Below you will find pages that utilize the taxonomy term “Samuel”
Scarlett Portraits (2021)
I made some portraits of Scarlett. I used the same setup as when I did Sam and Stella’s November portraits, except with the octobox on the left this time.
Sam and Stella Birthday Portraits
Somewhat without intention, I’ve ended up alternating portraits for the twins between outdoor portraits and indoor portraits. This year was time for indoor portraits. (Although, to be fair, if it hadn’t been freezing, I might have ended up breaking the tradition) Here’s the setup I used:
It’s a variant on a setup that has been very successful for me with portraits of the kids. I went back to a white background for the first time in a few years. The last time I used it with Scarlett I had an uneven white that looked horrendous to my eye and was a real pain in the butt to try and correct in Photoshop (or was it GIMP?). I never got it quite right and ended up sticking to the black background for a while. But I wanted to do something different. So this time I grabbed my two studio strobes (I believe they’re 100W strobes that someone got me as a present some 8 or so years ago) and threw them into umbrellas to make sure the light would hit the background evenly. With these lights I had to go to somewhere around 80% power in order to get a pure white background according to the spectrograph in camera. Then I posed the twins in front of those lights, so they needed a light for themselves. I used my old Canon 580EX inside of my gigantic octagon (I think it’s somewhere around 3 feet or more in diameter). I wanted to shoot at F8 to try and get the best chance of ensuring the twins would be in focus, so I had to push the 580EX to full power. After this session, I ended up buying a bracket so that next time I can throw my 430EX in there, too.
Sparklers for the 4th of July
Sparklers were an ever-present feature of my childhood 4th of July celebrations. This year we introduced the twins to sparklers (I’m pretty sure Scarlett has used them at least once before). They kids had a lot of fun and there were a couple burn-scares, but I think it was worth the slight parental anxiety. (Did our parents care? They seemed a lot more laize-faire about us with sparklers, but maybe they were just good at hiding their fears?) Took out the DSLR and introduced the kids to light painting. Scarlett had the winning light-painting photo that made it past the multiple discard passes.
Nocturnal Creatures
Sam (4 years old): Can I have a coloring page for a nocturnal creature?
Danielle: Can you give me an example of a nocturnal creature?
Sam: Vampires!
The Twins Recount their Day
A few days ago, I had the opportunity to ask the twins what they did that day while they were isolated from each other.
Stella: “We played LEGO and built a lot of cool things.”
Sam: “We went to Costco and then came right back home.”
Mind you, they both had the exact same day and did the exact same things. If I had to guess at why they focused on the things they did, I’d say that Sam’s answer was based on the fact that he likes to go out, especially to the park. So he was upset they’d left the house and hadn’t done anything he found fun. I’m not sure why Stella only focused on the LEGOs, but she is still playing with them a few days later, so maybe she was really happy to have new things to play with.
Coney Island Sept 2019
Over the years I’ve taken many, many photos of my kids at Coney Island. Lots of them have come out great. But I think this batch of photos is among the best photos I’ve taken of the kids at Coney Island thus far.
In some cases, it’s the expressions on the twins’ faces.
- I’m on a motorcycle!
- I see you!
- Yeah, I know how to use this
Other times, I succeeded in getting the perfect action shot.
Sam and Keyboard Layouts
Sam sat on my lap and looked at the keyboard on the desk. At first he tried to do the ABCs, but he was stymied by the QWERTY layout. So then he looked at the numbers. He started with 1 and counted up. As Scarlett did before him, he automatically said “10” when he got to the 0. I told him, “That’s not 10, that’s 0”. To which he replied, “Zero doesn’t belong here! It belongs here! [pointing to the beginning of the row of numbers]”.
Mack the Knife
Scarlett was watching Peg + Cat which has an episode called Mack the Fork. So she asked me if that was a song and I told her that Mack the Knife was a song and she asked me to play it. Then the following exchange with my 3.5 year old happened:
Samuel: What’s this song?
Me: Mack the Knife
Samuel: The knife can talk?
Danielle and Sam flying a kite
Back in March it was an incredibly windy day so we decided to go to the park to fly a kite. I also took my DSLR because it’d been some time since I’d used it and thought I might get some good shots. This one was my favorite one and I thought it really captured a special moment.
January Snow Day
Since becoming a parent it’s been a common theme of the blog that I find it fascinating experiencing the kids getting older and, therefore, more able to process the world around them. This winter was the first time the twins could be out in the snow for more than just a few minutes. Not only were they more able to weather the cold, but they were also strong enough to move around in the snow without too much frustration. They were also finally able to have a snowball fight. Although, watch Sam’s face closely from beginning to end in the following video, it’s priceless:
Sam and Stella enjoying the fall leaves
If there’s one pleasure I was denied by growing up in Florida, it was getting to play with the fall leaves. (Of course, I was spared having to rake them - something that takes me a good afternoon here if I do it well). But my kids get to enjoy it.
Sam in the leaves
Sam’s expression notwithstanding, I wonder what it is that kids enjoy about it. Is it making a mess of a pile? Is it the crunch of the leaves? The novelty of it all? Scarlett’s been doing it for a while and she still enjoys it. Whatever it is - I’m glad I get to be there to see it and enjoy their enjoyment.
Twin 3rd Birthday Portraits
Just as with the farm portraits, this year both kids were enthusiastic about the portraits. I was bracing for Sam to once again hate the idea of portraits, but his urge to do what his sisters were doing was stronger - or maybe he’s just over whatever he hated about it last year. I’m really happy with how the portraits came out this year - particularly for Sam. It helps that the little guy is ALWAYS smiling (unless he’s been told he can’t do something). Here’s my favorite Sam portrait:
The Kids at the Park
Funny thing about this is that I could say this reflects their moods, but really only Stella is being genuinely Stella. Usually you can’t catch Sam without a smile on his face (although he *is* going through the whiny 2 year old phase), and Scarlett’s the most neutral.
Mt. Vernon
Danielle and I went to Mount Vernon back when we first moved here and were exploring new things to do in our free time that were unique to the area.
We’d thought of bringing our parents to see Washington’s house and property, but the timing never quite worked out - you really want to visit in the Spring or Fall, not during the Summer or Winter. So it remained a place we’d only been to once even as we made multiple trips to the same couple Smithsonian museums and zoos.
Easter at the Farm
This Easter we went to the farm so they kids could hunt for eggs there and then enjoy the farm. Unlike my childhood, Easter’s pretty cold up here as you can see.
It’s pretty ridiculous to me, considering almost my entire childhood consisted of going to the local park.
Stella’s been enjoying horseback riding for a bit now, but this was the first time she was old enough to do it on her own without me holding onto her the entire time.
Sam and Stella's First Disney Trip
Back in November we took the twins on their first trip to Disney. This time around Scarlett wasn’t as interested in the parades as she was last time, but the twins were REALLY into them. Surprisingly, both twins ended up warming up to the characters. Sam’s reluctance with Mickey on the first day made me think he was going to try and avoid them the entire trip. But as you can see in the video, he eventually got into interacting with the characters.
Playing with Snow
First substantial snow of the season happened in December and it was warm enough for the kids to go play outside. A few shots from that day:
Columbus Day 2016 at the Park
I took Sam and Stella to the park on Columbus Day (Scarlett was in school) and they were finally old enough that I could step back to take photos while they worked their way through the jungle gym.
A Fall Visit to the Farm
Back in October, we went to the pumpkin patch to do our annual pumpkin patch portraits.
Unfortunately, the twins were not amenable so we just did the other farm activities.
Halloween 2017
Jumping forward (I’m still generally working on photos from August because I’ve fallen behind with other responsibilities and playing some video games for Extra Life), we get to Halloween photos. Once again these awesome costumes were sewn by my mother-in-law.
Sam cuts the grass
As I continue to go through my photos from May, I found these photos of Sam using his bubble lawnmower when I was cutting the grass.
Sam and Stella's first visit to Coney Island
Earlier this year we took the twins to Coney Island for the first time. They were not amused.
Easter at the Park
This year we went to the park for their Easter festivities. Enjoy the photos I took there.
Some April Home Photos of Sam and Stella
No time for working on photos, so here’s a bunch of photos from APRIL!
The Kids Murder some Flowers
(If you’re seeing this on Facebook you may need to follow the link to see the video)
Sam mows the lawn
Each of the three kids is a little different, of course. Sam LOVES loud things. He loves cars and trains and planes and …. lawnmowers! When I cut the grass he follows me around. When others cut the grass he wants to follow THEM around.
https://youtu.be/oCuEJ_pVoqc
Scarlett liked to imitate what the adults were doing, but she never reached the same levels of obsession with the lawnmower as Samuel has.
