Campin'

While we were in Del Rio over the Christmas holiday, Henry and I went camping out at Lake Amistad one night. It was a daddy/son camping trip, our first real one since he and I camped in the backyard last year.

We passed a pretty good time. The weather wasn't ideal - the skies were gray and the temps were pretty chilly (low 40's, but the wind was blowing pretty good).

About 3am we both had enough of the cold (our tent was not blocking out the wind effectively, even with the rain fly on), and I put the air mattress in the back of our RAV4. We climbed inside and enjoyed a wind-less sleep the rest of the night.

Henry hunts for rocks to throw into the lake.

Henry and daddy kick back and enjoy a few cold ones (Capri Suns & Fat Tire)

Henry warms by the campfire and makes a good-night phone call to momma.

Many thanks to the kind rangers at the Amistad NRA headquarters. They were very helpful and friendly to us. They even gave Henry a Jr. Ranger badge, which he proudly wore. And thanks also to the camp host (at the San Pedro campground) and his lab (Montana). They were very kind as well and even checked up on us.

Updates 1 of 3 - Michael Allen

My main photographic pursuit lately has been our boys, of course. I'm a little behind in posting here, but I updated the boys' page with some new photos last week. Click the link below.

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Camping, Part II

Earlier this year, Henry and I camped in the backyard. He loved it, of course, and I promised to take him camping for real.

In early April, we all went to Bastrop State Park for two nights of camping. Henry had a blast. He hiked well, somewhat minding us as we walked along, and stuck it out for most of a 2.5 mile hike. Sleeping in the tents was fun for him too. It wasn't Big Bend, but we all had a great time.


   
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Strawberries and Wildflowers

Last week's adventure was a family outing to pick strawberries and take in some wildflowers. We hit the Kings Orchard north of Magnolia for a bumper crop of strawberries.

Henry did very well this year. He almost picked an entire basket by himself, and he sampled far fewer berries than last year. I only found 3 half-eaten strawberries when I washed them all at home. Or maybe he's just getting better at scarfing down whole berries when we're not looking. His face and pants were awfully stained by the time we left ;-) We joked that they should weigh Henry before and after he picks.


click for larger picLittle Henry, the Strawberry Connoisseur

The strawberries were awesome. They were all sweet and perfectly ripe. It was difficult to stop eating them and impossible to keep Henry out of them. He is a fruit monster. He's the weirdest 3-year old I've ever known. Give him a choice between a pile of candy and cookies and a handful of cherry tomatoes (or grapes, or berries, etc.), he'll just about knock you over trying to get at the tomatoes.

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After picking berries, we headed to Washington-on-the-Brazos state park for a picnic lunch. We tried for several portraits in the flowers, but Henry wasn't cooperating very well. This is the best we could manage :-)

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High Island Beach

Two weeks ago we drove out to High Island for the birds and the beach. There's a nice bird sanctuary in town containing a rookery for egrets and spoonbills.

Tanya and Henry spent some time at the beach while her mom and I shot the birds. We all ended up at the beach for sunset and watched Henry run around with his usual endless supply of energy, which makes photographing him difficult.


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What would I do without burst mode on my camera? I guess I'd miss more shots than I already do :-)

Henrys' New Camera

We bought Henry a camera for his 3rd birthday last month. It's a little kiddie digital camera made by Fisher-Price, and it's designed to be a bare-bones, shock proof, point-n-shoot camera that a kid can operate. Even though he's only 3, Henry seemed to take to it like a natural.



He even chimps his shots! :-)



And best of all, he has fun doing it.



So what was he shooting? Daddy, of course.

Henry Gets a Bath

I've been messing around with long-ish exposures and also black-n-white for portrait and candid shots. In fact, I've been shooting JPG with the image processing set for black-n-white output with a simulated red filter. This produces milky white skin. Blemishes and wrinkles hardly show up, and with a little over exposure, people look almost like they're glowing.

This look is probably an acquired taste, but for the moment, I like it :-)



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Camping in the Backyard

"We went camping, just me and my dad..." This is a line from Mercer Mayer's book, "Just Me and My Dad", a children's story about a little critter, er... boy, that goes on a camping trip with his dad. It is one of Henry's favorite books, and I've read it to him probably 100 times.

Last Saturday, Henry and I (and Tanya too) slept outside in the backyard in tents. We didn't do the whole camping routine like cooking outside or peeing/pooping behind a bush (the neighbors probably think we're crazy enough for sleeping out there in the first place), we just slipped out back at bedtime and slept the whole night in the tents.



I don't think I've ever seen Henry that excited. I took him out first at bedtime, and he and I got into the big tent and read books by flashlight. Every other page or so, he'd look up and around and say, "I can't belieeeeve it!". He and I have been talking about camping and sleeping in a tent for so long, and there he was finally doing it.

We made it the whole night, too. That was a bonus. I expected him to last a few hours and then get so whiney and uncomfortable that he'd have to come inside. But he didn't. He slept quietly and comfortably next to me the whole night. Tanya and I planned to switch out (she started off in the little tent by herself) at some point in the night, but it wasn't necessary.

Now, the next step is to actually travel somewhere and camp for real :-)

More Portraits from the Backyard

Here are a few new ones of Henry. I tried a lot of motion shots - shots taken with Henry moving while I panned the camera attempting to match his motion. I also tossed out my "perfection" routine (shoot RAW, process carefully) and shot JPG with different in-camera settings.

The first two were done in black and white mode with the red filter effect (all in-camera settings). I figured out from the histograms of the first few shots that I needed to dial in +2/3 exposure comp. to get it right. The third shot is a high-contrast low-saturation (color) effect, again shot in JPG.


  
(click for larger pic) It's not the way to maximize image quality, but it's fun. And I can't say that I'm dissapointed with the results.

Portraits from the Backyard

My wife commented here on my blog that I don't have enough content of the family. Seems I'm more absorbed with beer, cameras, and walking. Well, I can't let it be known that I'm NOT a family man.



Perhaps I should post some realistic photos of our lives instead of portraits from the backyard. But no one wants to see an overflowing poopy-diaper, or me on a weekend with a grumpy, unshaven face and wrinkled clothes.

Anyway, here are a few photos from our backyard taken last October. They were made with a Canon 1ds Mark II and a Canon 24mm f/1.4L lens, shot handheld at ISO 400 and f/2.0 in the early evening shade with no flash. I borrowed this camera and lens combo for that weekend and had a good time with it :-)

Below is our late dog, Ginger. She died suddenly from cancer two days before Christmas last year, r.i.p. The photo is quite fitting. She was always gentle, kind, and loved to be silently right in the center of the family.

We'll miss her greatly. She was a very good dog and companion. She was a true friend to us all.