I caught A LOT of grief when Jack was born over the fact that it took about two weeks for me to put anything on the blog. So this time around I managed to improve my birth-to-blog ratio by well over a week!
…..about 2 minutes old…….
For those of you that don’t know….Conner had to spend a couple of days in the NICU in order to clear out some fluid that stayed in his lungs. Luckily Little Jack was still able to drop in and help his Mom with Conner’s bottles!
Everyone so far has said that Conner and Jack look almost identical as newborns. See for yourself HERE
OK, no more hospital clothes….I got my car seat…..let’s get outta here!
Out of all the newborn photographs from last week, this one is far and away my favorite picture. Amy had just changed Conner’s clothes and was getting ready to put him in his car seat to head home, and Jack climbed up on to the bed to see what was going on. Even though he had already hung out with his new baby brother quite a bit over the past few days, when Conner looked back at Jack, Jack flashed this look that seems to say “Come on kid….let’s go home…I’ve got a lot of cool stuff to show ya!” It’s amazing that even though Conner had only been around three days at this point, Jack has already taken on the roll of a loving big brother.
One last slideshow for 2009 featuring some of my favorite wedding images from the past year. I also wanted to take this opportunity to revisit an awesome band/singer that I met this year by featuring the music of Aubyn Beth! Definitely keep your eyes and ears open for this group in 2010!
David and Yesenia are both teachers, and figured that Winter break would be a great time to get married at St. Charles’ Pheasant Run Resort. To top it off, they created the theme of their reception around their profession………
I kinda wondered after I took this picture who had the “honor” of sitting at the Detention labeled table….turns out it was Yesenia and David’s fellow teachers!
The funny thing about this picture is David doesn’t play a lick of piano (apparantly “chop-sticks” are even a challenge), but Yesenia is actually pretty good!
Do you have a special someone that you still can’t figure out what to get them for Christmas? Well if you’re looking for a new pet, you’ll score some serious points if you head up to Windward Farms in Long Grove, Il. and bring one of their new Border Terrier puppies who are looking for loving homes! I’ve written on here before about how much I love the Border Terrier breed, but looking back, I’ve never really been that explicit about why (in my obviously biased opinion) the Border Terriers are an awesome breed whether you’re looking for a family dog.
About The Breeder: Windward Farms
First off, Windward is not a puppy mill. Windward only breeds a limited number of litters each year, and unfortunately due to the economy, several owners who were in line to bring puppies home lost their jobs and simply cannot afford to add a new member to their families right now. Normally the wait list for a Windward Border Terrier is over a year, so this is an incredible opportunity to give a new home to a Border puppy from a breeder with an impeccable reputation for breeding loving family dogs with fantastic temperaments!
Dont’ let the “Terrier” Name Fool You:
Yes, it’s true, Border Terrier’s are part of the Terrier family. However before you have visions of small, yappy, hyper dogs who will destroy your house filling your head, not all Terriers are created equal. Border Terriers are the most mellow and laid back of all the Terrier family breeds. I’ve often heard the description (which is incredibly accurate) that the Border Terrier’s have a big dog’s personality, wrapped up in a smaller dog’s body. In fact this is the reason that Windward Farms decided on the Border Terrier as their breed of choice. Border Terriers defintiely have some spunk, especially as puppies. However our dog Otis can just as easily curl up on the couch and watch movies with us when he’s not running around with Jack. In fact, Jack has more energy than Otis, and Otis has finally figured out if he hides under the bed, Jack can’t get him!
Small Dogs Aren’t Good for Families With Small Children
We heard a lot of stories from dog owners who encountered problems when they started a family. Specifically, problems with their dog’s developing behavioral issues when a new baby is brought home. Everything from being aloof and withdrawn to jealous and mean. I’ve even heard the unfortunate stories of families who had to find new homes for their dogs because the dog just had too many problems assimilating to life with a new baby in the house. Propery socialized as a puppy, your Border Terrier should be just as excited as you are when you bring home a new baby!
Takes a Lickin’ and Keeps on Tickin’
Otis was great with Jack when we first came home from the hospital, however one of our bigger concers was how Otis would react when Jack started walking and playing with Otis as if Otis is one of Jack’s toys. Not only has Otis become Jack’s best friend, he openly invites Jack to play with him, and genuinly puts up with every ounce of pounding that Jack can dish out. Whether Jack uses Otis as a step-stool, ottoman, pillow, or tackling dummy, Otis simply takes what Jack is dishing out, and usually licks his face for more once Jack is finished!
My Allergies Won’t Let me Have a Dog
Guess what, I’m allergic to dogs! In fact if I’m around most of the popular, long hair breeds (Golden Retriever, Labrador, etc), I puff up like a blowfish, can’t breath, and can’t stop sneezing. I realize that technically no dog is “hypo-allergic” because all dogs have a certain amount of dander in their coats. However the Border Terriers actually have two coats, which benefits an allergy sufferer: The Border’s soft undercoat contains the dander which aggravates allergies. The wiry top coat however, helps contain the undercoat, which reduces shedding and ultimately helps keep my allergies in check.
