Saturday, May 13, 2006

The perfect picture


I'm always on the lookout for the perfect picture. I can't really say I'm that good at photography, but I find it interesting and I have enough invested in it that it's probably more than a hobby.

When Zachary was born, I parlayed his arrival into a new digital SLR, namely, a Nikon D70. It only made sense, since I had a decent sized investment in Nikon equipment. Since that time, I've taken over 5,000 pictures, probably 90% of them are of our little prince. And while I still take pictures with traditional slide film, especially on my Nikon F3HP, the beauty of digital is I get immediate feedback as well as the freedom to shoot at will and discard whatever I dislike.

Well, I had one of those Ansel Adams moments recently. It was on a Saturday evening behind our house, so we had the nice evening light. I just started taking a number of pictures of Zachary as he patrolled around our patio. And one of them just came out perfectly.

I did not do anything in Photoshop with this. I just thought the exposure, depth of field, white balance, and subject just came out perfectly. I have to admit - I did use a light meter (my Sekonic L-358), but I don't view that as cheating. It just helped me nail this one.

My little prince


About a week or two after our son's first birthday, he discovered his legs. And since that time, life has been completely different for all of us (especially my wife!). It's really such a treat to come home from work, where he'll essentially start doing laps around the house once I arrive. He definitely makes it all worth it.