Thirteen -days- nights after Easter: More night shots of the dogwood we’ve been watching.

I thought the first night shot was so cool that I’d try it again when it wasn’t raining.

Plus, I was taking that first one at just before midnight with my flash set up on a tripod off-camera.

My neighbor, Tom, came to his backdoor while I was out there. He probably saw the flashing and thought something weird was going on.

Not that taking pictures of trees at midnight with an off-camera flash is a perfectly sane thing to do.

They don’t call me “crazy tree lady” for nothing.

Incidentally, we now have nine official guesses as to how many days past Easter it will take our dogwood to reach full blossom.

My Gemini alter ego said 11 days. (Wrong.)

Brad and Heidi both said 17 days — April 9.

Cheryl said 18 days — April 10.

My original guess was 21 days — April 13.

Carolina Girl said 23 days after Easter — April 15.

Melissa said 38 days — April 30.

Jeff from Linden said 40 days — May 2. (Love the symbolism of “40 days.”)

Gabe said 51 days past Easter — May 13, his sister, Hayley’s, birthday.

Happy Sunday! What’s your guess?

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and turn up the sound for Nicole and Brian’s slide show. When the show is over, it will automatically jump back here where you can leave a comment and answer a question to win the family an 8×10 print!

He is easily one of the smiliest babies I’ve ever photographed!

Everybody loves bath time.

He looks like the frog! Love it!

This kitchen gets a daily scrubbing. Look how much water is on the bench from the baby’s splashing.

The kitchen is not the only thing that needed scrubbing.

After the bath: I love this one.

It was one of those days when it was raining so hard that every now and then Brian would go look in the basement to make sure it wasn’t flooding. There was no chance we were going outside, not even for a minute. So, we made do with an entirely indoor shoot, capturing various activities of their son’s day.

I love this one.

Love their beautiful wood floors and furniture too.

Here’s today’s question: Nicole and Brian were in the same kindergarten class. To win them an 8×10 print, leave a comment telling us which ones of the children Nicole and Brian are.

They didn’t realize until just before the wedding day that they had been in the same kindergarten class. Isn’t that the sweetest story?

Thanks Nicole and Brian. I can’t think of anything more fun to do on a yucky, rainy day than hang out with such a fun, smiley family that laughs so much and has so much fun together!

Twelve -days- nights after Easter: As promised — night shot of the dogwood we’ve been watching. I was crazy busy all day and didn’t get a chance to shoot my dogwood, then I was at Marcella’s fabulous jewelry party. I barely managed to get this shot before midnight! I love how the off-camera light gives us a new perspective on the texture and shape of this part of the bud.


Incidentally, we now have six official guesses as to how many days past Easter it will take our dogwood to reach full blossom.

My Gemini alter ego said 11 days. (Obviously, my overly optimistic side needs to chill.)

Brad and Heidi both said 17 days — April 9.

My original guess was 21 days — April 13.

Carolina Girl said 23 days after Easter — April 15.

Melissa said 38 days — April 30.

Jeff from Linden said 40 days — May 2. (Love the symbolism of “40 days.”)



Oh Happy Saturday! What’s your guess?

Eleven days after Easter: Can you see the drama of the dogwood watch? From a distance, I would never have noticed that this tree is on the verge of beginning to blossom.

Zooming in on the same picture, I see a hundred bullet pointers! (That’s what pointers that have little round dots on the end are called in info-graphics.) Is it just me, or are you just as excited as I am to see all those dots turn into big beautiful flowers? It’s a yearly miracle!

What do you think: is that the moon above or the sun?

I was trying to get both buds in focus but seriously blur the background.

Shifting just a little in my frame, I get the fireplace blurred in the background instead of the arborvitae. Wow, it really changes the whole look of the picture. Backgrounds, even blurry ones, are SO important!

(This is the picture above, zoomed in really close.)

Months before we started to see leaves emerging, and the coloring up of the petals, and the slightest hint of the petals beginning to open, this one bud was inside that tree, ever so slowly pushing through. I think of trees as being asleep in the winter, almost lifeless. But that’s SO not true! The miracle is happening. I just can’t see it until the dawn of spring.

I wonder what other little miracles like that are happening all around me right now that I’m missing. What else is just below the surface? My dogwood is reminding me to slow down, rest, appreciate the miracle of starting again.


We have five super-official guesses as to how long it will take our dogwood to reach full blossom.

I said 21 days after Easter — April 13.

My Gemini alter ego said 11 days. (Since that milestone has come and gone, my alter ego is the big loser.)

Brad and Heidi both said 17 days — April 9.

Carolina Girl said 23 days after Easter — April 15.

Jeff from Linden said 40 days — May 2. (Love the symbolism of “40 days.”)



What’s your guess?

Her grandpa flew in from Texas, and since I had pictures of Grandmomma from another shoot, I had to give equal time.

I think this may be the cutest picture I ever took. Look at the sweetest little smile on the baby’s face. Melt time!

Love this one too.

Those EYES! Wow. I’m lucky she is so intrigued by my monster size camera.

When I was taking this picture, I was telling the family that I really wish I had pictures of my grandparents and me. I love this picture because he’s holding her so tenderly and his crossed hands, doubling for added protection, are a clear expression of love.

