My good friend Tanner. He is looking at his dog, brock -- you may remember from an earlier post. Thus the cutey face. One of my best friends. Good man, and I like the picture.

Others

We also took pretty pictures in the Austin botanical gardens. The light was not that great. But I got some workable shots. So not just karate shots. Awwww...

hiiiiiAAAAHHH!! KARATE!

These totally awesome images, I took the other day. This family had all recently become black belts in karate. The mother wanted some pictures to commemorate the passing of this event. It was really fun. There were people all over this park. Guys on skate boards riding through our shot, girls with kites in the shot. Windy as it could be, and still take pictures. My light stands were falling over. Luckily Zach was there to catch them. Actually my sb 800 took a fall all the way down from the 6ft light stand. Rough. Has happened before. Love you Nikon. Anyway, here is the set-up:


sb 800 camera left. Sb 600 camera right. Zach on guard. Me a little bit down the hill so I am level with the subject on the bench.



High Speed Sync Flash on manual, full to 1/2 power, group A. Ambient exposure 2-3 stops down from the metered exposure. Add the light with flash. Commander mode. Nikkor 24-120mm. Love you Nikon Creative Lighting System.



HiiiiiiAAAHHH!!!



And Zach.....Whats up?

I took these of the kids. More funny ones to come. I love them!

Thanks for looking!

A fleeting moment

I took this the other day in the middle of the shoot for Austin Montessori School. I was waiting for the next group of children to come to where I was set up. I was taking pictures right in front of this mountain laurel bush, and this butterfly was flitting about. It was quite nice to chase a butterfly around in the wind for only a few moments until the children arrived and I was working again.

Hey ladies...I have a bear on my shirt.



...Umm. Both your parents had curly hair.



cough...cough. Mmm Hm.




These are some of the pictures I took today for Austin Montessori School. I have finished two classes. I have eight left. These are not the best and not the worst. Except this particular one at the end. I think she is beautiful. Taking pictures of children is a lot if fun, but quite demanding. I have never taken pictures on this scale before (300+ students). I am shooting my Nikon D300, and a manual focus Nikkor 85mm f2.0. I love the lens. I have my sb-800 camera right and sb-600 camera left. The sb-600 is stopped down 1 stop. The camera is in commander mode TTL and Auto FP high speed sync. I love you Nikon! I was mostly shooting at 400 ISO, f2.0-4.0, shutter speed 1/500-1/1600 (depending on the amount of sun, it was partly cloudy and windy). I think this might be the first post were I really have broken down the tech. I will have to post all the really funny cute mess ups.

The death of a chicken, elementary rock stars, and KITES!

Last week the Terra classroom lost a member. One of the chickens we keep died. This chicken became food for a roaming animal. I imagine a raccoon, possum, or cat. It happened over the long weekend and was cleaned up by the time the children returned. Despite this, they noticed within a day that the chicken was missing. This hen's name was grace to most of the children.

Needless to say, many of the children were upset and filled with emotion over the death of this animal. It was very interesting to see the different reactions the children had to this experience. I know that a handful of the children have had grandparents as well as family pets die. Maybe not so coincidentally, these were not the children that seemed very involved in the Grace's death.

There were several separate memorials that took place among the children. Since Grace became food and was cleaned up, there was no body to bury. The children wanted to know what had happened to her and to have something that they could have a ceremony with. I explained the reality of the situation to them. So because of this, many small offerings were made. A grave site was prepared, in and around which they buried and placed their offerings and items. These included stones, plants Grace liked, chicken feed, water, feathers (possibly actually Grace's). These were among others.

It was a good opportunity for our class to discuss the event of Grace's death, and as such speak to an aspect of life that we are too often shielded from. It gave us the opportunity to speak about the natural food chain and responsibility and gave the children an opportunity to create healthy ways of coping with these events. I have recently become much closer to death and dying, and the grief that can follow, because of this I felt it was eye-opening to see the way these children reacted to this situation.




caption: "Please do not touch this candle or the flame.
This is Grace's candle of new life.
note: keep your body 4 cm away from the candle"

"Candle of New Life"

The light of new life. Birth AND Death is new life.
The in and the out. Inhale and exhale...and the time between? That is the question.



Grave site of Grace and Ferdinand. (Ferdinand died last year)


However, these events pass quickly. later that week some children brought in some ELECTRIC instruments. Yeah!



Rock stars already. They are actually very talented, as well as many others in the class, with music.


And this weekend we flew kites!!!! Yay!!

These are all of my sister flying a stunt kite that I have had for years. Good day.









Thank you for looking everybody!