While Tim was away, I wanted to change all the photos in her office. I thought about changing them all to photos of my lovely visage, but since I might not be there to watch her rip them all down, I decided against that idea. Instead I went through my ever growing photo collection and found some ones of the family to replace the current ones.
Its amazing how printing is really pretty inexpensive. I'm printing out 25 8x10's, 8 12x8's and 13 5x7's, and I think the total was about $40. All of these are not going in her office. I want to hang some at home, but I need to buy a lot of frames. I had a few 16x20's printed before, and they are in the process of getting framed. At least that was the case a few months ago.
I am thinking that I want a nice photo printer, but its just on the long list of wants. The good news is that I am probably going to be buying some studio lights in the next week or so. That's not going to be a cheap endeavor.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Sitting Alone
Today I got to try out my new remote timer for my camera. The remote allows me to take a number of pictures over time.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Cincinnati in Green
This is a shot I took when I was in Cincinnati this summer. I used the tree to frame the city.
I played around with making this an HDR image, but I was happier with editing it in Lightroom.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Thailoop
The Thai word for photograph is thailoop. I'm not sure what the correct "English" spelling for it is, but thailoop is easy for me to remember.
Today I'm going to take some photos around the Thai Parliament. We could see it from the zoo on Sunday, so I thought it might be a nice place to take some photos. We'll find out.
Today I'm going to take some photos around the Thai Parliament. We could see it from the zoo on Sunday, so I thought it might be a nice place to take some photos. We'll find out.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Long Weekend
The kids had a four day weekend this past week. We played it fairly low key on Thursday and Saturday. On Friday, Yaow and I took the kids to Dreamworld. Recently, we've had great luck with both the weather and the crowds. On Friday, however, the tide turned a bit. It rained for about forty-five minutes and it was fairly crowded.
Still, the kids had fun. We also ran into one of Aleena's classmates from last year, Alexander, and his family. We left early, as I had planned on taking some photographs with Sine that evening.
The photoshoot didn't end up working out. I got to SC Plaza at about 4:30, but she had to work until almost 6:00 p.m. Unfortunately, the light had fled, so we decided to scrap it.
Today (Sunday), I took the kids to the Dusit Zoo. Tim is out of country and Yaow was off today, so I asked Sine if she'd like to go, and she agreed. This worked about fabulously, as Nalin and Aleena absolutely adore Pee Sine The kids add the Pee title as a matter of respect. Its like referring to an older brother or sister. Although he might admit it, Jacob actually likes Sine as well.
We picked Sine up at SC Plaza and headed for the zoo. Less than five minutes into the drive, all three kids start saying how Sine is my girlfriend and we are going to get married. I'm just shaking my head laughing, as is Sine.
The really funny part is that a lot of Thai people who see us together might think the same thing. Let me be very clear. Sine and I are friends. We are not intimate, nor have we done anything in to suggest otherwise. The reason is that the sight of a beautiful young Thai woman walking with an old, fat foreigner man is all too common here. And in a great many cases, they are boyfriend and girlfriend; at least for the night.
I ask Sine about it sometimes. "What do people thing when they see us together?"
"That we are boyfriend and girlfriend," she replies without hesitation or concern.
Last week we were taking a cab together back to SC Plaza. SC Plaza is also the bus station for all the buses that go to the South of Thailand. When she told the driver where to go, he asked her (in Thai) if we were going together on holiday. Most of the time the answer would have been "duh, of course." I pretended that we were by asking Sine in Thai if we were going to her mom's house and if they had a water buffalo. She kind of glared at me and then laughed.
After hearing my children's predictions of my impending second marriage, we managed to make it to the zoo. The Dusit Zoo was incredibly affordable. I think the entire cost for all five of us, including parking, was less than seven dollars. The tram cost another two dollars.
The Dusit Zoo doesn't have the largest selection of animals that I've seen in a Zoo. It was pretty hot and we might have missed some of the zoo, so maybe we missed some of the big attractions.
In any case, the kids had a great time. In addition to seeing the animals and riding the tram, they got to ride the paddle boats and eat lunch at KFC.
Aleena at the Zoo
Today we went to the Dusit Zoo. Nalin, Aleena and Sine were in the train car behind Jacob and I, and I took this photo of Aleena. I'm really pleased with it.