Pushing the Car
I can’t believe how much they’ve grown. Summer 2016 we were pushing them around in this car, now they’re pushing it around. (Youtube vids which may not carry over to FB - you may need to click through to the blog)
Stella messes with Sam
(if you usually see my blog posts on FB, I am pretty sure they don’t carry over Youtube embeds, so come to the blog to see the videos)
If you’re an only child, you don’t know what it’s like to have to live with your kiddie tormentor. Growing up, the three of us each alternated as the aggressor and the aggrieved. As Stella proves here, you don’t have to the the oldest to be the one causing issues.
What did the bubble say to the face?
One of my favorite photo sets was from the first time Scarlett was running around chasing bubbles. I tried to do the same with the twins, but since they were less familiar with bubbles, they decided to catch them with their faces…
Walking on the Driveway
We’ll see what happens spring 2017, but I was surprised they were a little more patient than Scarlett and so didn’t fall on account of running on the steep (for their little legs) incline.
Sam out on the driveway
The photos appearing over the next few days are from the first time we took them out to run around on the driveway. Before that, they’d always been pushed in tricycles or strollers.
Up in the Air
I’m not sure why kids love this so much, but it’s definitely a fun game to play with them; the smiles and laughs make it worth it.
Sam Year 1 Portraits
Year one with Sam was a year full of smiles. There almost isn’t a thing you can do that he won’t smile at. I think the only times I haven’t seen him smile were during teething and when someone took a toy from him (usually Stella).
Carousel
[caption id=“attachment_12341” align=“aligncenter” width=“840”] Sam’s First Carousel Ride[/caption]
Why do kids enjoy carousel rides so much? Shoot, why do we have so much nostalgia for them as adults? I have no idea. I could probably put together some BS about a cultural memory of horseback riding, but frankly I think it’s just the first amusement park ride a kid is able to go on. This is Disney before your tiny brain can even comprehend the existence of such a place. And, unlike a car, I think it’s pretty evident even to the kids that there is no utilitarian function here - you end up roughly where you started.
At the Park
[caption id=“attachment_12338” align=“aligncenter” width=“768”] Up in the jungle gym at Centennial[/caption]
Halloween Costumes Part 1: Wonder Twins Activate!
I figured this might be the only year I can pick their costume, so I *had* to go with The Wonder Twins from the old Super Friends cartoon. My mother-in-law sewed up the awesome costumes.
11 Month Old Photos
That near-year flew by! I can’t believe a year ago we were nervously attending Dina’s wedding, unsure if the kids were going to want to pop out early and steal the show.
The 2016 Visit to the Pumpkin Patch
Every year since Scarlett was born we’re been going to Clark’s Eliok Farm to get a pumpkin to decorate the house (and in later years for Scarlett to carve). This time was the first year for Sam and Stella. Overall they did extraordinarily well for 11 month olds who’d never been to a pumpkin patch before. Only Stella cried and that was only after it had gone on for a while.
Looking Outside
While I think that part of what really makes this image work is the way I converted it to black and white, I do really envy my wife for having a good eye and good timing to capture the photo.
Parental Schadenfreude
When I was dating Danielle, during one of the trips to her house I asked to see old family photos. That was a big tradition in our house as I got the bug for documenting things with photography from my mother. Each of my brothers and I have about two dozen photo albums full of photos of us from back when you had to pay for film and pay for development. They had but a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the photos my mom did, but one photo that cracked me up was a photo my future father-in-law had taken of Dina (future sister-in-law) and one of Danielle’s cousins punished, crying against the wall. It was a funny image, but baffling that it’d be something worth capturing, especially in the film days. And I saw him do it with the new generation of kids as Danielle’s cousins started having kids.
Differences
Stella loves anything she can climb on. Scarlett hasn’t developed a love for climbing trees, but Stella might. Put anything in front of her that’s a bit off the ground and she’ll try to get on top of it. Not sure if she’s trying to reach what the adults and her big sister can or if she’s just climbing it for the same reason people climb Everest: Because It’s There.
Linus
Sam constantly reminds me of Linus from The Peanuts. He loves nothing better than to cuddle with a nice soft blanket or toy and he can’t keep his thumb out of his mouth. I was successful in keeping Scarlett from getting into that and we had to make Stella stop because she kept throwing up. No luck with Sam, but I’ve yet to see a mentally stable adult sucking their thumb, so we’ll get through it eventually. (First time parents should remember that with everything - like potty training - have you ever seen someone who doesn’t have mental issues who isn’t a potty trained adult?)
