Archive for April 2013
Payton on Daddy’s arm, 3 weeks old.
Today we celebrate the first year of Payton Elizabeth Mowry, my first Grandchild.
She recently picked up a new skill: she’s a walker! She walks.
And that means I needed to become better at photographing my favorite toddler. Here are some tips for you to get the most out of the pictures that will be oh-so-important to you and yours when you are fortunate enough to have a toddler around.
You are not in control. I really don’t care who you are, if you can read this, you’re not in control. The person in control is the little one, with the least communication skill, the least physical control … and TOTAL emotional control of your photographic event. Get used to it.
Schedule a window of opportunity. Go back to point # 1. Collaborate with the toddler’s mother, and come up with a range of times that might work between naps, meal time, the phase of the moon, and whatever else might control the beloved toddler’s schedule. And then, pray that you guessed right. (We didn’t.)
Survey the photo shoot location. It doesn’t matter if you’re shooting in the kitchen or a park … have several different shots in mind when the toddler is ready for their close up. Different colors will work with different outfits (remember, they’ll stain the best outfit before they get there, so don’t be surprised if they’re in a different color than you expected), so be ready with some variety.
Props are good. Your toddler may want to play with something, and props look good in photos. Everybody loves a rubber ducky, a baseball, or a fluffy toy.
Mommy’s important. She’s the one that the toddler will naturally focus on, so make sure Mommy’s on board with her responsibility to help focus the toddler’s eyes where you need them. You can have a squeaky toy … but you’ll never be as important as Mommy at this age.
Remember the lighting. The sun will move, the angle of light will change, and toddlers will not accept having bright sun in their eyes. Have the shady spots picked out, or have someone ready with an umbrella, window covering or convenient move of a tree branch.
Move quickly. Have several locations in mind, and methodically move through them in a few minutes. If you’re lucky, you’ll have the toddler’s sweet face with a smile on it for a couple of minutes. If the event hasn’t descended into tears in 15 minutes, you are indeed fortunate. We ended up using 9 different set-ups in 35 minutes.
Take a lot of shots. You are shooting digitally, right? Keep shooting. You’re looking for that one perfect shot, and you don’t know when an accidental event will trigger that perfect smile, that cute pose, that serendipitous moment that you MUST CAPTURE. Keep shooting. Shoot at the highest quality, so you can print the best shot. Have extra chips for your camera, and fill’em up. You can always hit delete later. In this shoot, I took 255 shots in 35 minutes. That’s an average of 7 shots every minute … and we didn’t get a great shot!
Process quickly. In today’s society, you need to have the pictures up on Facebook within the hour, or you’ll be getting snide comments from the family. Get a fun shot or two up on your photo sharing platform of choice as quickly as possible … and then add more as quickly as possible. Of course you’ll need more time for the ultimate processing for those perfect prints you’re going to give out as gifts, but you’re not ordering prints first. You’re posting the immediate shots that you can get up on social media as quickly as possible. You’ll probably not be fast enough (because the Mom, Aunt or Grandmother is probably shooting with her cellphone and uploading the pictures DURING the shoot.).
Print rough copies. I use our color laser printer to get pix up on the refrigerator ASAP. The quality isn’t perfect … but not only does the family appreciate the pictures on the fridge, we’ve found that Payton loves to look at the baby on the fridge! Don’t miss that.
Order prints. Most people still display treasured photographic prints somewhere. Order them, ship them. Out-of-state relatives will thank you. Seriously.
Best shot of the day. The shadow of the flower, that drew her attention, was a total accident. I didn’t see it when I shot this picture … but it is the best of the 235 pictures shot that day. And still no smile.
Props are good.
Never got a great smile. Payton had eggs and fingers in her mouth the entire time. 11 months. Wha’cha gonna do?
It was an Easter shoot, so we had to have Easter eggs, right? And eggs are for eating.
It’s about the eggs. No amount of squeaky toys & Mommy noises could distract her.
Duckbill! Duckbill!
If only she would have smiled….
These bunny sunglasses were put on her face, but they were off her face before Mommy could get out of the way. One nanosecond later, they were on the grass. And no smile.
This shot cries for her to smell the flower, right? One second later it’s in her mouth, and one second after that it’s on the grass because it tasted bad. No other flower would stay in her hand for a shot. No smile.
This shot had potential, but no smile.
2nd best shot of the day. No smile, but nice action shot, for a toddler.
I was on the grass with her, so clearly she had to come visit. Good stuff, I needed a break … in my paint-stained t-shirt. I didn’t dress for the shoot – my mistake.
Duckbill! Duckbill!
Ruffle butt! Ruffle butt! Great shot for a collage.
I lost my background here; you can see the house across the street.
This isn’t the right illustration for the Green Onion chips … but this is the iconic Guy’s bag from the 60s.
It was heaven.
Friday nights, dad would get paid and often did the grocery shopping on the way home. And I knew what I was having for dinner.
- A minced ham sandwich with longhorn cheese
- A 16 oz bottle of Coca-Cola
- Guy’s Green Onion Potato Chips
This was comfort food: the processed kind that we loved in the 60s. Loved me some Guy’s Green Onion Potato Chips.
