Merry Christmas!

This was taken as an impromptu portrait at the Crown Center Plaza in Kansas City when we were shopping with some friends from Waterville...Note the hesitancy to clear the background (thanks, young lady in the green shirt) and the hesitancy to get Kylie out of her cozy warm car seat on a cold night. But anyway, best wishes of happiness and joy to you! Peace-The Vores.

Attempts at Christmas Portraiture

Taking indoor, portrait-style photographs of people is a complex task even for photographers that own thousands of dollars worth of artificial lighting. Taking indoor, portrait-style photographs of people without that kind of lighting is even more difficult, because you have so much less flexibility in manipulating the light that is landing on your subject. Here's my attempt at Christmas portraits of the kids...

Kylie did pretty well for her pictures. We turned all the lights off in our living room and then took a floor-type torch lamp and aimed it at her like a canon for the main light. I used the external flash on my camera for fill light to avoid any harsh shadows on her face. Unfortunately there is little to no lighting on the background (the Christmas tree), and Photoshop only got me so far in recovering some of that detail. I was pretty pleased with these pictures, considering my tools. It must have looked pretty funny to see how we were tearing apart the living room to take these pictures.

The same night I attempted portraits of Lukas and Eli, but they weren't dressed in Christmas outfits (Kylie was the target subject and we took pictures of Lukas and Eli just to take them). The shots of Lukas and Eli really struggled in one aspect, and I couldn't figure it out...and then I realized their heads were blending into the background too much. A fancy photographer with fancy photography lighting might have a small lamp that shoots down onto the subject's head to give it some light and keep it from blending into the background, especially if the background is dark. Usually we don't realize this because in our homes the light is always 'from the ceiling,' but when taking portraits you want the majority of the light coming from 'the side' so it is shining on the face, not the head. By making light come from the side you avoid giving your subject harsh shadows, especially around their nose and their eyes. Imagine if the light were water, and if you dumped it on the subject's head from up above, some spots of the face (under the eyes and nose) would not get wet. If you shoot the 'water' or the light from the side like from a water gun, all the spots of the face get lit. But then the problem presents itself if ALL your light is coming from the front-nothing is setting off the hair, and the subject blends in. After the first night of Kylie portrait-shooting, we put the boys in Christmas clothes and I made an adjustment to my poor-man's photography studio. My improvised solution here was to unscrew 3 of the 4 light bulbs in the ceiling fan light just above Lukas' head. That gave enough light from 'up top' to keep him from blending in too badly to the Christmas tree behind him, and a bit of dodge and burn work in Photoshop also helped.

The problem here is similar with Eli, the arm on the left is really blending into the background. There's also some big shadow space on the left side of his face, but its manageable. As before, the background Christmas tree is pretty dark.

Oh well! I had fun making my makeshift photography studio even if the results are less than perfect. Merry Christmas!

First Comes One, Then Comes the Other...

Eli was wandering around the house the other day munching on an apple. I mentioned to Lindsay, "Hey, that apple looks like it has mange...remember when...?" She knew exactly what memory I was inquiring about, and so she quickly got Eli into this homemade hat and scarf to take a picture with his mangy apple. Enjoy the comparison.

Eli, December 2009

Lukas, October 2006

Ho-Ho---....Oh just go home.

Santa Soup Day in Waterville is a fairly big affair, a large community event. It is something run by the Chamber of Commerce, and naturally, Santa is there. It is also something that we attended in the early afternoon, which is also known around these parts as "Eli's grumpy time." Of course, he was quite shy and not in the mood to sit on that big red guy's lap, so he chose to pout. This is the result. I consider it epic.

The Many Faces of Eli

At this point, we're not sure if it is because Eli is 2 or because he's a ham (but it is probably both)...but he sure does put on a show for the camera. He's always had a pretty diverse collection of faces he makes when he's in the mood, and here's a good walk through them.

The "What'chyou talkin bout?" face.

What's a 2 year old without a "Tongue All The Way Out" face?

The "Cheeser Smile" face.

And finally, the "I'm So Sweet You're Going To Buy Me A Car, Right?" face.

Street Band Boys!

This is a video from a while ago, but a pretty funny video of the boys 'creating' a band set from the toys they had on hand. Enjoy!

Birthday Boy

Lukas is 5 years old. That impossible reality came to be on December 10th. He had a funfetti cake made special by his Grandma Judy in the shape of a candy cane. He thought it was pretty sweet.

From Grandpa Keeef, Lukas got a full 'Army-guy' outfit. There's a few more faces of him wearing this outfit in our December web album. 

From his Uncle Kyle and Aunt Kristy he got a pretty sweet looking pair of cowboy boots.  This was a matter of some envy for Lukas because Eli inherited 2 pairs of cowboy boots from one of my nephews, but Lukas had none.  Thanks to Kyle and Kristy, that's no longer the case!  Lukas was excited enough about this gift that he insisted on wearing them to school the first chance he got.

From Grandma Jan and Grandpa Bob came an Imaginext submarine exploration toy.  This is a pretty cool toy, and both boys have had lots of fun 'exploring' the deep sea of our house with it.  They don't know it, but they're getting more of these toys for Christmas. 

How Not To Sled

I didn't know this until the last week or so, but apparently Vore's cant sled.  You didn't know that either?  I know, right? Shocker!

Here's Lukas and Eli attempting to sled behind my parent's house in Kansas City.  All goes well until the end, when Lukas ditches and Eli, well...ditches face-first.  He wasn't very happy about the outcome.



The same day, my dear beloved mother took it upon herself to present us with her own interpretation of the 'face plant.'  Quality comedy, just remember, the Vore Family Blog is always good for quality comedy:

A closer look:

 

Cookies!

It is that time of year, time to decorate cookies. A favorite tradition of our children.

Lukas has a tendency to basically dump the sprinkles on the cookies. Can you tell which of these he decorated?

Eli at some point gave up on decorating and started finger painting....mmmm....finger painting with icing, what could be better?

That's our cheeser!

Snow Days, Part II

In case you had not heard, there was a bit of a blizzard out here in Kansas a couple weeks ago. Our first sledding trip in Waterville post-blizzard was quite fun, a big sled run on inner tubes. Family-face-handslap-moment: we forgot to take the camera. Oh well. Later in the week we traveled to Kansas City with some of our friends from out here and stayed at my parent's house for a winter shopping trip to the big city. The trip was great, and so was the sledding behind my parent's house.

Eli was very excited about eating snow.

The kids were pretty good about pulling their sleds back up the hill. Eli wasn't as excited about sledding, he was a little discouraged with the snow spray up into his face. He had a real blast walking up and down the hill though...Yes, I find it odd as well.

The girl on the sled here is the daughter of our friends from out here in Waterville. She had a pretty good time in the city, especially with the sledding.