Ascribing Intention
The funny thing about this age is that the kids start making all kinds of faces at the adults. But for the most part, I doubt it really means anything. For the most part they’re learning by imitating and trying things out and seeing what kinds of reactions they get. But we can’t help but ascribe intentions to their facial expressions. Then again, we do this with inanimate objects, it’s part of what makes us human. (Or at least puts us in a small category of animals)
Growth
I took this photo back in August. I’ve said it before on the blog when talking about Scarlett, but it’s incredible how much the babies change in their first year. Sure, at this point it’s 100% of his life. But eventually you reach this age where you don’t really change all that much from year to year. You get a little fatter or skinnier and maybe lose a little hair, but it’s on going back multiple years where you really see the change. But look at Sam closer to birth:
First time at the Beach
Scarlett’s first time at the beach was much younger - five or six months - but with the twins it was just a lot harder to go on vacation. There are two of them to deal with, to pack formula for, etc. Also, for a long time Stella would spontaneously throw up. We’d dealt with that with Scarlett when we went on the trip to her first Christmas - where she kept throwing up in the car. It’s not fun.
Family Portrait
We’re hardly ever dressed up so nicely. So when we all got dressed up for Dan’s engagement party, I wanted to get a quick family portrait before we left. The pose wasn’t perfect due to the rush, and I’ll be elaborating a bit more on that in a future blog post, but I do like it as a bit of record keeping. Slightly more than a snapshot, but not how I’d have done it if we weren’t in a hurry.
Purple Tub Portraits
It’s a time-honored tradition for us to photograph babies in the purple bucket. We did it for Nam, Lan, and Scarlett. Now it was time for the twins to do it.
Scarlett wanted to do it again, so now we have this comparison. Baby Scarlett:
Sam Jumping Around
So much I want to say all at once…I hate when that happens - makes me wish we could speak in parallel threads. Well, I guess I’ll start with the credit. There are lots of photos I’ve posted on here taken by Danielle. But usually by the time I get a chance to post photos I can’t remember for sure who took the photos. Generally, if the photo is taken with the Canon Powershot S100 it’s a greater than 80% chance it was taken by Danielle. But not only has not much time passed since the photo was taken (allowing me to know it was Danielle who took it), but it’s just so perfect, I had to make sure to credit her for having the photographic eye.
7 Month Old Portraits Lighting Setup
I meant to write about the lighting setup in the blog post in which I uploaded the photos from the 7 Month photo shoot, but with twin 7 month olds, there’s never enough time for anything - even with my mother-in-law in town helping us out. Oh well, at least I don’t have to pay per post.
First of all, I’d like to discuss the concept I wanted to go for. For the Five Month photos, I went with the balloon theme I posted about here. For month six, I didn’t do anything special. Danielle did her usual couch portraits. But this time around I had a bit more time for the photos and I started thinking about it a week or two in advance. Unlike 2 months ago, both children were able to sit on their own now for extended periods of time. As of when I took the 7 month photos, the only thing that made them tip over was when they got over-excited and tipped back. It’d been a while since I had done portraits with the black background and I wanted to switch it up a bit. Because I don’t have any formal photography training, I like to browse the work of other photographers to get ideas I can take and make my own. Gavin Hooey, who has a great series of videos on Youtube through the photography store Adorama, has a dark grey background at his studio. He likes to have a highlight behind the model rather than just a plain dark background. If you look at his photos, he does it more often than he doesn’t. I figured it might help with the look of the photos. If you don’t do it, then you really do need to use a light as a hair light in order to keep dark-haired subjects from merging into a black background.
Kids with a 50mm Prime
That sweet, sweet bokeh. Although, you have to remember to increase that f-stop as soon as you start moving things out of one plane.
Hoodie Sam
When Danielle brought out a hoodie for Sam a few weeks ago, I knew I had to photograph him in it for the incongruity of him just being a little baby in a hoodie. But I wasn’t sure what look I was going to go for. Then I remembered my snoot. Hooked that up to the flash and boom, no need for Photoshop or anything - this is exactly how it came out of the camera.