Today, of course, those are all gone. I heard the minced ham recipe was lost. Longhorn cheese isn’t available in California. Coca-Cola is still around, of course … but I ditched the sugar long ago.
And then there are those chips. Not only are Guy’s not available in my grocery stores, but the green onion flavor is not available!
Oh, the inhumanity!
But welcome to the new reality of The Long Tail, my friends. Here’s how this phenomenon is explained by Wikipedia:
In statistics, the long tail is the large number of occurrences far from the “head” or central part of a distribution of popularities, probabilities or such. A probability distribution is said to have a long tail, if a larger share of population rests within its tail than would under a normal distribution. A long-tail distribution will arise with the inclusion of many values unusually far from the mean, which increase the magnitude of the skewness of the distribution
The internet has made this important to you … by making broad distribution of niche products economically possible. It doesn’t matter what you might want, you can probably buy it online.
Twenty years ago, you would have trouble buying polka CDs if you lived in … well, anywhere. But today you can buy CDs or electronic downloads for any genre of music online. Good thing, too, as you won’t find much music in your local record store any more. Because you won’t find your local record store anymore, either … it was a victim of the long tail. Record stores couldn’t keep a diverse enough inventory to satisfy today’s eclectic consumer while simultaneously paying the mortgage on their brick & mortar store. Online retailing became our overwhelming choice to buy music, because of the long tail.
Similarly, you can buy all manner of odd desires, from the ingredients to make your own hand lotion (Velda’s latest case of OCD) to … Guy’s Green Onion Potato Chips.
That’s right, my friends, all I had to do was a search for them by name, and I can now order My Favorite Chips from their manufacturer, Guy’s Snack Corporation in Overland Park, Kansas. You can, too; the link is below.
And Friday nights will soon be awesome again.
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The Long Tail
Guy’s Snacks
I’ve gotten up early in Vegas before … more proof that I simply do not enjoy the city as it’s intended to be enjoyed.
Today was the first time I got up early and didn’t put on my running shoes … I took my camera out to see what there was to see at 7am. And it was scary.
Not entirely scary, of course. The happy dancing drunks still not in bed were good for a smile, and I was happy to see several runners out enjoying their morning. But then there was the mumbling drunk with his first beer of the day, the psychotic street people … even the jerk that thought screaming in my ear while I was taking a picture with my attention focused elsewhere was a suitable amusement. Jerks are everywhere.
Some things are meant to stay in the darkness. It suits them. Such is Las Vegas. Maybe it’s OK in the daylight if you’re young, beautiful, and laying by the pool at Caesar’s.
I wouldn’t know.
Gothic architecture, at the Paris Hotel.
Some things look good in the daylight.
Louis Nicalos Vauquelin is described as a French pharmacist. What in the world would he be thinking from this overlook?
The father of Gothic architecture, Abbot Suger, keeps watch on Las Vegas Blvd.
Caesar only gets to see the sun for a few short minutes each day, then he passes into shadow.
Sisyphus has nothing on this guy. What a depressing, never ending job!
Empty sidewalks, uncluttered streets.
Manly work gets done in the daylight.
The most impressive electrical signs get repaired in the daylight.
Which Venetian God rides an attack turtle? The Rock of Ages advertisement oversees it all.
Different kinds of rides come out in the daylight.
In the daylight, you can see what Vegas is covering up.
It used to be a faux Arc de Triomphe.
Now the advertisements cover the Arc.
Lovely sculpture on the Arc covered by a restaurant’s ads.
Here is Las Vegas. Radio broadcasters have converged, so I’m here for Smarts Broadcast Systems to show our radio automation and traffic systems … here are some pix of the hardware, just ‘cuz.
Gotta love the massive heat sink!
Hi, tech!
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Smarts Broadcast Systems
I’m on a little road trip, attending a 90,000-person convention in Las Vegas. It’s put on by the National Association of Broadcasters, and this is the 25th anniversary of my first NAB convention in Las Vegas.
Which is kind of cool.
But I’m disgusted by something I’ve seen. And, yes, I’m in Vegas, but, no, it’s probably not what you think.
Case # 1. Driving through Barstow, I stopped for lunch at a restaurant. It could have been a Friday’s but it wasn’t. It could have been a Chevy’s, but it wasn’t. It was a Chili’s.
They were turning away business on a Sunday afternoon, because there was a 40 minute wait. However, they were holding an empty section in the restaurant, which could have dealt with their line easily. I don’t know why they felt it better to refuse business than seat paying customers, but I suspect it had something to do with cutting costs (salaries) instead of making money (more sales).
Case # 2. I am staying at the Paris, which routinely keeps large section of their buffet seating closed while keeping people in line for 20-30 minutes and more. I have no idea what they’re thinking, but they’re wrong.
Case # 3. I went to Le Burger Brasserie at Paris Las Vegas for dinner tonight, but I was told there was a 20 minute wait … but I could sit at the bar (party of one). No seats at the bar.
