m standing on the Quebec side, near the Museum of Civilization.

Okay, here’s another teaser, also from the Quebec side a little further down. (These are both iPhone photos.)

When you’re out enjoying the sunshine on a perfect spring day, you might just run into other families out for a walk on the riverbank as well. I am particularly partial to families of five.

Closer to home, the crab apple tree in our front yard has been putting on a spectacular show of its own this week. For some reason, it did not flower like this last year — maybe it was the rainy, wet spring we had? — but this year it has been insane with blossoms. While I was taking this photo, I could hear a low-level buzz like a beehive. I looked around and realized that it wasn’t a hive, but an entire hive worth of bees buzzing from blossom to blossom; there must have been 50 or even 100 honey bees flitting about the tree. It was really something!

I was playing with the Lensbaby and the blossoms, and stopped to sit on the porch while I checked a few of the shots. And that’s how I ended up with this shot of my feet up on the porch rail with a riot of apple blossoms behind them. Wild, eh?

But then when I added the star aperture to my Lensbaby it made this crazy shot. I’m still not entirely sure I like it, but it is definitely, um, unique. This is all done without digital manipulation; the star aperture on the Lensbaby turns the light and dark area into the star shapes.

Of course, the Lensbaby effects can be more, um, subtle, and less like, ahem, animé foot p0rn. I bought these antique medicine bottles at the Bytown Bottle Collector Club (no really!) annual show and sale a few days ago, and got the vintage crate there as well.

As you might guess, with three boys, a dog and a cat, setting up a still life is not always easy. I called this one, “This is why we can’t have nice still lifes.” (I struggled with the plural on that one. “Still lives” really does change the sense a little too much, doesn’t it?)

I really do have a flower thing going on this week, don’t I? Here’s more – Simon picking a dandelion bouquet for me. And no, that’s not our lawn — but it could be!

I had originally called this last one “naked” and I when I took it I was thinking that it conceptualized the end of things, about expended effort and seeds and renewal. I changed the title to the quote that follows for a couple of reasons. First, it perfectly encapsulates the idea that I was trying to express. Second, I love that it’s from Erma Bombeck, an author who has had a huge inspiration on me as a writer and even as a mother.

Third, it’s so true it ought to be a motto: “When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me.’” ~Erma Bombeck

Amen to that.

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Spring is a photographer’s dream. Everywhere there is colour, contrast, interesting shapes – and it is SO welcome after months of winter’s monochromatic greys and dirty whites.

Even the dandelions are beautiful!

I like this one of the orange tulips in my garden because I think the orange pops against the green and I like the painterly look of the bokeh (the out of focus parts in the background.) The repeating shapes of the tulip are evocative of an echo, don’t you think?

And then in rained. For days, which seemed like weeks. (And my grass grew about two inches this week!) I love the colour in these tulips I found in a bed downtown, with that weird streak of purple against the orange.

I’d gone looking for a foggy picture early one morning, but the fog wasn’t dense enough to make the dramatic picture I was looking for. It was, however, wet enough to make these amazing, jewel-like dew-drops on a spider web. I took this with my iPhone because I wanted to get as close as possible (my 50mm lens’s minimum focus distance is something like 30 cm or more) and because I like the black and white film look from the app I was using. But, I was trying to hunker down and balance on my toes while holding the camera steady, and a breeze kept making the web dance. All that to say, it’s not nearly as sharp as I wanted it to be — but I love the refraction in the drops. It’s 80% of where it could have been, but still not bad for something I almost walked right past!

This is not what I set out to do with the sea glass. It’s part (a pretty small part, actually) of our collection from Nova Scotia. I don’t know exactly what I was intending to do, but by the time I’d finished this I’d run out of time for playing with the camera, so this ended up as the photo of the day. I heart sea glass!

Sometimes, I just can’t resist the light. Don’t you wish your breakfast tasted this good?

And finally, a bit of a cheat. I was looking for something to submit to a photo challenge on Flickr, and it had to be something I took after April 2. I started playing with the photos from the red balloon session and ended up liking this out-take a lot more than I liked the photos I posted at the time. And then, in classic fashion, I again found I’d run out of my allotment of daily photo time, so this month-old (but admittedly adorable!) picture is yesterday’s photo of the day.

And speaking of re-runs, remember I mentioned a while back that a Flickr contact had seen the use of my infamous puddle jumping picture on a flyer in a grocery store in Scotland? Look what arrived in my mail box from over the puddle, erm, I mean ocean, this week!

How funny is it to know that this picture is in grocery stores all over the UK?

I’ve got two families coming out for porch portraits this week, so it should be a fantastically photogenic week. Hope yours is filled with beauty, too!

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I seem to be feeling inspired early in the day this week. The majority of this week’s pictures were taken within the first hour or so, some before I’ve even had my first coffee. Early bird gets the photo?

It seems like ages ago now, but it was only Monday that we woke up to heavy, wet snow in Ottawa. The tulips fared better than the daffs. They’ve got strong necks!

I’d actually forgotten I had taken another picture with my camera instead of my iPhone and was pleasantly surprised to find this one a couple of days later. Pleasantly surprised because it’s a much better picture, but also because the snow had completely disappeared by the time I found it.

I kinda thought I’d have another couple of years before I started taking pictures like this of my baby. Sigh. (I loved the window light in this one. Look at the catch-lights in his eyes!)

I was taking pictures of raindrops dripping off a branch with my Lensbaby when Simon walked by on the porch and I snapped this portrait of him. I’ll take smiling boy over drippy branches any day! (You see the faint stars in the background? That’s the star shape in the Lensbaby creative aperture that does that. So hokey, but I love it!)

This isn’t an official “photo of the day” but I’m still bragging about it so I thought I’d slip it in! That’s my pictures of the skaters down there, published in an advertorial in the current issue of Macleans.

It’s been a miserable week weather-wise, but the sunrises have been pretty amazing. I actually doubled back on my way over the way over the Rideau River to take this one. I kept those branches in the foreground intentionally thinking I’d give the shot some depth, but I find they clutter up the shot now that I see it. Oh well, the colours are still pretty, no?

I like this one much better, taken a few minutes down the road at the Long Island Lock a couple of days later. Can I just say that running into a really big flock of geese and sending them honking and panicking into the water is an awesomely fun way to start the day?

And hey, I saw yesterday that they’re officially filling up the Rideau Canal now. There’s no more sure sign of impending summer in Ottawa than that!

I snapped this one with my iPhone. I really like the composition, but didn’t expect it to be so noisy. Not guitar-noisy but photographic noise: that speckly grain, caused by excessively low light. Oh well. I’ll do it in a brighter room next time.

One of the many odd theme groups to which I belong on Flickr is Fenced Fridays. I am drawn to fences, and especially the miles and miles and miles of rural fencing I see out here. I’ve thought of doing a shot like this for a while, and finally got around to it.

The funny part is that last night while I was processing it, Lucas was bouncing around with his “guitar” (not the one I snapped above) and so I asked him to sing me a cow song to go with my picture. Beloved recorded this surefire hit on his iPhone:

You’re welcome!

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Funny, I’m just now realizing why I am so much more prolific with my photo taking in spring, summer and fall than I am in winter – many of my favourite pictures are taken outside. Just like eating outdoors makes any meal taste a little better, fresh air seems to add something to my photography mojo as well. I suppose that explains why I decided to set up a photo studio on my porch, eh?

This week’s pictures were almost entirely a love song to spring, and what says spring more than silly yellow daffodils bobbing in the breeze?

I love how they grow in banks like that. The ones above were in the park across from Manotick’s Mill, but this guy is growing in my own garden. I slid my iPhone underneath him pointing up to get the yellow to pop against the blue sky.

Speaking of gardens, Lucas and I had a most delightful afternoon examining each dandelion and pansy that have popped up in the grass in front of the house this week. The next day, I had a bit of a surprise when i reached my hand into my jacket pocket and pulled out the damp, wilted lot of them!

Despite the scowly forehead, I can assure you that Tristan was having a great time during our first backyard marshmallow roast last weekend!

This one I’m not sure about. I tinkered with it for quite a while and still couldn’t get it quite where I wanted, but it’s close – and I kinda had to make dinner for the kids, so that also dictated its degree of doneness.

I didn’t realize until just now that apparently hand-holding is also a bit of a theme this week. This one is Lucas and Beloved on a family walk.

And I saved the cutest for last. This is Lucas and the daughter of one of my oldest, dearest friends, who also happens to be a raw food chef and culinary teacher. We were walking from the coffee shop to the park one beautiful spring morning when Catalina spontaneously grabbed Lucas’s hand.

Does it get any cuter than preschoolers holding hands?

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It’s weekends like this that make me glad I’m not shooting on film anymore – I’d have filled up dozens of rolls of film with all the shots I took this week!

The week started off with my sweet parents-in-law paying a brief but sunny visit. Normally, the highlight of my Easter weekend photos is the colouring of eggs, but there were so many other things to photograph these pictures didn’t even make it to the blog! Anyway, here’s our Easter fun on Flickr if you’d like to see them. And here’s my favourite shot of that day:

I know, it’s a repeat from last week. And so is this one! But they’re cute enough to repeat, right? This cute duo came out for porch portraits with their adorable little brother last weekend. What a fun family!

I blogged these ones already, too!

Every week on my way to my French class, I walk past these flags near the National Arts Centre. I’ve tried to take a picture of them a few times, but I could never make the composition work for me. This week, I walked by on the Canal side for a change of pace, and the low perspective was just the trick!

(Can you match all 13 flags with their province/territory? And bonus question – why are they in this order? )

We found this beauty on a recent campfire outing with Simon’s Beaverscout troupe. Isn’t it gorgeous, in a vintage-abandoned sort of way?

And last but not least, Willie in high key.

Don’t tell him, but I’ve grown quite fond of the silly orange beast.

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I started picking up my camera again instead of just snapping pictures with my iPhone this week. The iPhone is great for stuff, colours and shapes and contrasts and whatnot, but only the Nikon does justice to people, and taking pictures of people is truly what I love about photography. (Photographing stuff comes in really handy, though, when the people in my life see the camera pointed at them for the 100th time in a week and tell me to stuff it!)

I love this little farm. It’s not too far from the house and I drive past it every day. I love how it’s up on the bluff like that, standing up against the sky and offering that iconic silhouette that I simply can’t resist. I liked how the big sky seemed to be looming on it when I was driving past as the gloaming crept out to swallow the last of the daylight one evening last week.

I love this picture. LOVE it! Tristan and I went for a walk one night after dinner, and one of the neighbours had left a small pile of junk at curb, so we happily rooted through it looking for treasure. I think I might have whooped with glee when I found this frame. Tristan was equally excited and volunteered to carry a few other less savoury, more garbagey pieces home, too, but we satisfied ourselves with the frame. He was giddy the rest of the walk home, keen to tell Beloved that “crazy garbage picking wife” was at it again — with his help. And then when we got home, he was not only happy to pose a few times to take the new frame for a test run, but even suggested this pose of him “bursting out of the frame.” I can’t believe my good fortune with this one, and can’t wait to use it during porch portraits this year! (If you’re reading on Sunday, you can even look up at the “picture of the day” box at the top of the right sidebar and see that I’m already making good use of it!)

I’ve lost count of the number of pictures I have of Lucas engaged in various crafty endeavours. His intense concentration — and the fact that he’s sitting more or less perfectly still for a change! — make this pose one of the “low hanging fruit” pictures in my repertoire.

Speaking of photographing Lucas while he’s engaged in favourite activities, puzzles is another easy one. There’s an Instagram/mobile meme called “From Where I Stand” that I like a lot. I’ve played along a few times, and this is my latest contribution. I’m not quite sure why this is so grainy – must be the filter I used when I boosted the saturation to make the reds and blues pop. Oh well.

This is actually almost a year old. I was looking for something in Lightroom and found this photo that I’d never posted before. Lucas is “building” his Thomas & Friends Tough Trike from FisherPrice. He still loved peddling around on that thing!

Hey, remember last year when I went through my “texturizing” phase? Yeah, me too! (Also? The daffies are blooming in my garden! Yay!)

Speaking of blooming, I was delighted to find and capture an image of this rare specimen of the rural Easter shrub as it bursts into its brief, annual period of eggy bloom.

I’m getting ahead of myself with this one, as it’s officially part of next week’s pictures, but I loved it so much I had to share it. My inlaws called on Wednesday and asked if we had plans for Easter, wondering if they could pay a quick visit. It was a beautiful day and we had a great (and photogenic) time colouring eggs and going for a giant walk and then out to dinner to my new favourite restaurant, Burgers on Main in Manotick. (Really, I need several posts to do this all justice!) But this photo just about perfectly sums up our brief, blissful visit: Beloved’s dad and Lucas.

Some things are too sweet not to be shared.

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This post is a little redundant, as you’ve already seen nearly half the pictures in my post about my trip to Toronto this week, but I’m a creature of habit, so pardon the repetition.

I’m continuing to enjoy the simplicity of using my iPhone for daily pictures. Funny how it seems to be the next step in the continuum from film through digital. Back in the film days, you had to bring the film into the lab and wait for the prints, a painstakingly long process by digital standards. With a digital SLR, the process was streamlined to transferring the images from the camera to the computer via the memory card, editing them in Lightroom, and then sharing them. With my phone, I can do the editing and posting to Flickr within the phone, making the computer the cumbersome process. (Especially with my aging, cantankerous laptop – oy!) I think I’m just getting lazier. Mobile pictures are the path of least resistance!

Like this one. Truly a throwaway photo, but I liked the raindrop pattern on the glass and it was the kind of day that didn’t leave a lot of room for seeking out a better alternative.

And this one. No doubt, I could have taken a better quality picture with my Nikon, but by the time I grabbed it, the moment would probably be gone. I like to think the grain and blur add character.

I like the serenity of the early morning that comes through in this picture of the morning light just starting to illuminate the National Gallery and MacKenzie Avenue.

This one was about the light and the shadows, and the refraction through the vase. It was *exactly* this kind of day: “It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.” (Charles Dickens)

And a few repeats, from the Toronto pictures. The skyline, a few seconds prior to landing at Center Island airport:

A rather spectacular night view from my hotel room:

And finally, this one. This is on approach to the Ottawa airport, somewhere south-ish and west-ish I think. A minute or two after this, we flew over the Rideau Carleton raceway. The picture is sort of uninteresting, but any time I can incorporate Rush lyrics into my photo of the day, I’m going to have to take that opportunity.

Subdivisions

Sprawling on the fringes of the city
In geometric order
An insulated border
In between the bright lights
And the far unlit unknown

Growing up it all seems so one-sided
Opinions all provided
The future pre-decided
Detached and subdivided
In the mass production zone

Nowhere is the dreamer or the misfit so alone
Subdivisions –
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out
Subdivisions –
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast out
Any escape might help to smooth
The unattractive truth
But the suburbs have no charms to soothe
The restless dreams of youth

Drawn like moths we drift into the city
The timeless old attraction
Cruising for the action
Lit up like a firefly
Just to feel the living night

Some will sell their dreams for small desires
Or lose the race to rats
Get caught in ticking traps
And start to dream of somewhere
To relax their restless flight

Somewhere out of a memory of lighted streets on quiet nights…

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There are weeks when I live for my camera and my computer, and weeks like this one where I keep taking pictures and putting up blog posts because of some sort of internal imperative. I think I learn things from each extreme. I’m sure this brief period of physical and creative lethargy will pass, and even so the pictures this week have merit enough to post, I think. After so long blogging and taking pictures, I’m not sure I know how to stop.

It certainly wasn’t the weather that was sapping my energy this week. It’s been summer interluding at the end of winter, and I’d be happy if it just stayed on through October.

Look, spring flowers in mid-March!

And beyond warm breezes and early flowers, the return of spring also means a migration out of the house and on to the porch. (I’ve also been reading the Hunger Games trilogy on Beloved’s Kindle, another thing that has been pulling me away from my camera and the keyboard.)

I spent a lot of time this week admiring the buds on the branches as they got fatter and fatter.

I would never have imagined wandering the Byward Market with bare legs and sandals before the first of April but I did just that more than one day this crazy week. The fishy design in the concrete caught my eye.

