Visit to Mecca

Last week I had a training class in New York so I made my first pilgrimage to B&H Photo, a gigantic store from which I would like one of everything, please. I couldn't believe how many people were crammed in there, both customers and staff. What an operation. The warehouse is apparently upstairs — the salespeople type your order into the computer, and a bucket lift brings your bundle out of the ceiling and rolls it across a system of rollers to the checkout. This photo was taken with a $900 wide angle that I fitted to my camera during just one of my turns at the sales desk. I also checked out the NYC Apple Store, which is basically a giant glass cube on the street. Inside the door is a glass spiral staircase that leads you under street level to the store. Sweet. Don't go there to buy a computer, though. There are probably 100 Macs on display, and every single one is occupied by a teenager sponging free e-mail.

Wide Open

Lens test with borrowed Nikkor 50mm f/1.8, shot at maximum aperture (wide open). Her ears are only a couple inches away but have a lovely blur. Dear Santa, it's around $100. Nerd-filtered caption: here's a nice picture of Claire.

Up Periscope

This is Claire's latest move. Normally she's four-on-the-floor, crawling everywhere. Now she's started this thing where she gets up on her hind legs like a groundhog to get a better view.

Got Toast?

Normally I'd worry about my 2-year-old eating lots of sugar. Since so much jam stays on the outside, I figure this is OK.

Four Generations

We're back from Canadian vacation, visiting with Grandma and Grand-dad. While there we also saw Joanie's grandmother and got the four generation chart in photons. They have bad traffic around Toronto, even at the playground, as you can see in the second shot.

Rock And Roll

Tonight in Cleveland I hit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. No photos are allowed in the museum area, otherwise you'd be seeing here Michael Jackson's sparkly glove or John Lennon's spectacles. Before you turn in your camera you can snap a few things, like the decorated cars from U2's Zoo TV tour.

Jeff at Jake

I'm in Cleveland presenting at the Public Affairs conference, and tonight was a beautiful evening to visit to one of my favorite downtown ballparks, Jacobs Field. The Indians' 3-1 loss to Texas — unfortunate. Peanut hulls in my shoes — priceless.

Macro

Tiger lilies are a sure sign of summer in New York. You see them springing up on roadsides everywhere you go. When Malcolm was a little kid we taught him what these were called and he would yell out "tiger lilies!" every time we went out — the kid's always been loud. Here's also an interesting view of Queen Anne's Lace. Can you tell I'm reading a book on macro photography?

Weekend Outdoors

I got a new telephoto zoom lens this week and finally got a chance to take it out for a spin. The first picture is Carter at the new and improved Indian Meadows Park through the forest behind our house, it now has a giant new playground with two new three-story slides. Joanie said Carter was too little to go on them; of course, this was the first thing he went on once we arrived. The second shot is from Malcolm and my expedition of the Indian Kill that runs through our neighborhood. We went past our previous farpoint and discovered a new waterfall today.

Claire Crawls

No, it's not a picture of her crawling, but the news flash is she's getting into everything these days. This is why we keep her on our laps: so we know where she is. Claire can also now pull herself up to a standing position. Don't let that cute baby face fool you — her options for destruction have increased dramatically.

A Visit to Ben & Jerry's

Road trip! This week we went to Vermont to visit the Ben & Jerry's headquarters. To get to central Vermont from New York you have to get around Lake Champlain on our eastern border. We went the fun way — by ferry across the lake. After taking the tour and learning how ice cream is made we became honorary quality assurance agents and sampled the Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream. Six thumbs up! They actually have someone on staff who samples the ice cream ... he eats a pint a day out of different containers; he gets a free gym membership and regular cholesterol checks. Joanie is posing in front of the Ice Cream Wall of Fame, which shows the top ten best selling flavors.

Peonies

Every spring two bushes of these pop up in the backyard. We do nothing; they just show up, and we drop them in a vase. It smells up the entire room. In other gardening news, our fabulous neighbor tilled a patch for us and Joanie planted some vegetables this week. The deer and varmints ate our last garden attempt, so this time we're striking back with tech: a motion sensor-sprinkler combo to safely shoo them.

Exposure

Since getting the new camera I have been immersed in photography reading. Don't bother going to the library — I have all the books out. I was doing some reading on exposure compensation, and fired off some test pictures. Here's one from the shady porch where I added light to the exposure. See the eyeball reflection in the larger shot.

Mother's Day 2007

This may be the first photo ever of our expanded family. The logistics behind getting everybody in the same location at one time are staggering. As you can see, everyone still is not cooperating. Let's just say this was the least bad shot of the session.

Nikon D40 Arrives

New hardware alert! After attending Photoshop World in Boston last month and sitting through a bunch of classes about photography (who knew?) I took the plunge. This is just the baby Nikon, but I can already tell it's going to be fun. This takes me back to my salad days of college photography class and f/stops and light meters ... glorious, with no stinky darkroom. This was shot in the backyard, things are finally starting to bloom here. I love the blur of the flowers in the background.

Favorite Spots

This is one of Claire's favorite places to be. And her Dad's.

Old Friends

Tonight I installed our new scanner/printer and needed a photo to try out. Here's one that was on our fireplace mantle, it's Madeleine and Malcolm rocking together about a decade ago.

There once was a girl who had two teeth...

...with none on the top and two underneath.

Little M&M

Here's the photo from about 10 years ago of Malcolm & Madeleine that I tried to recreate with C&C below. We're very happy they weren't all this age at the same time!

Happy Half-a-Birthday

Claire turned 6 months old on March 8. She has her first tooth coming in and she likes to slobber (see her sweater). This shot of the two little kids together recreates a picture I took of Mad & Malc about 10 years ago in Bath that I keep on my desk at work. It's the desktop image for our computer right now and Carter likes to look at it.