Gone Fishing!

"Fishing!"  Darius exclaimed when my father-in-law asked if I wanted to take Darius on his first fishing trip.  We grabbed the poles, tackle box, diaper bag and loaded Darius into the car.  We set off for the shoreline of CT.  My father-in-law had gone fishing the morning before and was catching a lot of fish, so we headed back to the same spot. 

Our destination was about 40 minutes away.  Darius fell asleep about 30 minutes in.  We grabbed the gear and loaded Darius into his stroller, still asleep.  I had noticed a bridge that was raised when we were driving to our location and as it turns out, the fishing spot was below that very bridge.  There were many people fishing, but they had caught very few fish.  Darius was sleeping, so I took out my camera.

 

The bridge was interesting so I shot a few pictures of it.  Then a loud horn sounded several times and the bridge began to lower.  A few minutes after that a train came rushing through and .  What a racket between the horns and the train.  No one could sleep through that, not even Darius.  He was a little disoriented for a minute or two being woken up that way, but soon he was ready to fish.

I casted and he reeled.  He got the hang of it after a few times and was excited to reel the line in.  We continued doing this for about an hour.  Didn't catch a thing.  My father-in-law had one bite, but the fish got away.  Darius wanted a "Fishie! Fishie!"  Tough to explain to a toddler why there are no fish on a fishing trip.  His attention was waning and when he's bored, he gets into trouble. We needed to catch a fish STAT.

 

We moved to a new location a little further down the pier and set up.  My father-in-law continued fishing and Darius and I went for a walk, aka I was chasing Darius around the pier.  Everyone had empty buckets and no bites.  I heard, "I got one!" back towards where we just were.  It was my father-in-law.  He  began to reel it in and Darius ran over to check it out. I grabbed my camera.  Everyone on the pier was excited since at someone actually caught something.  Thank Goodness, Darius got to see a fish.  Success!  It was a little fish, but it was better than nothing.  "Catch a big one Nonno!"  My son was not impressed. 

  

My Favorite Subject

I take a lot of pictures.  All my friends and family know that if I'm around, I'm going to be toting my camera and its going to be pointed at them at one point or another.   I really enjoy photographing kids, especially mine.  Kids are fun to shoot because they're so expressive.  They are also quite challenging because they move around so often and quickly.  Out of the thousands of photos I've shot, I'd say that 90% of them are of Darius.  I'm a shameless Poppa-razzi.  Every single photo I take of him is great.  Not because I'm a great photographer, but because the kid doesn't take a bad picture. I'm a proud father, what would you expect me to say? 

I hadn't posted this week, so I decided to take a few pictures tonight.   My model was watching his favorite show, Curious George, so I knew he wouldn't be running around like usual.  I quickly set up my softbox and snapped off a few shots.  As usual, he was completely locked onto the TV and wouldn't give so much as a glance in my camera's direction.  Then all of the sudden he became very interested, in other words George was over. He snapped out of his trance, started climbing on my light stand, turning knobs and  grabbing at my camera.  Guess this photo session is over.

Under the spell of Curious George

I wish my camera was a....

TGIF!  On the way to pick up Darius from daycare I was wondering about what to do for the weekend.  Enza was in Maine with friends till Sunday so it was just the boys for a few days.  Since didn't have to get home for for anything I stopped at Revere Beach.  We drive by almost every night because the way Darius says "go beeeeach!" amuses me.  Plus its only a minute from his daycare.  We took off our shoes and strolled around on the sand while Darius collected rocks.  Dinner time was approaching,  so I asked if my little man wanted chicken or pizza.  He screamed "CHICKEN!"  Decision made so off we went to the  "World Famous" Kelly's Roast Beef.  In the North Shore area of Massachusetts, where I live, every roast beef place claims they are world famous.  Kelly's is the only one that might actually live up to the claim.

We ordered dinner and headed off to find a spot to eat.  All the tables were full, as usual, so we sat at a bench.  I took Darius' meal out of the bag and grabbed him a chicken finger.  If he saw the french fries, he wouldn't touch the chicken.  We've learned to hide the fries till he he eats the rest of his meal, so I left them wrapped in foil.  I offered him the chicken and he slid off the bench and started running.  Guess he wanted pizza afterall.  He got about 10 steps away before I corralled him in and started back towards our food.  As we walked, I watched as 3 seagulls tore apart my son's dinner.  Clearly this was not their first rodeo.  They removed the foil from the plate and extracted the fries and chicken fingers with the precision of Seal Team 6.  The whole operation took about 5 seconds.  With full beaks, they flew off the the other side of the wall.

The scene of the crime
The predator birds lined up waiting for their next victim

My dinner was still in the bag, so they didn't touch it.  I still had one chicken finger in my hand so I gave it to Darius.  He took one bite and noticed the birds had dropped something on the ground.  "FRENCH FRIES!" As he was saying it, he tossed the rest of the chicken on the ground.    You gotta be shit'n me!  I looked for something to throw, but there wasn't anything around.  The seagulls were back on the wall again.  They were sitting there taunting me.  Waiting for us to walk away again so they could snatch the scraps left behind.  With every ounce of self control in me, we headed back to the car without a scene.  I sat in the car steaming and ate my roast beef sandwich. Darius ate my fries.  When we were done, I went back to shoot a few pictures. Thinking more of collecting evidence than composition and wishing the whole time that my camera was a gun.

Wish I was shooting bullets instead of pictures!

My Second Digital Camera

I remember being able to hear my own heart beat.  THUMP THUMP!  My palms were sweaty.  It was hard to swallow.  I nervously paced back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.  Our apartment was filled with roses, and candles and Stevie Wonder was playing in the background.  I needed a lifeline, so I phoned a friend.  Steve said something to the effect that he went through the very same thing as I was going through and not to worry because he was pretty sure the answer would be yes.  I was pretty sure the answer would be yes too, but that didn't make it any easier.  Finally, Enza came home, I got on my knee, cracked open the ring box and somehow managed to ask the question.  Turns out both Steve and I were right, she said yes.

We headed out and had an outstanding dinner.  We talked about our future together.  I started to think about how we're going to need to capture moments like this.  Starting with the sheer joy we were both experiencing knowing that we were going to be spending the rest of our lives together.  My mind began to race with other events that would need to be recorded like our apartment which was currently full of roses, the ring, our wedding, our honeymoon, our first house, our children...  What better to capture the memories with than a camera.  My first digital camera, my cell phone, wasn't going to cut it anymore.  We headed straight to Circuit City after dinner and made our first purchase as a newly engaged couple.  A digital camera!

 Sony Cybershot DSC-T33. 

5.1 Mega Pixels

Usually, I like to research  a purchase like this.  Not this time.  This was impulse buying at its finest.  Turns out it was a pretty decent camera and I was able to take pretty solid pictures with it and learn quite a bit.  Eventually, I did a little reading on composition and technique.  The more I read and looked at other people's photos I realized my camera was not allowing me to capture what I saw.  I would revieiw photos and they were OK, but something was missing. I always wanted to have the shallow depth of field that you see in professional photos and couldn't understand why I was unable to achieve it.  I spent pretty good money on this camera, why doesn't it do what I want it to do? 

The camera served us well right up through the list of events that raced through my mind during our engagement dinner.  I captured many memories with this camera.  Photos of our honeymoon in Hawaii, our cozy first house (a little too cozy now), our puppy and our first family photo in the delivery room after the birth of our son were all captured with this camera.
 

Kauai Sunset

Brutus

Darius

 Shortly after that I started to notice its limitations and one in particular that was extremely frustrating.  The dreaded shutter lag.  A newborn moves as quickly as they grow. With the shutter lag, the camera was always a second or so late.  I ended up with a lot side of his head pictures from him turning his head or a smear from trying to follow his movements.  I did get some good shots, but there were only so many blurry ear pics I could take.  I was convinced it was time for some new gear, now I just had to get my wife on board.

The Blur

BBQ & Beer

5 AM Sunday morning I woke up all excited to take pictures.  I had done an early AM trip a few times in the past and they had resulted in some of my best shots.  Not necessarily because of the early morning "golden hour" light, but because I was completely focused on photography.  I got into "the zone" and found my photos much more creative than usual.

  Pleasing result of an early morning photo walk

I often try to tap into my artistic side, but usually am not pleased with the results.  Today was going to be different.  I had charged everything the night before so I was ready.  I woke up without an alarm, which is usually only reserved for days I'm playing golf.  Golf is another of my passions, and I get very excited since I play so little these days.  Got dressed opened the door and it was POURING.  Checking the weather the night before was something I always did when playing golf.  Hell, I checked it on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday if I had a tee time on Saturday.  Never thought to do it for photography.  I got in the car, sat for a few minutes and went back inside to bed feeling uninspired.

We were having friends over for dinner and I was making pulled pork.  Its takes 6 hours to smoke and cook on the grill low and slow.  It's probably the best thing I cook.  I only make it once or twice a summer because even though the payoff is great, being chained to a grill for 6 hours is not really my idea of fun.  My goal was to take photos of the entire grilling process, but the rain put out my fire yet again. Took a few from inside the house looking out.  Blah...

