There's No News Like Snow News

A lot has been going on lately. Here's the news:


Rob

His current church calling is YM Priest Quorum Advisor. He's never had a calling with the Young Men before and is enjoying getting to know the boys, teaching, and planning fun activities. They are currently taking CERT classes for their Tuesday night activity. He's excited for the High Adventure outings they will have this summer.

He's thoroughly involved in his current passion: photography. He listens to podcasts, studies techniques and other photographers' work, practices, works on the webpage, and talks about photography pretty much constantly. When he wants to learn something new, he learns it inside-out and upside-down. Much to my (and others') advantage.


Julie

It's been really busy around here with the normal stuff of keeping up with the kids and keeping the house in order. But on top of that I'm still working a few hours a week at home for my brother-in-law's HVAC business. It's year-end and tax time, which is always very busy. Plus, trying to keep Rob leashed in on his aforementioned passion is a full-time job itself! But I do enjoy photography very much also and am getting things in order for this little side-job of ours.

My current church calling is cubmaster and it is so much fun! I was a girl scout and have always enjoyed learning new things and all that cool stuff. The boys are great and make me really happy when they recruit their non-member friends into scouting. It's an inspired program and does much good for boys and families.


Nathan

After many difficult months, we finally found out why Nate's been acting up so much. After seeing a pediatrician, two audiologists, and an otorlaryngologist, we found out that for at least the last year (since his first known ear infection) he's only been hearing at a level HALF of what is normal. Put your fingers in your ears and that's how he hears when people speak to him. Put in some background noise and he hardly hears at all.

To further illustrate, I did my own test with the tv volume today. I normally have the volume at a level of 35 so I turned it down to 17 and I had to really listen to hear what was going on. I then turned it up to 70 and his little face lit right up and he laughed!! It just about made me cry! It was so loud to my ears, that I can hardly stand to be in the same room. When I didn't know this was a problem for him, if I thought it was too loud, I'd tell him so and then turn it way down. So for the last year he's been watching tv and/or movies without hardly a sound!!! It's just incredible! But I've been turning it up loud for him all day and he's repeating everything they say and laughing more.

Him not being able to hear is why he acted up so much both at home and in social situations. He always seemed bored (DUH!) and ambivalent (DUH!). His favorite thing to do was to run around screaming and making all kinds of really loud noise. He would seem ignorant or defiant when given instructions. Before Rob and I knew, we'd often get to the point of frustration with him and raise our voices and that's when he finally listened. Not because we were upset, but because that's just at the point he could hear us! It BREAKS my heart to know that so many times we'd be frustrated with him and he didn't know why!!

We now talk very loudly directly to him or (or talk quieter right into his ear when surroundings require it) and he understands and obeys perfectly. His behavior has been so much better already.

Thankfully, the problem is easily fixed with tubes in his ears and his adenoids taken out. Since this all happened during such a critical stage of speech development he may have to see a speech pathologist. Another clue that he wasn't hearing was delayed, mumbled, barely understandable speech (which we didn't worry about too much because of similar speech of some of his cousins. They just grew out of it on their own).

His surgery is happening at the end of the week. If you see him before then, please remember to talk so he can hear you. We're so excited for him to be able to hear all the things he's been missing out on!! He won't feel so isolated and bored and frustrated. He will be able to hear music, conversation, trains, animals, toys, his favorite movies, instructions, compliments, and so many other wonderful things.

We love Nathan so much and are so sorry he's had to miss out on so much this last year. We promise we'll make it up to him.


Madeleine

Okay, now on to some news that doesn't make me cry. Madeleine learned how to walk this week!! After practicing for 2 months, she can do it at only 10 months old without any coaxing from her parents. She didn't need any. Her big brother was her inspiration. How else will she ever be able to keep up with him? She was very motivated and just did it all on her own. While she was practicing she'd fall over and over again but it never deterred her. She never cried but just got right back up and went for it again. It's sooooo cute to see her little body stepping forward with both arms straight out at her side. We love it.



I told you a lot has been going on lately! Thanks for all your love and friendship. I'm very grateful to my Heavenly Father for all my blessings. My little family means the world to me. They are my first priority. I pray that I will be worthy of and heed the guiding spirit so I can help lead them back home. Nate and Madeleine are such sweet children of God. Rob is my best friend in the world and I can't believe I get to spend the rest of eternity with him. I love you all!