This one, and the one below, are examples of how I choose to present a picture in black and white or color. This one is black and white because stripping out the color allows us to focus on the pure emotion of the shot, the gaze of his granddaughter’s eyes into his. That’s all we see. We don’t evaluate her pink outfit. We don’t scrutinize the background. We don’t notice a variation in skin tones. All we see is what she’s doing, and what she’s doing is the important thing.

This shot is similar, taken only seconds later. In this one, it’s her eyes we want to gaze into. The color is so pretty that stripping it away wouldn’t make artistic sense to me.

Thanks, David, for letting me come hang out with you and your beautiful granddaughter for a little while!

Ten days after Easter: The baby leaves on the dogwood we’ve been watching are so colorful! We still have only 4 guesses as to how long it will take our dogwood to reach full blossom.

I said 21 days after Easter.

My Gemini alter ego said 11 (not a chance).

Brad and Heidi both said 17. Leave a comment with your guess! (Or not. Brad, Heidi and I can duke it out over 17 days or not 17.)

Here’s why I love plant photography: I make myself get out of my comfort zone and shoot using settings I don’t want to “chance” when I’m photographing families (and don’t want to miss a great shot just because I was fiddling around with my tried-and-true settings).

In the one above, I was shooting at a very low ISO setting on my camera (LO.3, which is equivalent to ISO100) at f/11 on full screen metering, which means that the camera will average the light over the entire frame. I usually shoot at low f-stop numbers like f/2 for a seriously blurry background, and often shoot using spot meter, which tells the camera to adjust the light in the frame based on my focal point. This one worked nicely. I think I’ll try that at my next shoot!

Immediately after taking yesterday’s dogwood shot with that f/11 setting, I went to Bradley’s track meet and happened to come up on the coach’s group shot. Cool! That f/11 setting was perfect for that shot! Bradley’s in the center of this picture, but that’s less than a third of the whole team. That’s a huge track team!

I was shooting through a fence, which accounts for the strange light in these pictures. (Still f/11, but the coach is far closer to me than the team.)

So cool when I know somebody on the opposing team! Hey sweetie!

In case you’re new to the blog, Bradley is “the tall one.”

He’s also the one whose entire family stalked him at the shot-put event.

I have no idea what’s going on in this picture. CAPTION REQUEST!!! Leave a comment with a caption that makes us laugh.

This one may have something to do with the previous one. I really don’t know.

** Ok, CONFESSION TIME **

We stood there for, I swear, like 20 minutes in the FREEZING COLD waiting to watch Bradley throw the dang shot-put, and in an effort to pass the time and keep warm, Gregory ran around messing with Mike, and I took pictures of them, and when I turned back around, Bradley was back at the end of the line again.

I COMPLETELY MISSED IT!!!!!!!!!!

wait…



wait…



shiver…



wait…

…Mamarazzi’s doing the happy dance!

Gotcha, Bradley!

Remember Sophie?

Mom’s maternity session is here
Sophie at 8 weeks
Her baptism
On Halloween
Her Christmas card
Oh, and she was Baby Jesus in the Christmas pageant too!
So be on the lookout for “Sophie’s First Year” baby book coming soon to the blog!

Above, take a good look at that pretty red sweater because in a minute it’s going to be icing.

But first, the “1″ candle is very tasty.

Look at that! She’s offering her cupcake to her big sister!

YAY!

I think she likes it. Hey Mikey.

YAY!!!

Happy birthday, Sophie!

Nine days after Easter: I ran out yesterday to snap a few quick pictures of the dogwood we’ve been watching. Thanks to Brad and Heidi, we now have 4 guesses as to how long it will take for her to reach full blossom.

I said 21 days after Easter.

My Gemini alter ego said 11 (not gonna happen).

Brad said 17.

Then Heidi said 17 too. (Copycat.)

This bud has been brutally ripped open, probably by a squirrel or bird. Interesting to see a cutaway. It was probably something just like this that inspired the world’s first cutaway info-graphic.

I like this one because of the blooming honeysuckle in the background. It’s spring!

It’s challenging to keep taking pictures of dogwood buds. How do I keep it fresh? I tried to get a shot showing how windy it was, but it hasn’t worked just yet. Coming soon: nighttime shots!

When I came inside, I caught Kaptain Karl napping on my keyboard! Ugh!

He redeemed himself by posing for me.

“Turn this way, dip your chin slightly, now lift your left paw as if to plead, ‘Come hither, Twirly.’”

Twirly is too agile for the Kaptain.

This was the object of Karl’s affections yesterday.

If only he could get outside.

NOT gonna happen.

This is Bradley’s aptly-named biosphere fish thingie, Tiny Tim. He’s a great pet. Requires ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, except basic daylight, and he comes to you if you call his name. “Tiny Tim, Tiny Tim!”



He fetched every one of those sticks in there. Seriously.

Meanwhile, out by the dogwood tree we’re following…

Eight days after Easter: It was a rainy day today, the eighth day in the dogwood countdown. Thanks to Brad, we now have three super-official guesses on the number of days it will be after Easter that the dogwood reaches full blossom.

I say 21.

My Gemini, overly optimistic, alter-ego says 11.

Brad says 17.

WAY TO GO, BRAD! You’re a KING for registering a guess and making me feel less lonely in my quest for guesses!

See all those seeds on the ground underneath the dogwood? (Feast for a chipmunk.) Thanks to the squirrels (who dump the seeds out by the grubby-little-clawfull) and the rain, my troubled little dogwood (read about her anthracnose and chlorosis troubles here) will be competing with a hundred different varieties of weeds later this spring! Whoopee!