When I noticed Lucas surfing his hand on the breezes coming in through the open car window, I snapped this with my iPhone, but when I saw the final picture it reminded me of something more nostalgic – road trips and sunshine. I found this quote from Dave Barry to go with it: “And that’s the wonderful thing about family travel: it provides you with experiences that will remain locked forever in the scar tissue of your mind.”

And some pictures you take just because they’re too cute not to take.

I think this is the first week I’ve taken every single picture with my phone. My poor Nikon must be wondering where I’ve gone, but I’m really enjoying the different set of skills it takes to pull together a good iPhone picture. The iPhone seems to scratch an itch I used to satisfy with my TtV kit — but it’s a heck of a lot more convenient.

I promise a return to more regular blogging in the near future, too. I think the key to getting through a creative drought is equal parts inspiration and stubborn determination. Fake it ’til you make it, you know?

What do you do when your muse is on vacation?

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This was supposed to be a week filled with pictures of our family visiting for March Break, but we all ended up being so sick that I barely pulled out my camera at all while they were here. (Nothing like a stomach bug that downs four of five members of your family on the same night while you have a house full of people to make a vacation memorable!) And then a computer virus nearly took out my laptop. Clearly, it was the week of the plagues.

But I did get one terrific picture of all the kids together – one of my favourite ones ever, taken at the Aviation Museum.

Luckily, the plague from hell started about six hours AFTER the Tristan’s most excellent birthday party with visitors from Little Ray’s Reptile Zoo. (This was another terrific birthday party, and I wholeheartedly recommend this as an excellent birthday party theme!)

It was also a week that started with snow and ended with none. Spring is a melty season!

This was an idea that worked out better in theory than in practice. Oh well.

These were just yummy.

I took this one a few weeks ago, actually, and somehow missed posting it. I’m hoping these are the last of the snow pictures until November or so!

And speaking of spring melts, I was sitting in the house and I noticed the huge puddle underneath the swings in the back yard. I was thinking about how still the water was, and how it was probably offering a perfect mirror of reflection. And the next thing I knew, I suspended precariously with one foot on each swing, praying that the ropes were strong enough to hold me and concentrating very hard on pulling both of my feet into the frame while NOT dropping my iPhone into the puddle.

(The tiny rippling splash is a lucky catch, don’t you think?)

So we survived the week of the plagues, barely. I’m almost looking forward to going back to work next week!

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It’s been one of those incredibly long weeks, so that I look back at some of the pictures I took earlier in the week and think to myself, “No, surely that wasn’t this week. It seems like I took that picture a month ago!”

It was one of those crazy end-of-winter weeks when the temperatures soared from freezing to gorgeous and back. The furious winds we had last Saturday knocked out our power for 12 hours, which was just long enough to make an adventure for the kids but not long enough to cause any serious inconvenience. The boys liked having bedtime stories by the fireplace!

The quick melt turned what was a farmer’s field filled with snow into a roadside lake.

Finding a sunrise like this on a cold winter morning is one of the benefits of driving to work at “are-you-kidding-me?” o’clock every morning.

I didn’t actually take this one this week, I took it a couple of weeks ago and kinda forgot I had it. I had such a crazy day on Friday that I didn’t really have much time for a picture, and I thought I ought to post it before there’s no snow left on the ground at all. (I really like this one!)

I told you about our most excellent trip to the RCMP Stables earlier this week. The shots in this collage are a mix of iPhone and camera shots.

Can you handle another picture of the cat? I snapped this one with my iPhone and then played with some filters in Snapseed. (Pending one of these days: a few posts about iPhoneography, including filters and apps.) I love how this one turned out too!

I think this is my favourite picture of the week. It was Tristan’s 10th birthday on Wednesday, and I love the look of contemplation on his face. We all laughed at the long pause before he blew out his candles when he told us he was trying to come up with the best thing to wish for.

And now, off I go. I have out-of-town relatives on the way, a party in the house tomorrow, and one of the boys started barfing in the night. Oy. It’s going to be that kind of day…

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Nice weather this week, eh? Nice if you’re a skier, not so much if you’re pining for green grass and tulips. Sorry, you can totally blame me. I started BBQing last weekend, and I think the Universe wanted to remind me that it’s not quite spring yet.

The good news is, the weather has been giving me lots of time to practice photographing snow. If you can control the exposure on your camera, you’ll probably need to compensate for the bright whiteness of snow by overexposing your shots a little bit. Your camera tries to balance all the lights and darks in a shot to a nice middle grey tone, so it will darken a shot that is primarily bright white (like a snowy landscape) by underexposing, and brighten a dark scene to a muddy grey by overexposing. (And for some reason, my camera also underexposes wildly with the Lensbaby, so I had to torque the exposure slider on this one almost all the way to the right to get the exposure right on this one.)

I thought this snow-covered sign was pretty representative of the week!

And throughout the week, there was a lot of this going on.

It was my Mom’s birthday last weekend, and Lucas helped to decorate the envelope for one of her gifts.

I follow a handful of people on Flickr that take really amazing self-portraits. They’re beautiful, artistic, dramatic, insightful portraits and I admire them so much. I *hate* taking self-portraits. Much as I admire the selfies of others, I find my own foolish and indulgent and wonder why you would want to see me instead of any of the other minutiae I photograph every day. (You’d rather see pictures of a snowplow than me, right?) But they say you should challenge yourself in order to grow, so I’m trying to take more self-portraits. I’ll never be able to do an entire year of self-portraits, but here’s one. It’s an okay picture, but even posting it makes me squirm. I do like the caption I posted with it on Flickr, though: “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” ~ C.S. Lewis

Na na na na na na na na – BAT CAT!