Friday, September 18, 2009
My Son
Jacob and I went outside for twenty minutes and took some photos. We worked on portraits where he wasn't giving his photograph smile.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Photo Issues
I temporarily changed the permissions on my Flickr account to restrict viewing, and for some reason they are unavailable on my blog after changing them back. I'm not quite sure why. I'll take a look as time allows.
Monument Valley at Sunrise
I went through my Monument Valley photos again. I've posted most of them on Flickr by now. I have few more to post, after that, the pickings are kind of slim.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Yet Another
I really like this photo of Sine. I don't love the sunglasses, but I love the pose and colors.
I've been posting a lot of photos of my shoots with Sine lately. We've gone out twice, and I think between the two shoots, I've gotten about one thousand photos.
A big part of the reason that there are so many shots is that I usually shoot multiple exposures of the same shot by bracketing. I will take one photo that the camera things is correctly exposed, then one slightly under exposed then one slightly over exposed.
I do this for a few reasons If I'm shooting landscapes or non-humans, I'll do multiple exposures to make HDR images, which are usually very vibrant. While I typically do not do HDR with portraits, I bracket because the camera does not always get the exposure perfectly. By getting three shots, I have a much better chance that one will be to my liking.
I've been posting so many photos of Sine on Flickr that one of my Flickr contacts asked me if I was only doing portraits now. Its really just a matter of timing and convenience. One nice thing about photographing Sine is that I don't have to start shooting at 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. to catch her at her most beautiful.
Webelos Wobble
Today we had our first Webelos meeting for Pack 701 Den 5. The kids had fun changing a tire, washing the car, checking the oil and the tire pressure.
At the end of the meeting I took this photo. The scouts are from left to right: Benjamin, Jacob, John, Johnny, Allan and Adam.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
My Young Apprentice
Aleena wanted to go out with me while I took a photo of my new reflector. After I showed her the remote control, she wanted to take a photo of herself.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Homework Fun
Nalin's class is using the concept of "word chunks" this year. Its pretty simple really. A chunk might be "en", "an", "un", etc. Each week they have to identify at least forty words with a specific word chunk as part of their homework. They are free to use sources like family members, books, the internet, etc. I think the only two restrictions are they must spell the word correctly and know what it means.
Last week Nalin had about forty-five words. The classmate with the most did just under sixty. This week, Nalin decided that she wanted to "win" by getting the most words. The word chunk was "en". We had a lot of fun working on it. At times I would say something like "are you evEN thinking of a word?" "Are you going to eat the ENtire piece." At first she quickly and eagerly wrote the word down from my hint. Then later, she would kind of look at me and sigh with that "daddy!" look. Of course, then she got the notebook out and jotted down the word. It was as if she was thinking "I don't want to write it down, but now that you said it I want to."
She was going to stop at one hundred, but I egged her on. "What if Dirk does one hundred and one. All the work and you'd still be in second." She ended up getting one hundred and fifty-seven words. The next highest was one hundred.
The best part wasn't that she had the most, its that we both had a lot of fund doing it. She put in a lot of effort and deserved to be proud of her ENdeavors.
Last week Nalin had about forty-five words. The classmate with the most did just under sixty. This week, Nalin decided that she wanted to "win" by getting the most words. The word chunk was "en". We had a lot of fun working on it. At times I would say something like "are you evEN thinking of a word?" "Are you going to eat the ENtire piece." At first she quickly and eagerly wrote the word down from my hint. Then later, she would kind of look at me and sigh with that "daddy!" look. Of course, then she got the notebook out and jotted down the word. It was as if she was thinking "I don't want to write it down, but now that you said it I want to."
She was going to stop at one hundred, but I egged her on. "What if Dirk does one hundred and one. All the work and you'd still be in second." She ended up getting one hundred and fifty-seven words. The next highest was one hundred.
The best part wasn't that she had the most, its that we both had a lot of fund doing it. She put in a lot of effort and deserved to be proud of her ENdeavors.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Meet Sine
Today I went and did a photo shoot with Sine (pronounced like Psi). Sine works with SC Plaza (Tim's company) and agreed be my model for the day. This was my first time doing this, but I was fairly pleased with the results.
We went to a temple and park that was not far from their office. I had a great time and was pleased with many of the images. Sine is not a professional model, but she is very easy to work with and pretty photogenic. She seemed to have a good time as well, and we are planning on doing it again in the next few weeks.
Here are some more photos from the shoot. I'll be posting more as I process them.
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