While walking back to the hostess station, I noted 2 empty tables in the restaurant as I walked out (I surveyed perhaps a third of the restaurant). I told the two (2) hostesses that the bar was full, but they had 2 tables open … they told me they couldn’t seat anyone there because it wasn’t those station’s turn to get new seatings. They showed me the waiting list of people waiting for when they COULD seat them … but they couldn’t fill the empty tables until some of the people left that the hostesses were waiting on.
I left.
Three cases, three restaurants. In each case, the operators felt it more important to restrict their business than to maximize sales. This may well be because they are “optimizing” their staff, and when they don’t properly anticipate the amount of business coming their way, then they just say no when the extra people ask to give them some money. Or maybe the operational staff doesn’t want to work harder than they were told to, and don’t have the initiative to solve the problem in the favor of the guest.
Don’t know, don’t care. But when a business turns away business for any reason … they don’t deserve it.
In this job market, the mere suspicion that this is a job-related cost-saving measure frustrates me.
As a wise man once said to me, these restaurant operators are starving, while sitting on a ham sandwich. And until they hire staff to cover the business they receive, may then continue to starve.
Just like the people they’re not serving.
Last spring, we took the slope down to dirt and replanted. This spring, our work has been rewarded.
The bees love our lavender!
This dusty miller has gone wild, and is full flower.
Up close on some of the dusty miller’s open flowers.
It’s one of my favorite native plants. What a wacky little thing this is!
The Scarlet Columbine, Aquilegia formosa, is from the buttercup family. It’s also known as Western columbine, Crimson columbine or Red columbine. This is the first flower from a plant that we put in the ground last fall … but you can see many more are about to burst. It’s a favorite of humming birds and bees … you can see all of the pollen – and the bug – in this mature blossom. Can’t wait for the bigger show … and when the plant is 3′ tall, it will look great in the front yard!
“To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”
and
“A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
“Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation.”
and
“Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.”
– John F Kennedy
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
– Calvin Coolidge
“Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.”
– Franklin Roosevelt, photo by Elias Goldensky, 1933.
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Mixing Morals with Education?
I learned a new word this week: Promposal. I may not have known how to do an over-the-top invitation in 1974, but I certainly did have a sense of style. A bad sense, but a sense, nonetheless.
Who among us did not suffer in school? It’s part of our right of passage. Several school stories came to me this week, and I thought they were worth a look.
Avoid The Bouncing Ball
Dodgeball has been banned in a New Hampshire school district, as that game was found to be inappropriate. No longer will students be subject to “human targeting” in this “physically aggressive” activity. And yes, yes it was.
Wasn’t it great, though?
The High School Barber
There’s a Jesuit school in Kansas City that will begin drug testing this fall. It seems they have a barber on their teaching staff, and they will take snips of hair from randomly selected students. That hair will then be tested to see if they are engaging in any activities from binge drinking to smoking PCP. The test examines consumption over the last 90 days, apparently.
Go to school, get a hair cut … get counseling if you’re on the wrong path.
Fascinating what people do to high school students, isn’t it?
WATCH THIS VIDEO
Seriously, this is a fabulously great video done by the student choir at Highland Senior High School in Pocatello, Idaho.
Love this video. I hope the kids – who did this video in one long 8-minute shot – had as much fun as it looked like they had! Watch them scramble from scene to scene as the camera keeps moving.
Watch it, here.
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Dodging The Ball
Making The Cut
We used Sol de Mexico Reposado with this recipe. It’s one of my favorites … but the family prefers Don Celso Reposado.
We’re still in search of The Perfect Margarita. And we have a renewed sense of purpose. We recently found The Best Margarita in Los Angeles … at Money Pancho’s in Camarillo. Go there and have the Cadillac Margarita with Marquez de Valencia Reposado tequila … and then you’ll understand how important it is that we achieve our goal of making The Perfect Margarita.
I’d hoped to finish this honorable quest last year, but we ran out of steam. It’s work to squeeze all of those limes! Yesterday, however, I flexed the muscles, got out the old reamer, and had at it. Velda cooked carnitas, and we had a great meal.
At the end, Little Girl asked, “Am I making English?” Methinks the Margaritas were good enough to do their job! Here’s our amended recipe, still a work in progress, but definitely the current state of the art.
Margarita Mix
- 3 cups fresh squeezed lime juice
- 1 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
- 3/4 cup agave nectar (to taste; we went slightly heavier than 3/4 cup)
Make a large quantity of mix to these proportions. Blend. Make sure the agave nectar has gone into solution; it’s a very slow pour out of the measuring cup.
Cadillac Margarita
- 3-1/2 oz Reposado tequila
- 2 oz Margarita Mix
- 1 oz Grand Marnier
Serve on the rocks after shaken, or blended. Salt the rim of your glass, garnish with a lime wedge.
The BerryRitas used Lunazul Blanco, which is very good … and less expensive than a good Reposado tequila. Great for well drinks & blends like a BerryRita.
Add frozen raspberries instead of ice if you’d prefer a BerryRita. Sugar the rim of your glass.
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Tequila
Results: The First Big Taste Test
Orange Liqueur Taste Test