I love this picture of the landlocked lighthouse at the Museum of Science and Technology. I love how the colours pop and how the wispy bits of cirrus clouds balance the lighthouse in the composition. It was so bitterly cold as I was taking this that my eyes were watering and my iPhone was hurting my fingers. Brrr!

Growing boys earn growing freedoms. I said they could walk to school by themselves, but I did not say that I wouldn’t stalk them on the route to make sure they were well on their way after I dropped Lucas off at daycare.

I’m pretty sure they noticed me.

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1. This week in pictures: Winter and other diversions
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I took a LOT of pictures this week. I had every intention of writing a separate blog post about at least two days’ worth of these photos, but it’s just been so busy that I didn’t have the chance to get to my keyboard. So be warned – this is going to be long!

On Family Day, I had a blast doing my first corporate photography event, taking pictures at Old Navy’s Funnovation Imaginarium. It was great working with Old Navy, the Yummy Mummy Club and all the families who came out to play. I was particularly honoured when THREE different families mentioned that they’d taken my Family Day fun suggestions from earlier in the week and had tried out all three events. It’s such an honour to hear things like that and it’s really why I love this blog so much!

Anyway, here’s some of the Family Day fun:

(It’s only now, four days later, that I’ve recovered fuctionality in my legs. Three solid hours of popping in and out of squats on the concrete floor to get kid-level shots turned my quadriceps into absolute jelly – I couldn’t walk properly all week. Of course, it was totally worth it. Another couple of events like this in a year and maybe I can give up my gym membership!)

I had mixed success with landscape-y type photographs this week. I drive past this spot on River Road often, and something about it always draws my eye. I stopped for a few quick pictures on Sunday and liked the criss-crossing power lines and the line of the fence and the horizon line and the lines of the sun flare all pointing in different directions – but the final image doesn’t thrill me. Meh, they can’t all be winners.

On the other hand, I love how this one turned out. I’m beginning to think it’s not possible to take an unlovely picture of my mill. (Yes, mine.)

And if that’s a perfect winter day for brilliant sunshine and colour, I love love love the simple minimalism of this one that I took during yesterday’s snow squalls. I can’t tell you how long I’ve been looking for an isolated tree like this one to take a shot just like this.

Technically, this isn’t a great shot (it’s a little soft, and eek, the clashing colours of their jammies and the sofa!) but it’s still one of my faves for the week. Thirty years from now, I may enjoy my collection of Mill shots, but these are the ones that will warm my heart. This is the boys analyzing the Citizen’s list of Top 100 Children’s Books from earlier in the week.

And this one, too. Not an amazing shot, but it makes me smile. Lucas is a scary shadow monster, if you couldn’t tell. A very gleeful shadow monster.

These last six belong together, and are proof that outdoor portraits in the winter can be just as lovely — if not moreso! — than in the summer.

True story: I was surfing my pins on Pinterest, looking for inspiration on something to shoot last Saturday afternoon, and I stopped to refill my coffee. I looked out and the boys were climbing to the top of the play structure and jumping off into the snow. I was about to bang on the glass and wave my fist and tell them to quit it when I saw how the late afternoon light was hitting them — and then I didn’t need Pinterest for inspiration any more!

While I usually have my 50mm lens on my camera, I broke out the kit lens so I could take some wide angle shots. Any focal length shorter than 30mm or so will give you enough distortion to make things far away seem further (like his head and the treetops in this shot) while making closer things look larger (like his boot and the base of the play structure.)

Same idea here:

I zoomed back out to 55mm for these ones, to get a little closer and make a more traditional portrait.

Moral of the story? The inspiration you’re seeking is right in front of you (or, in this case, behind you.) All you have to do is embrace it.

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Wow, I wish I’d realized a year or three ago how much easier it is to take a photograph each day when you’re relying on your iPhone instead of your camera! There’s something a little bit more playful about the pictures I’m finding with my iPhone, and the fact that I’m using a lot of the Hipstamatic app means that I’m not spending a lot of time cropping or editing photos — I’ve discovered extra HOURS in each day. Hours that I could have used to do housework, or play with my kids, or find the cure for cancer, or follow more people on Pinterest. And what have I done with all those extra hours? Played in Photoshop, of course! I finally got around to building a timeline cover for my Facebook profile. What do you think?

Here’s the week in pictures. This was the Rideau Canal earlier in the week — before it got soggy and was closed just in time for the last weekend of Winterlude. I like how the arches of the Laurier Avenue bridge and its shadow create a frame that draws your eye right to the skaters.

A colleague left these out on Valentine’s Day. I really should go over and say thanks for the cookies, and let her know that they’re now for sale on Getty Images!

This picture makes me laugh because I thought it was okay when I first took it, but I didn’t love it. It was too green, thanks to the Hipstamatic filter I’d chosen, but I liked it a lot more when I pulled it into Photoshop and warmed it up to a nicer hue. It was really just a throw-away picture, though, and if I’d had anything else for the day I would have never posted it. Not only did jump right into Flickr’s Explore, but it won me the second round of a little competition I like to play in on Flickr as well. Lesson learned: one person’s throw-away is another person’s art!

The melty season can be such an unlovely time of year, as the snow compacts and condenses but doesn’t quite disappear entirely. That’s the wet, icy feel I had in mind with this one. (I don’t know why I’m fixated on ditches with weeds in them, but I do seem to be.) I lined up the composition so the bullrushes moved on a diagonal, which is more dynamic than a straight line, and held my phone at a higher angle so the stalks were against the uncluttered snowy background to make them stand out more. And, to crop out the garbage in the half-melted snow.

