I haven't been taking pictures.

I'm a little pissed off because my D60 has a "hot pixel", and Nikon hasn't yet returned my email. It says on their website that they will respond in one business day, and I emailed them on Tuesday. The camera still works fine, I am just a little bent out of shape that I have to retouch every picture that comes out of it.

In other news, Jake turned five. I cannot believe he is already five years old. I had a tougher time with his birthday then I thought I would. He is so well behaved, and such an awesome kid. It's just tough to realize that my first baby is growing up fast. "The days are long but the years are short".

On the day of his birthday we took him to Montana's so he could wear what he calls the moose hat. It was so busy in the restaurant he had to wait a long time for it, but he wasn't leaving without wearing the hat.


For his party, I made him a hockey cake.


He ate all the icing off of his piece, and gave me the cake. He did pick the hockey cake over the DQ ice cream cake I bought when I realized the hockey cake just wasn't going to be big enough.

He loved all of his presents, but this one was one of his favorites:


It's a thermometer. And he is just thrilled. I love that.

Apologizing Already.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Things have been really shitty around here, so I just don't know what to say. Hopefully things sort themselves out, or rather, I get things fixed. Or run away. Far, far, away.

It's Lonely

We've been flying solo since Wednesday, so things have been pretty lonely around here. Luckily, the boys have been really well behaved. That makes things so much easier. The weather here has been crap, and my idea of an outdoor photo shoot went to shit. Danny wouldn't cooperate, didn't want to be in the pictures, yet insisted on standing between the camera and Jake. Plus, I managed to screw up the settings on my camera so everything was under exposed.

We did make it out to Spruce Meadows for a few hours before we got rained on. I got a couple of decent shots from there, but the shooting conditions weren't ideal. Zoom lens + dark and stormy day = mediocre pictures. Oh well, I'll share 'em anyway.





And here is the storm that blew in yesterday, and it looks like it is going to stick around for the next few days.



So the next couple of updates will likely be the boring goings on of things around here. There is probably a couple of stories I could pull out of my hat, and Jake's birthday is Monday so there should be pictures from that too. Until then.

My attempt at avoiding the Walmart portrait studio...

So I got the boys the obligatory matching outfits, bribed them, and took some pictures. I've been feeling pretty melencoly about Jake turning five, so I wanted to make sure that I documented just how they are right now.

I thought I'd do some inside, and some outside, so I did the inside ones yesterday. I might go for a retry though, it was raining and overcast, and I had to use a really shallow depth of field to get enough light in. I think it shows in some of the pictures, but oh well.

Here's the first round:










There are also a few outtakes which are worth sharing, so I'll try to get those up later. We are flying solo for the next five days, and it is supposed to rain for part of it, so I want to get the outdoor pictures done today if the boys will cooperate. Let's hope.

Hung.Over.

We went to a friends wedding last night, and I took advantage of the open bar. Needless to say, I am not feeling so hot today. The boys went for a sleepover, which was a first for Danny. I was hoping to get out this morning, but I woke up with a headache that is still pounding, so that was a no.

I did get out on Friday night for a bit. I'd really like to do some long exposures at night, but am afraid of getting my shit stolen. I don't know if that is just paranoia or what, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Not a lot going on though. Here's what I got on Friday, I'm hoping to get some decent shots of the kids in the next couple of days, so we shall see what happens.







And not thrilled with this one, but I got a new neutral density filter that should help with my sky overexposure issue. At least it's a starting point.