Here are a couple snapshots from last Sunday's playtime.

Foto Friday – Urban Nonchalance

Taken with the Nikon D40 in Salt Lake City, Utah on January 10, 2009. Manual Exposure Mode, 50mm, 1/100 sec at f/4, ISO 200, Nikon Raw Format converted to Adobe DNG format. Edited in Lightroom 2.2.

After we rented a few nice lenses for the recent wedding we shot, I did a little personal photowalk around the hills above SLC to spend some more time with the Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens (freaking awesome lens by the way). I stumbled upon this scene just off of main street (I almost missed it). I was so excited!! How I love expressions of urban culture. 

The texture in the wood, smooth lines of the moto, and the fascinating look of the pavement (love the ice-melt) really jump out in my mind.  I tweeked the colors slightly (adding vibrance while dropping the overall saturation) to give the photo a little more retro look and kicked up the contrast using the contrast slider and the tone curve.  I fixed the vertical lines in photoshop too.  I copied some screen clippings of the panels below if anyone cares.  Is that useful to anyone?

The tone curve   The basic adjustment panel

Please send any questions in the comments.  I hope you enjoy this photo and hope you enjoy yourself behind the lens! 

RJSnowPhotography Exposure Workshop

Are your photos too dark?  Do you have trouble with the blur associated with camera shake or subject movement?  Do you want to learn exposure to further control the creative process and break yourself free from the automatic camera modes?  If you have an SLR type camera and want to learn more then sign up for the RJSnowPhotography Exposure Workshop.  You’ll learn a ton, have amazing fun, and best of all it is free (with the exception of buying your own lunch). 

Shannon from Lasting Moments Photography and the Mommy Going Crazy blog will team teach the class with Rob.  Shannon is a wedding and family photographer and also a Canon shooter (let’s not hold this against her).  She will also be present during the photowalk portion of the workshop to help the other Canon shooters figure out their cameras and Rob will be there to help the Nikon shooters.  

This workshop is for people with SLR type cameras that really want to learn the nuts and bolts of photography or just hone their skills. 

The workshop will cover the following subjects:

• Shutter speed and aperture defined and “why do I care?”
• Control depth of field (advanced subject)
• Exposure using Manual Mode
• Exposure using Aperture Priority Mode
• Exposure control on “Your” camera
• Q & A
• Photowalk

The workshop will be held in Salt Lake City on Saturday February 28th at 11AM.  We’ll eat lunch at a restaurant (TBA) and discuss exposure control. Expect this portion of the workshop to take less than an hour.  Following lunch we’ll wander the streets of SLC practicing what we learned about exposure.  We estimate that the photowalk portion of the workshop will take around an hour and maybe longer if everyone is having fun (but don’t worry, you can leave at any time).

Shannon and Rob will be available to help others figure out their cameras.  We believe that this photowalk segment of the workshop will be very valuable to everyone.  For those that have exposure figured out, the emphasis will be control and creative use of depth of field.

Similar to our last photowalk, we can share our work in a flickr group that will be created specifically for our workshop.  We are probably going to limit participation to about 25 people so sign up quickly by commenting to this post or sending me an email using this form with Exposure Workshop in the Subject field.  Hope to hear from you soon! 

Questionnaire - Family Edition

I thought I'd do a little family questionnaire as a fun way to write down some of our current interests/dislikes, etc. Feel free to copy this and post it on your blog!

What website do you spend the most time on?
Rob: rjsnowphotography
Julie: blogger
Nathan: pbs kids
Madeleine: Same as mom and dad's

On a limitless menu, what would you order?
Rob: A real French baguette
Julie: University Grill's gyro
Nathan: Cookies and chocolate milk
Madeleine: Cookies

What was the last book you read?
Rob: The Princess Bride
Julie: Geography textbook
Nathan: I'm Dirty!
Madeleine: Little People's Firefighters

What is your most embarrassing habit?
Rob: Letting my nose hairs get too long
Julie: Chomping on my gum
Nathan: Licking people and things
Madeleine: Puking on others

If you could trade places with anyone for 1 week, who would it be?
Rob: Carter Beauford, Dave Matthews Band drummer
Julie: Wendy Perrin, from Conde Nast Travel Magazine
Nathan: Curious George
Madeleine: Nathan

What's your favorite movie song?
Rob: Axel F, from Beverly Hills Cop
Julie: Theme from Pride and Prejudice
Nathan: Thomas the Tank Engine theme song
Madeleine: Curious George theme song

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
Rob: Software writing
Julie: Read people's minds
Nathan: Run faster than fast
Madeleine: Rubber arms so I could reach anything I want

If you won the lottery, what would you do with the money?
Rob: Pay off debt and buy a new camera
Julie: Pay off debt and travel the world
Nathan: Buy all the cookies at the store and lots of Disney movies
Madeleine: Throw it and chew on it a little

What makes you angry?
Rob: When technology doesn't work
Julie: Not feeling like I'm accomplishing my goals
Nathan: Madeleine playing with my toys when I'm not feeling generous
Madeleine: Nathan not sharing his cookies

How would you describe yourself in 3 words (or phrases)?
Rob: Happy, obsessive, easily distracted
Julie: Hard worker, moody, curious
Nathan: Fun, loud, cuddly
Madeleine: Explorer, impatient, smiley

Foto Friday - Parisian Postcard

Like Rob explained earlier, our computer has been down most of the week so I obviously couldn't work on any photos. I looked through our past pictures and found this in our Paris set. We only have a few photos in this set because when we took this trip 4 years ago, we had a film Nikon SLR...not digital. These are the few photos that we scanned before giving up because it took so long.

Since I took this photo with a manual SLR, there are no edits. It was taken on black and white film and then printed on black and white paper. Many people may not know that if you shoot or edit your pictures to be black and white, unless you specify to have them printed on black and white photo paper, they're printed on color paper. When we had ours developed, Inkley's, who we used at the time, accidentally printed ours first on color paper and then correctly printed them on black and white paper. The difference is amazing. When printed on color paper, there is a very noticeable warm tone to them. Not bad, just not black and white. Remember to have your black and white photos developed by a company that prints on the correct paper.

Back to the subject of the photo...Notre Dame. I specifically remember taking this shot. It was my second time in Paris so I was familiar with the city and knew where I wanted to visit and take Rob. Here we were crossing the Seine on our way to visit the famous cathedral. This shot I took is very "postcardy". In fact, I think I may even have a real postcard just like this in color. But I wanted to take the picture anyway because it looked like a postcard. Paris is just one perfect shot after another. We all grow up seeing these images on tv and in books, etc. but to be there in person is incredible. There is such a vibe that is so difficult to express. It's very "old world," cosmopolitan, cliche, vivid, legendary, inspiring, memorable, quaint, and quintessential. I really cannot describe it perfectly. Every good thing people say about it is true. And that's why we'll go back again and again.

Slow Blogging…Broken Computers

We have been a little slow with the blogging lately.  Sadly, somehow, annoyingly, some important windows files were corrupted and forced us to reinstall windows.  Ugh.  I don’t mind doing this once a year or so (I actually recommend it that often) but 3 to 4 times in  a year is just freaking annoying!!!!!   I’m going to install the new windows 7 beta on a spare laptop and check it out.  I’m pretty excited to move on from Vista.  I’ve heard good things about windows 7 so I’ll keep my fingers crossed.  Well, that’s all for today.  I just wanted to give you all an update. 

Valerio Video

Here is a quick video that we put together for Ryan and Kelli (more on their wedding here).  We hope that you all like it!  Please let me know if this doesn’t work right as I have never done video before.  (Make sure you have the sound on!!!)

Great Scots and Marines

Last weekend we were privileged to be the photographers for Rob's cousin's sister-in-law's wedding (follow that?). Her photographer dropped out a couple of days before the big day and luckily we were available to fill in.

This wedding was so fun! The bride is Scottish and the groom is a marine, so it was great seeing both kilts and dress blues at the celebration. The best man even wore both for the ceremony.


Kelli expressed her desire for all the photos to be candid shots. She wanted to remember exactly how her ceremony and reception were and wasn't interested in any of the traditional "posed" shots. We worked really hard to get what she wanted and hope we were successful!