The gas station at the corner has been out of use since we moved in, but these pumps are still standing, getting rustier and more vintage-looking by the day. I’ve looked at them dozens of times, thinking of photographing them, but the bleak day and the melting snow finally seemed like the right conditions to capture them.

I haven’t abandoned my Nikon entirely, though! In fact, I’ve spent WAY too much time last weekend reading my (gasp!) camera manual and a couple of books about using flash on and off camera. In fact, for Valentine’s Day Beloved got me the reflector kit and stand I was going to buy for myself, so instead I bought one of those Gary Fong diffusers. I have to say, I’m delighted with the reflector kit and completely underwhelmed by the diffuser — so much so that I’m thinking of taking it back.

The idea behind the diffusers is that direct flash light is harsh and unflattering, but by diffusing it and making the light come from a larger and more disperse area, you make the light softer and more flattering. You can achieve similar effects by bouncing the light off the ceiling or a wall, but I’d heard about the Gary Fong diffusers for years and thought I’d try one. The darn thing was hard to put together and difficult to put on, and when I used it I found the light was still as flat as it would have been with the pop-up flash on my camera.

See how Lucas’s face looks a little bit plastic? The straight-on light, even with the diffuser, takes out all the nuanced shadows that give his skin its texture. I converted it to black and white, which made it mildly better, but I’m still not thrilled with it. I do, however, like the big smile and the sparkle in his eyes.

This was the same. This is a cute picture and the expression on the cat’s face makes me chortle every time I look at it, but it looks like a snapshot to me, like something you’d take with a point and shoot.

So clearly, my spring project is more portrait strobe work. Kids, consider yourselves warned! Lucky for me, they’re willing subjects.

Speaking of willing subjects, this is kind of funny. Yesterday, I got my monthly sales statement from Getty Images, and that darn cat has made his fourth straight appearance! Each month I’ve been with Getty, I’ve sold a different picture of Willie. This time, it was this picture of Katie and Willie sort of cuddling. It sold to a company in Great Britain, and someone in Chile bought a picture of our decorated Christmas tree from 2010.

And here I thought the pictures of the cute kids would be the big sellers. Maybe instead of more kids, I need more pets?

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1. Wahoo, made my first sale on Getty Images!
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I‘ve still been taking more pictures with my iPhone than with my camera this week, partly for convenience but largely just because I am a sucker for the shiny new toy. I like the way I can go and revisit some favourite places and shots and get something a little different from them, like this shot of the Fairmont Chateau Laurier downtown. Doesn’t it look even more like a fairytale castle than usual in this hipstamatic take?

There’s a newish meme that’s been going around, called “from where I stand” or #fromwhereistand. I noticed it recently and thought it was a kind of a fun idea, so I contributed a couple this week. The idea is that you take a picture of your feet, wherever you are standing. Sophisticated, right? Hey, it’s not always rocket science. First, one with the Nikon that I called, “Is it spring yet?”

And this one. I like how the cat can telegraph his disdain so clearly no matter what angle I capture him from.

(I like this meme. Expect to see more of these in the future!)

There will be a full blog post about this one soon, but in the week of crazy I haven’t pulled it together yet. Consider this a teaser! Did you know Fisher-Price now makes DC Superfriends Little People? This one is Wonder Woman in her invisible jet. How awesome is this? Best! Little People! EVER!!

I’ve been thinking a lot about self-portraits lately. I follow a few women on Flickr who do an extraordinary job with them, but it’s something with which I’ve never been comfortable; I’d rather take a picture of a stranger than myself. I can’t quite silence the voice that wonders why anyone would want to see more pictures of an aging mother of three when I can show you pictures of the kids, the Mill, and the other shiny, pretty flotsam and jetsam I see. And yet I love the self-portrait work of others. I know that you should conquer that which makes you uncomfortable in order to grow, so I figure taking more compelling self-portraits is a good challenge for me in the next little while.

Given all that, I played with this set up for a while. Not exactly a self-portrait as it could be any woman, and I don’t really even like it that much, but I spent long enough putting it together and playing with the remote that I’ll include it here. I do like the quote I had in mind when I was putting it together, though: “The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” ~ Dorthea Lange

Speaking of cameras, did you hear the news yesterday that Eastman Kodak is getting out of the camera business? After 132 years, the company that made photography accessible to the masses will never make another camera. Here’s the various models of Kodak from my little vintage camera collection (and a visitor I didn’t expect, but who adds a little je ne sais quoi to the tableau.)

This is my favourite picture of the week.

Cuteness trumps all, yes?

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It’s a little bit ironic that now that I have a more comfortable versatile carrying strap for my Nikon, I’ve fallen in love with taking pictures with my easily-pocketable and much less bulky iPhone — no carrying strap required!

My parents got me the Black Rapid camera strap I’d requested for Christmas. It took me quite a bit of waffling to get used to the idea of carrying my camera suspended upside down by the tripod screw, and a few weeks to convince myself that it was safe dangling over my hip like that, but now that I have used it for a while, I love love love it! The accessory strap that comes with the D7000 was good, but the Black Rapid strap is longer, and makes for an easy cross-body carry without pinching the, um, girls, if you know what I mean. Not to mention the fact that when you’re a busty girl, most cross-body straps are a little less than flattering. I like to carry the camera resting just to the side of the small of my back, and the Black Rapid strap is fully adjustable. The only annoying bit is that when I’m walking at a good clip, I tend to somehow trigger the video feature on the camera, so I’ve come back from photo safari walks with photos interspersed with short bouncy video clips of my feet and people walking past on the sidewalk — all upside-down.

