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Here is what a photo of Derek would have looked like in the late 1800’s, early 1900’s:

What can I say, I’ve gone a little filter crazy tonight.

Can you believe this is Sophia?

I ran through a filter, to achieve the BW/contrast(ie) look, but the action shot is 100% real. She was jumping off her ottoman (about 12″ on the ground) and I tried my best to capture her in midair.

Kind of creepy…

High speed photography anyway.

Sophia went a little crazy with taking pictures of Derek at lunch today. I had my camera set up on a tripod and using a remote switch, she clicked off about 348 images of Derek eating.

I thought it would be perfect to assemble in to a movie.

Trying out another photography technique: using a small aperture size (f/22), a fast shutter speed (1/1000 of a second) and a flash (set to high speed sync):

Using this technique, you can essentially turn the surrounding area completely black - the flash “freezing” the foreground. This shot was taking in full daylight, and yet it looks like it’s dark out.

Same technique with Derek (but in color):

Sophia was pretty cooperative tonight, with me taking her pictures.

I was playing around with “gel`ing” my flash. This particular image was created using a 1/2 plus green gel (rosco) over my external flash. You would typically use a gel like this to correct for fluorescent lighting - to match daylight to fluorescent.

Here she is with a “red” gel:

Oh, I had the kids solo tonight. They were great and the night was pretty uneventful.

It’s amazing how Derek is starting to become big enough, to “tackle” sister. Sophia always looks at me in disbelief - I’m am always thinking to myself, sorry, it’s payback.

We’ve been taking Sophia to gymnastics the past month or so, and while they don’t do much (mainly focusing on taking turns and being considerate), she really does love it.

Sorry for the crummy picture, they don’t exactly allow large DSLR cameras on the gym floor.

Trying out some new lighting techniques:

Flash with umbrella camera right. Additional flash directly behind her, at an 1/8 power.

You wouldn’t believe how hard is was to get her to let me take her picture today. My favorite girl model is growing up and doesn’t want me to take her picture quite as often.

I also got a pretty good picture of Lexi, using the same lighting and background. You can check it out here.

It’s been an exhausting couple of days!! It all started Tuesday night when Sophia threw up all over the hallway while running to the bathroom. She was pretty shaken up and wanted to take bath. Every couple of minutes she would ask for the bucket or ask to sit on the potty. She did so good!!

Later that night after we were all asleep, she crawled in bed with us and asked for some water. So I took her to the kitchen, got her some water, and took her back to her room…where I stepped on something chunky and wet. Yuck. So we cleaned up her room and put her back to bed…

Not 5 minutes after I got back to bed, it hit me…hard!! I didn’t get more than 15 minutes of sleep at a time until about 5 am. Around that time, it hit Kevin. The only thing I could think of was at least we could sleep all day after Denise got here to watch the kids. Sure enough the phone rang around 6:30 (not a good sign). It was Denise calling in with the same symptoms we all had.

Kevin didn’t seem to be as bad off as I was, or at least he did a better job of manning up, because I was worthless!! I’m not ashamed to admit that we used the tv as a babysitter most of the day and the kids were really great. Luckily Sophia seemed to be feeling much better already.

Sophia fell asleep on Kevin’s lap at 6 pm and Derek was so tired he fell asleep at 7:30. I was in a close third, falling asleep on the couch at 8. The house was silent until 6:30 this morning. Kevin and Sophia seem to be feeling much better, I on the other hand still haven’t been able to eat more than just soup and applesauce. What a great weight loss strategy (I’ve lost 7 pounds). I would rather diet!

Here is Sophia running around the house:

We were having some fun with Derek tonight:

He didn’t seem to mind: