Invisible Mom

So I've been working on my family album/coffee table book for 2007 and there is an alarming trend emerging: I'm not in it! Apparently I was hogging the camera so much last year that there are almost no pictures of me to include in last year's album. Someday Niall will wonder if his mom was missing for a year when he was little.

I have a ton of pictures of Jude and Niall.

Is it too late for a New Year's resolution? I will make sure there is photographic evidence of my existence this year!

Guess Who Slept Through The Night?

Me! I did, and I woke up late, missed the vanpool, and now I'm late for work. Luckily I don't have any meetings this morning so it's ok. In fact it's worth it because I will be coherent at work today - yay! I can't remember the last time I had a full, uninterrupted 7 hours of sleep. Not since before Thanksgiving when sick season started in the Swales household. Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention that Niall slept through the night as well. In fact he's still asleep now! Luckily he woke me up at 6:20 before he fell back asleep again.

We've been transitioning him to "the little bed", a twin mattress on the floor right next to our bed. It's been rough at times, but it's getting easier. Hopefully there are more nights of uninterrupted sleep in my very near future!

Here's mommy's little hero:

Gotta run, I'm late for work!

Last night Jennifer Loomis blew my mind!

Before you get the wrong idea, let me explain. Jude and I went to a fantastic party last night! It was a fortieth birthday party for a very good friend, complete with a wonderful catering, and a hysterical, touching, and tearful roast of the guest of honor. Jude and I had even found a babysitter, so we were feeling very happy about life!

I had been asked to take pictures to document the event, which I always love to do. My inner drama was that Jennifer Loomis was there, and she's likely to see at least some of my pictures from the party so of course even more than usual I want to be at my best. She did my maternity shoot just over two years ago, not only is she an amazing photographer, but she's a total blast!

So I'm taking pictures at this party, and just between us, it was not going well. Murphy's Law and inexperience are an annoying combination. My flash batteries died at a key moment, there were very high ceilings which made my normal bounce flash technique ineffective, and then someone decided to dim the lights. In spite of all this I did manage to get some decent shots, just not with the consistency I was hoping for.

Sometimes opportunities come when things are not going well, and this was one of those times. After the lights went down I tried to take a few dancing shots, but they were all very uninspiring so I put the camera away figuring that I was done shooting for the evening. I started talking to Jennifer about taking pictures of people when they're dancing, and how they always look terrible. It seemed like great insight at the time, amateur photographer to photographer kind of thing. But she said what you can do is use rear shutter sync. Huh?

I had no idea what that was, so she explained how it worked. The idea is to capture the ambient light by using a long exposure, then the flash fires just before the shutter closes and freezes the action. This allows you to capture some of the movement with fun light effects. If it's done right you still have some of the shot in focus. She said my 580EX could do it, so I asked her to show me how to set it up. She coached me through setting it up and we practiced taking some shots. As a an amateur, how often do you get a chance like this? All I can say is wow, I was so excited!

I think this technique is going to change my life! Don't get me wrong, it will take some practice. I took a ton of blurry pictures last night. I had a few minutes to practice tonight so I took a few more shots to make sure I don't forget anything. Here are a couple of my favorite shots from the party:




Here is one of my practice shots of Niall:

Crazy Week!

I've been trying to post something for the last several days, but this is one of those weeks and I'm behind on everything. Friends I haven't called back in three days, email sitting in my inbox, work left undone, and a good friend's newborn I still haven't managed to visit. Not to mention preschool photo projects and fundraisers, my own family album/coffee table book for 2007, and on top of all that we have three birthday parties this weekend! Thank god one of them is for grown-ups. What a week!

Candle Light Dinner for Three

Sometimes things don't turn out according to plan, but our Valentine's Day was just perfect this year. We are all sick AGAIN so we lit some candles and ordered take-out. Happy Valentine's Day!

The Year in Photos: Coffee Table Book

Instead of a family album or scrapbook, I thought it would be fun to have a really nice coffee table book instead. Blurb makes custom 11x 13 hard cover books, fabric bound with a dust sleeve that are just beautiful. Perfect for this project.

For Christmas I decided to make one of these coffee-table photo books for my sister-in-law's family. I had taken so many photos at family events, just hanging out, and then a family portrait session, I literally had hundreds of great shots of them. Here's the cover:


I used the photos that I had been taking all year as I was learning photography. Of course I also used many of the shots from the family portrait session we did in November, to see those check out that blog post. Here are a few of my favorite shots:












This was really easy using Blurb, and everything turned out great. The hardest part is picking which photos to include! The quality of the book was exceptional, and the photos looked gorgeous. They absolutely loved the book, and now I'm working on one of our family.