Ahem, all that to say, while they each have a place in my heart, I have been enjoying the convenience of mobile photography this week. While it’s not unheard of for me to take the DSLR with me to the grocery store, I didn’t have it with me last Saturday. I hadn’t realized when I left the house how sparkly and gorgeous the world would be when the sun shone on the ice coating all the branches from the storm the day before. I like this photo, but I love the quote I found to go with it: “Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand-and melting like a snowflake…” ~ Sir Francis Bacon

These were surreptitiously snapped in the Bulk Barn while I was shopping for candy Lego pieces for Simon’s birthday party. I put them together with a fun app called Diptic.

This week was Simon’s birthday, and we invited the Lego Guy back for another successful Lego party. He is really amazing — I think this party was even better than the one he did for Tristan’s birthday two years ago. Ian is a natural teacher and strikes a perfect balance between instruction and play. Simon happily declared this the “best birthday party ever” while I learned that you can host a party or photograph a party — but it’s a challenge to do both!

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a perfect week. Lucas has been very sick since Wednesday — in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him quite so sick. He’s had a fever that tops out around 102F and just won’t stay away, and a terrible juicy cough. I finally brought him in yesterday to see the pediatrician, and he’s got enough of a crackle in his chest that we ended up with antibiotics in case it’s pneumonia again (he had it not all that long ago.) It’s just not right seeing my energetic boy taken out like this.

And if you live in Ottawa, you know that this weekend is the official launch of Winterlude. I took a lunchtime walk on the Rideau Canal skateway (world’s largest, if not longest!) and got some fun shots with both the Nikon and the iPhone that Getty Images snapped up.

And last but not least, no piece of photographic gear is truly considered broken in until I can take it for a test drive with my favourite local attraction, Watson’s Mill in Manotick.

I’d say it passes the test, eh?

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Oops, has it really been a week since I’ve put up a new blog post? That has to be a new record for me. Sorry about that, I’ve been knocked on my keister by a cold and a migraine and kindergarten registrations and the preparations for birthday season, which begins here this weekend.

I did still manage to keep taking pictures, though! The absolute highlight of my week was spending some time with the kind and talented Ottawa photographer Christine Denis, assisting while she took portraits of these nine-day-old twin boys. *melt*

Isn’t it almost enough to make you want to have more babies? They were so calm and docile and delicious, and I learned so much about newborn posing and portraiture from Christine. Wow, is it ever a lot of work, but oh my goodness, how adorable is this?

I’ve got a few more I hope to share later in the week, but I think those were my two favourites from the session. From warm and fresh to old and cold — I was delighted to find what I think is a pretty unique view of the Peace Tower when I was out on a walk downtown. This is the ruins of the former carbide mill on Victoria Island, build in 1892 by Thomas “Carbide” Wilson. I noticed the windows and shifted my perspective back and forth a bit (“zoomed with my feet” as they say) until I had the Peace Tower lined up in one of the windows.

We visited friends who foster reptiles on the weekend, and they introduced us to Edgar, the Florida King Snake. Tristan, Lucas and I thought he was pretty cool, but Beloved feels about snakes pretty much the same way Indiana Jones does. (“Snakes? Why does it have to be snakes?”)

The rest of the week was all-iPhone, all the time. You know I love my vintage typewriter, and I finally got a Hipstamatic print of it that I like.

This was one of the days I was home sick. It was literally the easiest shot I could compose, short of lying on the couch and shooting a picture of the ceiling. Lucas draws at least half a dozen or so pictures each day, lately almost always of characters from Club Penguin (which he is not, ironically, allowed to play.)

I’ve had these silk daisies as a centrepiece on the table for nearly a year and taken quite a few pictures of them, but never any I liked enough to keep and none that capture what I like about the colours and the glass vase and the bits of sea glass in the bottom of it. The late-afternoon light was hitting it just right, though, and I’m really happy with how this one came out.

And finally, a shot from the snowy, blustery drive home yesterday. I don’t know why I am so fascinated with rural mailboxes, but I am. Maybe I was a country girl in a former life? I called this one “mailbox minimalism”. I don’t ordinarily like the dark frame film on Hipstamatic but I think it works well for this one.

I promise to be a little more diligent about getting you some fresh content for next week!

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My friend Heather thinks I owe you a retraction. Remember this post, where I congratulated myself for my level-headedness and maturity in managing to pull myself out of a frenzy of consumeristic covetousness and NOT impulse-buy a new iPhone 4S? She thinks I owe you a retraction because I went out and actually did buy the new iPhone four days later. I think I deserve a medal for waiting for four whole days. And pro haggler that I am, I managed to wrangle a deal on my data plan so that I’m actually paying less per month for wireless than I was for our ancient non-data-plan Krazr, so we’ll save the price of the new iPhone in about a year and a half. Yay!

And oh my sweet lord, what a treat is the new iPhone 4S! I have only barely begun to figure out the voice-activated Siri stuff, but the camera? Wow! Well here, don’t let me tell you — let me show you!

“Hey, look Willie! Mom got a new iPhone!”

I went out for a drive on Sunday to take some pictures and started playing with Hipstamatic, an app I’ve had on my iPhone for more than a year but never warmed to. I’m kinda digging it now! (Do you like the digital sticky tape holding the collage together? I added that in Photoshop.)

