Our Day at Sandy Creek

This is my last year at home with Leah.  Blake has started 3rd grade and next year Leah will be off to kindergarten.  When I quit my job 3 years ago, Blake was just starting kindergarten and it seemed like a lifetime before Leah would be.  But, it  is just around the corner.  We are going to make the most of it!  Today we drove out to Sandy Creek Covered Bridge to explore that area and have a little picnic lunch.  What I had in mind was some awesome infrared shots of the area, but what I got was even more fun for me, and Leah.  I set my camera to black and white with a red filter and let her play. 

A couple of the black and white infrared images.

Rimkus Family

These boys are growing up so fast!  It feels like we just did Ben's 18 month photos and here we are doing Trent's.  (Well, 20 months to be exact, but that's all right.)  While we can't make time stand still for real, photos are a great way to hold on to these times that we don't want to forget.  We went to the same park as Ben's 18 month photos and managed to get some cool images to remember this time in their lives.

Ben at 18 months (top) and Trent (bottom)

Going back to film

I used to love my time in the darkroom, the process of developing film, transferring the image onto paper and watching it magically appear was, well it was fun.  Don't get me wrong, I like digital photography too, I just haven't yet found the love for the final result as much as I love the look of film.  There has been a resurgence of photographers who are choosing to shoot on film again and labs that will process and scan it for you so it is digitally ready.  I was skeptical, because I have always developed my own film.  So last winter I ordered some rolls of black and white film and one roll of color film to experiment with.  I dug my old Canon Rebel out of the depths of the basement closet and did nothing.  For weeks that film sat in my camera just waiting for a good time to try it.  I was almost scared to push the shutter, maybe it was the expense of the film, and that fact that I only had 36 exposures, not almost endless space on a memory card.  It took me a few months to finish that roll and then to finally choose a lab to process it.  Well, I finally got my images back last week and I was first of all relieved, and second, a little surprised.  I fell in love with film all over again.  The richness, the graininess, the whole look of the images. Here are a few of my favorites from that roll.  They were all made on TMAX 400.  Now, to try the color film......

I don't have many of Blake.  He was in school most of the time. But this is his "posing" stage right now.