Sam and Stella's Five Month Portraits [Studio Style]
What I edited and what I didn’t
Danielle mentioned that it looked like I’d messed around with the image because the strings on Sam’s photo looked fake. Actually, that’s how it was captured in the camera. The strings were reflective and, as I’m about to get into, there was a lot of light in this shoot. There are only two things I did to edit these photos. For both of them, the balloons ended up floating higher than the backdrop. So I had to extend the backdrop digitally. Luckily for other reasons that I’ll get into in the lessons learned section, I’d been trying to blow out the background and make it pure white. In computer terms, I wanted it represented by (255,255,255) or pure white. So it was less of a pain to extend the background to make it look real - I didn’t need to use a clone or healing brush. It was already white so I just painted in white (I actually did something a little more complex, but this is fine for the analogy). For Sam’s photo, the balloons and strings caused a bit of a shadow behind the strings so it’s not pure white there. The strings are so skinny that it wasn’t worth trying to paint over this with white. I tried a couple times and then gave up and reverted it.
Eat My FOOT!
When Scarlett was born, I went a little crazy. Sure, it’s natural for first time parents, especially someone with my personality. But I think I also deserve some slack because it was a difficult, complicated pregnancy and then Scarlett needed surgery in her first week of life in order to live.
So when I saw myself starting to act crazy again (after another crazy pregnancy with premie babies), my solution was to withdraw. If I didn’t get too attached, I wouldn’t have such visceral reactions to my underweight daughter not eating. So I threw myself into my books and video games. It was made easier by the fact that my mother in law was here, so I had more opportunities to run off. But then, a week ago (and I’m writing this post about a month before this will appear on my blog), I realized that I had been letting their infancy slide past me without enjoying it. And so I put myself back into their lives. This was made easier by nearly five months of the doctor weighing Stella and finally being OK with her weight. Also, we’d found out she was lactose intolerant and switching her away from mother’s milk and cow-based formula caused her to transform into a happy baby. But now I’m really enjoying the heck out of the twins and it’s a joy to see them each day.
Older Siblings vs Parents
There’s a story about my childhood my mom is fond of telling. My dad asks Daniel (the brother born after me) to do something. To my father’s consternation, he refuses because it would make me mad. It’s funny to see a similar situation going on with the twins and Scarlett. Part of it is familiarity - Scarlett is home with them every day; but the kids will smile or laugh more easily with her than with me. This video is an example of that which I found amusing. We’ll see if I find it amusing if I find myself in a situation similar to my father.
Easter Portraits of the Kids
You never know what’s going to happen when you try to take portraits of babies. Throw in the extra unpredictability of kids of any age and it’s a crapshoot whether a photo shoot is going to turn out to be fun with rewarding photos or a series of photos of your children crying.
One thing we have on our side with the studio being in the basement is that we can take photos when the kids are ready, not on a hope and prayer that they’ll be ready when we get to Sears, Target, or wherever people are getting portraits done nowadays. So we started off with easy portraits in the morning on the “Baby Portrait Couch”. Hey, it’s a tradition started with Scarlett!
This Was A Lot Easier with Just One (Part 2) - Variations on a Theme
Just in case the captions for the photos don’t appear on your RSS reader or on Facebook, here’s what I wrote as the caption to the photos:
“Inspired by title I chose for my photo for the twins’ four month photo which didn’t come out quite the way I wanted it to, I decided to do this image. I love how it came out.”
I also usually don’t post more than one version of a photo - I have a definitive version and just go with that, but this time Scarlett came up while I was trying to to figure out which one I preferred and she insisted on a different one than I would have chosen, so I decided to share them all.
This was so much easier when it was just one baby! (4th Month Portrait)
I wanted to do this earlier - somewhere around 2 month portraits. I was re-energized to try the idea after seeing someone do a photo that made it look like their kid was bounding out of the crib with her stuffed animals. I did not take the Sam and Stella images from some other random image. They were right there where you see them. All I did was erase my body (or I’d be in here thrice). Still, if I were to do it again, I’d have Sam and Stella flying near me rather than against the wall. They end up too small and it lessens the impact of the shot. Well, there’s always next time. (And there’s always less edited shots!)
Some closeups of Sam
I was watching Sam and wanted to see if I could pull off some closeups and near-macros. Here are the best three shots.
Twin 1 Month Old Photos
I could have gone for something more elaborate, but at this age, it’s a lot just to get them awake enough for portraits. There are plenty of months for crazier shots.
First Samuel:
Then Stella:
(for full-size images for printing, email me)
Some December Sam Photos
A few photos from earlier in the month:
(And if you want full-sized images for printing: here, here, and here)
Sam and his Maternal Grandmother
Been taking lots of shots of the kids, but one finally came out nice!
(edit: Ah, I figured it out, I can’t let the blog create resized versions of my giant files. To get the original size file (for printing) click here! It will look horrible in your web browser)