This was the view from my office window when the sun hit an icy tree on Sussex Drive, also via Hipstamatic.

And this one is straight-up out of the iPhone, no app required. (I have been coveting a wide-angle lens for my Nikon so I can do this kind of big-nose distortion, but the iPhone’s angle of view is just wide enough to satisfy my creative urge for now!)

And speaking of the Nikon, I didn’t abandon it entirely this week. I’m glad I had it with me on Monday when this spectacular sunrise lit up the sky over the Byward Market. No colour enhancement on this one, I just pointed my camera and clicked.

You might have seen this one in my post yesterday. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, but only recently had enough skill to be able to make it come out like I planned in my head. The text is actually added after the fact in Photoshop, which means I can put up just about any message I want. I’m thinking it might make a fun new blog header one of these days.

As I said on Flickr, stand by for the “I am so much more than just a mom with a camera” version. Speaking of which, I’ve made a few allusions recently to Internet drama. I thought you guys would get a kick out of this. I got tangled up in a war of words on a Flickr forum recently with Ottawa photographer Paul Couvrette, who called me a “mamarazzi” and criticized me for (among other things) undercharging for prints and making my pictures available online. While the criticism stung at the time, especially since it was more or less unprovoked and definitely overly vicious and personal, the apology he later posted was laugh-out-loud funny. I had no idea at the time, but apparently he had “personified [Dani] as an icon of the ill direction towards which I believe photography may well be headed.” Nice, eh? I’ve never been called an icon of anything, let alone the downfall of an entire industry. And I thought I was just taking pictures because it made me happy. So if I hike my prices next year, you can blame Paul Couvrette.

Mostly, though? I still just love taking pictures.

And hey, this made me feel a lot better. I got my Getty Images sales statement at the end of the week, and this picture from October apparently ran in the Wall Street Journal during December.

And this picture of Willie was bought by a company that makes greeting cards and calendars with titles like “Napping Cats of 2012.”

Hmmm, can you guess which one I’ll be adding to my “as seen in” portfolio? I mean, the WSJ is great, but the Napping Cats of 2012 calendar? Does it get more prestigious than that?!

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After a notable absence, winter has arrived with a vengeance in Ottawa recently. I can’t wait to get out and start taking pictures of the great snow dump we got yesterday — but I might wait until the temperatures warm up a bit beyond the current minus 30 with the wind chill. Brrrr!

But heck, winter lasts a long time here in the world’s snowiest capital city, so you kind of have to suck it up and get outside and enjoy it. Like this!

And then you have to stand by patiently and look cute while your mom takes your picture. Again.

Or maybe you ham it up a bit and hope she’ll go away and let you get back to playing in the snow.

And then you can go back to this.

Speaking of getting out in the winter, can you believe I’ve never walked the full loop from the Interprovincial Bridge to the Portage Bridge and back? It’s a gorgeous five kilometre loop and takes just a little bit less than an hour to walk, even if you stop every now and then to take a picture or five. I’ve vowed to try to do it once a week, weather be damned, until my jeans are feeling a little less snug.

(I’ve also discovered the Pano app for my iPhone. How have I missed this before now? This one was taken on the Portage Bridge, facing Parliament Hill.)

More Peace Tower shots. I can’t help myself!

From icy and blue to warm and soft — you might remember this shot from earlier in the week. Tristan spontaneously asked if he could read Lucas a bedtime story, and then proceeded to read to him for half an hour. This one is a keeper.

Heh. The boys pointed out that not only do my multicoloured toes match my jammies, but they both match my coffee cup.

Photo tip: to catch the cat staring directly into your lens, compose your photo and then scritch your fingernail against the side of your lens. Snap! (There’s nothing I can suggest to erase the vague look of disdain, though!)

(If you read an earlier version of this post, there was some misinformation from a hacked account in here. Carry on, folks, nothing to see here.)

I’ll let ee cummings have the last word on this one.

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I‘m still on the fence as to whether this is another 365 project, but I did take a picture (or five) each day this week. How can I stop taking pictures when there’s cuteness like this is my life?

Isn’t he so lovely? Oh my, but that boy will break hearts some day.

This last week was mostly about family, even though I did have to eventually drag my sorry self in to work at the very end of the week. I love the expressions on their faces in this one, ranging from indulgence to barely repressed impatience to impish mischieviousness. They’re so patient with me, my menfolk are.

I pulled over on the way home from work when I saw this murder of crows infesting a big tree off Limebank Road. I converted it to B&W, but it was such a flat grey day that it was almost there already.

The idea for this one arrived fully formed in my head one night and I’m pleased that it’s almost exactly as I’d envisioned it. (I can never seem to remember to wear makeup, and I don’t bother to shave half the time in winter, but I do have a soft spot for a multi-coloured pedicure.)(But, I should focus on either the polish or the camera, because while the picture is fun the pedicure is a mess with polish all over the place!)

This one started out as a completely different picture, which failed miserably in the execution, but did inspire me to put this together. I like it very much! The camera is a Polariod EE100, built in the late 1970s and rescued for $5 from a junk shop by me. The the scratchy look comes from a texture I found on Flickr. Apparently it (the camera, not the texture) will take Fuji pack instant film — I may have to try it out one day!

Early in the week we had a visit from the boys’ grandparents, Mimi and Pipi. I was taking out the garbage when I noticed Beloved’s dad out there in the snow without gloves, building a snowman to entertain the kids. Have I mentioned how much I love my family?

Grandparents cause the most delightful sorts of disruptions, don’t they?

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