Rainy Day BBQ

Dinner was great!  We had the smoked North Carolina style pulled pork, apple vinegar cole slaw, red bliss potato salad, grilled in the husk corn on the cob, and a refreshing lemon/dill/toasted pine nut salad.  Kevin also brought over Newcastle Summer Ale and it was perfect with the pulled pork.  I had been meaning to try it, but always thought about it too late.  The summer ale lived up to the hype.  It'll be in the brown bag the next time I hit the liquor store, unless they have Sam Adams Octoberfest on the shelves already.  The BBQ tasted much better than it looked, so no pictures. However, the beer was quite photogenic.
 

Thirsty?

Enza, my wife, made her world famous magic bars for dessert to top off a pretty damn delicious meal and a good day regardless of the weather.  The kids had chicken nuggets, if they only knew what they missed.  More for us.

Manual Focus

I have a love hate relationship with my f/1.8 50mm lens.  Because I have an entry level Nikon DSLR,  I have to manually focus the lens.  I use Live Mode a lot when using this lens because it makes the image larger.  In Live Mode instead of using the viewfinder to frame the shot you use the rear LCD the same way you do on a digital point and shoot camera.  I have trouble using the viewfinder because its so small.  Things look in focus when shooting and then when reviewing later they are not.  My father always says "its not the arrow, its the indian", so it can't be the camera's fault.  Maybe its my eyes?  I was at the opthalmologist a few weeks ago for an issue with some blurred vision.  I knew I was going to be walking out with a new pair of glasses.  Up to this point my eyes had never let me down.  I was the guy that could read the sign 200 yards away other people could barely read at 100 yards.  I was proud of the fact I didn't need contacts or glasses.  I'm a very visual person, so I depend on my eyes to notice things most people miss.  My perfect vision days were over.  The exam was over and I waited for the news......  "I see nothing wrong with your eyes," the doctor told me.  HORRAY!  She asked me to explain the blurred vision I experienced the day before.  My initial response was "well, it was blurry".  Words ain't really my thing.  Fortunately, she didn't settle for that answer and asked me to be a bit more descriptive.  I thought about and proceeded to tell her there was a blurry swirl in the center of my sight. "That's what I was looking for", she said.  The Dr. went on to tell me that I was having an ocular migraine.  Turns out my eyes are perfect, but my mind is on the fritz! BOOO!

Back to the focusing.  Using the Live Focus isn't a problem when I have time to set up the shot and take my time.  Shooting with wide apertures and shallow depth of field is the beauty of the f/1.8 lens.  I can take shots like these from tonight's dinner without too much trouble.

  Grilled zucchini from my father-in law's garden.

Lemon Garlic Chicken

the final product tossed with some penne and Parmesan

Dinner was great.  Darius, my son, had 2 bowls.  He hasn't been eating much lately, so I was very pleased that he was enjoying my cooking so much.  I went to take a picture of him shoveling in dinner, but I still had the 50 mm lens on the camera.  Usually, I would switch to one of my other lenses that auto focuses.  That would have meant getting up from the table and possibly missing him doing something worth capturing.  I could shoot at a smaller aperture and increase the depth of field, but then I would risk a slow shutter speed and might get a blurry shot because he moves so fast.  I decided to go with it the way it was.  Figured if I took enough pictures while focusing manually, I could catch one just right.  All the books and web sites I've read say that the critical focus needs to be on the eyes when photographing people.  The eyes are the window to the soul, a cliche photographers live by because its true.  Pictures don't look right if the eyes aren't in focus.  Out of the 6 shots I took, I got one that was decent.        



Darius and Penne

This lens is great.  I love the ability to shoot with a shallow depth of field which gives me nice blurred backgrounds.  It gives the photos depth that I couldn't get with a point and shoot.  To me, the ability to change the depth of field is the main benefit to having a DSLR.  When I get the focus right, the photos are better with this lens than any others I have.  The only problem is getting it right.  1 out of 6 is not very good and is extremely frustrating.  Sometimes I don't even get the 1.  His right hand is more in focus than his eyes are.  Did you notice?

My First Digital Camera

"What do you need all that for?"  I asked my friend about his new flip phone.  This thing could do everything.  He could download games, surf the internet, change ringtones, shoot videos, text and take pictures.  Clearly I had a severe case of phone envy.  I needed that phone and I needed it now.  I was the first one of my friends with a cell phone, but an unfortunate golf cart accident caused me to go without for quite some time.  I was at the Sprint store the very next day filling the void. 

This may have been my second phone, but it was my first digital camera.  Before the camera phone I remember wishing I had a camera all the time.  Concerts, games, parties, family gatherings, sunsets, and trips always left me longing for a camera.   If I thought about pictures ahead of time, I'd buy a disposable camera. Thing is, that rarely happened.  I'll never admit it, but according to my wife, I procrastinate and don't plan anything.  I plan on working on that when I get around to it.  I always had a camera with me now.  I took more pictures than calls with that phone.  Problem solved.  No planning needed.  Just reach in my pocket, flip it open and click!