Just like parents who think that their children are 200% cuter than any other kid on the planet, I realize that every dog owner thinks their breed is the absolute “must-have” dog. So if the Border’s don’t warm your heart the way another breed might, please don’t let that stop you from bringing home or adopting a pet this holiday season. Almost any dog, properly socialized, will bring years of companionship and love for you and your family. However, if you have any questions about the Border Terrier breed (which just happens to be the best breed EVER!), feel free to contact Mary Jo Landergan at Windward Farms, 847-566-8073. Or simply drop me a line at Jay@jacphoto.net if you’d like some perspective from a Border’s owner.
I’ve received a lot of comments on my Christmas Card , so I thought I’d share the techie, “how-to” set-up for this particular photograph.
It was actually a pretty easy setup, the biggest challenge with this shoot was getting my 2 year old “model” to cooperate. For the lighting setup, the trick is to not overpower the Christmas tree lights with any additional lights you might use to light your subject. This need for a highly directional and focused light eliminated the possibility of using a sofbox on Jack’s face. Instead, I used a single Elinchrom studio strobe, with a 10 degree grid spot attached to the front of the reflector. The grid focusses the light down to a small spot on the floor, which only lights up the area where Jack is laying down. While a grid is not exactly the softest light source around, the fact that Jack is only 2, and has smooth skin and round features, it works.
So that takes care of the lighting from the right side. However because Jack is facing to the left, his face would fall completely into a dark shadow. The look that I wanted was his face to appear as if it was lit by the christmas tree lights themselves. The only problem with tree lights is their intensity is very low (great for your electric bill, bad for your photographs). So I added a 2nd light (a Canon 580EX) behind the tree out of the frame, and bounced it into the corner of two walls. The bounced light off of the walls comes under and through the tree just enough to provide some additional fill on Jack’s face. All of the lights were triggered courtesy of the ridiculously versatile RadioPopper system (JRx transmitter and reciever to fire the Elinchrom, and a Px transmitter and receiver to fire the 580Ex slave) Even though this was an all manual setup, I could’ve used the the Canon 580 in its TTL mode and let the RadioPopper handle the communication between the master and the slave.
Since the color temperature of the tree lights is somewhere in the tungsten region (very warm), the flash heads were both gelled with an amber gel to match the color temperature of the tree lights.
Now that the direction of the lights is taken care of, all that is left is to figure out the exposure settings. In order for the tree lights to show up and actually “twinkle,” you need a a small aperture which requires a longer shutter speed. A couple of test shots confirmed that an aperture somewhere between f6.3 and f8.0 would be enough to get the sparkle from the lights, and a shutter speed of 1/8 at ISO 400 let in enough ambient light to see the detail of the tree and the ornaments. Now that I know what my ambient reading is, the last step is simply to adjust the output of the strobes to match my exposure settings (It sounds a bit backward, but that’s how I figure out the proper exposure for combined ambient and flash exposures. If the exposure was all strobe, you simply meter, set the camera, and go). I adjusted the output of the main to about f5.6, and the fill light to about f4.0 (honestly, I didn’t meter the fill, I just set the main, and then fired a couple of test frames with different settings on the fill to get it where I wanted).
There wasn’t a lof of post-production Photoshop work on this one, other than adding the text elements and some burning and dodging. A lot of people thought my last “before & after” window was kinda cool, so here’s the “out-of-camera” version and the final product:
Take a look at the window above, the left side of the screen is the original image, and the right side is the fully finished photograph. Use the links at the bottom to go back and forth between the original picture from the camera, and the fully finished photograph.
It was cold on Saturday….really, really cold once the sun went away, and then to top it off it started snowing/raining/sleeting a bit when we got to the park for pictures. Considering how nasty it was, we had time for exactly two pictures….this is the first one…….
…..and this is the 2nd one. I think Laurie & Mike would’ve killed me if I tried to keep them out any longer taking pictures!
But after dinner things really heated up when the band Audiomatic strapped it on and cranked up the tunes……..
….ya gotta have more cowbell!
And then to top it off….the lovely bride sat in with the band and serenaded her groom!
It only took 3 hours to get Little Jack to co-operate enough to get this image made. However I think the result was totally worth it! Here’s the official 2009 Jay Crihfield Photography Holiday Card. If you’d like to take a look at the past year’s versions, simply click here for 2008, or click here for 2007
Normally I don’t post stuff like this. I know that the school pictures portraits from the large studios are not exactly fine art portraiture, but after seeing this craptastic portrait of Jack taken by the “professional” school pictures portrait studio, I couldn’t resist. And yes….we actually spent $12.50 for a portrait of our son who looks terrified of the photographer. If this is the best they could do with a child who is used to having his picture taken, it terrifies me to think what the portraits of his classmates look like.
And for the record….here’s how he normally looks…….
Oh, and in the interest of full disclosure…we were under no obligation to purchase any of the pictures. We could’ve simply returned all the pictures without paying anything.
So we didn’t get the 6-10 inches of snow that the weather savants were calling for yesterday, however shoveling the couple of wet inches of white slushy crap that fell was enough to evoke the memories of last year when it seemed to snow just about every week. So in honor of the first measurable snowfall of the season, I went into the archives and found this little video from last winter……
