Refined Finger Painting!

Today I decided to take the kids outside and let them finger paint.  I had this grand idea that they would try and paint an actual object or picture.  Instead they decided to smear the paint all over the paper as soon as I put a glob on the paper.  Nonetheless I think they had fun, at least they got to make a mess, which kids love to do, and it was outside, keeping the inside a little cleaner. I also  took a group shot, knowing that I can use as blackmail in about 10 years.  I had about a 5 sec window to capture this before I knew it would all fall apart.  This is my best photo and as you can tell that assuming I had a 5 sec window was a mistake.  Lilly was naked and Luke was not a happy camper!  This was the best of the bunch I remind you, enough said.  Anyway below are some of the pics from the activity.

Jolly Roger

Need some booty?  Pirate treasure!

Comparisons #2

This is my big buddy in 2 different photos, about 2 years apart.  It is amazing how fast they turn from a baby into a little boy.

comparisons

This is 2 photos of my kids, one is from Sept 08 and one is from this May. They have grown up so much in such a short amount of time.

Waterworks

It is finally raining!  Hopefully it will continue and put out all the brush fires around town.  I wanted to catch the rain hitting the deck and this is what I got.  It kind of looks like little fireworks, therefore waterworks

Turtle Power

My princess and big buddy were outside with the neighbor kids when my daughter ran in all excited about something. Come to find out the turtle from a few days ago had returned.  The kids were so interested and loved to touch his shell and hold him, with adult supervision of course.  This is the busiest turtle I have ever seen, not sure where he is going every day, but he seems to be off doing something, eventually making his way back to the pond.  

Bird of Prey

Predator

This bird is my arch enemy.  As soon as we got to the beach we were swarmed by birds trying to get our food.  They even punctured our watermelon  that was wrapped up and started to eat it!  When you eat a man's watermelon you are crossing the line!  I should sick Brian Fellows on this bird!

Panama Chuggy

Looking mighty dapper with hat and shovel in hand.  He could go into a J Peterman catalog.

Surf Fail

Can you guess what is wrong with this picture??

Water + Surfboard - waves = SURF FAIL

Backyard Wildlife #2

Backyard wildlife

I don't have a very interesting town or beautiful mountains around me so your going to have to settle with the wildlife in my backyard.  No it's not horses or deer, it's bugs, sorry.

Maybe he's a prince

"Kiss Me"

Wedding flowers 3

Zoom-Zoom! New Lens 55-200mm!

I was really excited to get this new 55-200mm lens.  It was well reviewed here so I couldn't wait to get my hands on it.  It has been some time but I decided to put up a few examples of the difference between 55mm, which was the max zoom of my old lens, and 200mm.  So here goes:

Here is my chuggy at 55

and here he is at 200mm:

Obviously Chuggy was overly excited about my new lens!  I love getting a nice close shot of the kids expression and trying to capture the moment.  I also loved a blurred background so that the focused image stands out, but I could never do that before without getting in the kids face.  Now I can be far away and get a really natural shot of their expressions.

Here is another one at 55mm:

and again at 200mm:

This lens is great in being able to get a picture of what you want.  At 55mm you can't even tell there is a bird in the photo, but at 200 it is much more obvious.  Below is an even better example

55mm:

and again at 200mm:

Obviously with animals that will run away if you get too close, or even children that run away, it is beneficial to stay at a distance, but it makes it hard to get a good shot.  This new lens allows me to zoom in on the object or animal or child and get a nice clean shot and get the blurred background effect that I want.  

Anyway it has been a lot of fun to play with the lens and hopefully it will improve my photos.  The only problem is when your in a tight area or standing close to something you want to take a pictur of, you either have to back away or you just can't get the shot without changes lenses.  

Wedding Flowers 2

Wedding Flowers #1

This was from the same wedding over the weekend, I really liked this display, ver simple and it was very nice.  I had to get a shot of it.

Mother of the bride

This is from a wedding I went to over the weekend.  We got there late so I had pretty bad seats, but I was able to use my new 200mm zoom!  Anyway I liked this pic of the mother of the bride lighting the candle.

Only in Apopka!

"Big man on a little bike"

I saw this man while driving to a wedding on Sunday.  Not sure why such a big man is driving such a little biker, and what convinced him that taking his shirt off was the best decision?  Anyway my wife and I had a good laugh.

Pumpkin Time