Here are a few of our favorite shots. We are so pleased to have been a part of this very special day!

Foto Friday - Untitled

Taken with the Nikon D40 Washington City, Utah on October 21, 2008. Manual Exposure Mode, 35mm, 1/60 sec f/6.3, ISO 400, Nikon Raw Format converted to Adobe DNG format. Edited in Lightroom 2.2.

This image was taken just down the street from my previous foto friday post. I don’t have a lot of time to talk about this image so I’ll be very brief.  The symmetry and texture of the wheel are just fascinating to me.  I hope you really enjoy this photo even though I’m not really going to explain how I did it.  I’ve been spending all my time editing photos for a wedding we did recently and our upcoming webpage.  More on that to come very shortly.  Anyway, sorry for the short post; however, the image has a lot of little details that are worth checking out.  Enjoy yourself behind the lens and stay tuned for details of our upcoming workshop on shutter speed, aperture, and depth of field. 

Engineer by Day; Vigilante by Night

This story is somewhat long; however, I promise that you will be rewarded with laughs, shock, and intrigue as you continue.  OK, maybe you will just learn how to find a lost or stolen cell phone (still not bad, eh?).  Monday morning the 5th of January I was riding the Frontrunner train into Salt Lake as usual.  I was using my phone to check my tasks for the day against the email that had come in over the weekend.  Then came the faux pas; I put my phone on the seat.  :(   I got off the train and went about my day, leaving my phone on the train.  I noticed that my phone was gone almost an hour later at the office. Ugh, Ugh, Ugh. 

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were spent in hopes of finding my phone.  I tried calling it several times a day, checked my usage (nil usage by the way), and called the UTA lost and found. I had pretty much concluded that my phone was still sitting in the back corner of a Frontrunner train and most likely on silent mode!  Oh well, I started looking for a new phone. 

Wednesday night I was looking around Sprint’s website for a way to notify them that my phone was missing, suspend service on the phone, and ask them about my options.  I stumbled across a service on Sprint’s web site called Family Locator with a free trial!  Intrigued, I quickly learned that Family Locator can locate phones on your account and allows parents the ability to keep track of their kids using GPS or cell tower triangulation.  Has anyone ever used this to locate a lost phone, I thought?  Depending on the accuracy of the track, it is possible that I could locate my missing phone!  So I signed up.  Here is what I saw….

Holy Freaking Cow!   West Valley?  First of all, 17 yards blew my mind; second, what the crap was my phone doing here?!  Do you see any UTA facilities?  Some jerk has my phone!!!!!!!!  Here is where all the vigilante impulses came in.  I was going to send this guy a text message with his address saying that I was coming to get my phone.  I started looking for vigilante gear (if only I had a really big black SUV and black leather pants)….  Julie convinced me to call the police instead and I’m glad she did.  I made a few calls and eventually made contact with the UTA police, since it was lost on the train. 

The UTA detectives made contact with me on Thursday morning around 9 AM and asked me to locate the phone again to make sure that it was at the same address as the night before (it was still at the same location).  They told me that a few detectives were heading that way now to check it out.  I got another call an hour or so later; the detectives had made contact with the residents who were denying involvement.  They asked me to locate the phone again; this time I was unable to locate the phone (perhaps it had been turned off).  The detectives said they would do everything possible, but that they couldn’t just demand to go in and search. 

A few hours later I received another call from the detective saying they had retrieved my phone!  The guy that had my phone was wanted for armed robbery in Nevada and had been taken into custody!!!!  I think my jaw dropped at that point!  Not only had I retrieved a lost and stolen cell phone (I hear the chances of this are pretty much null) but I helped catch a criminal!  Needless to say, I was feeling pretty cool.  My phone was returned to me by 2:30 on Thursday afternoon!  Thanks to the UTA detectives for working with a weird guy that said he could track down his stolen cell phone (and who wishes he was batman).   :) 

For all of you out there with lost or stolen cell phones, if you act quickly (before the battery dies) and the criminals aren’t too bright (they leave the phone on), there is a good chance you may retrieve your missing property!  Good luck. 

Foto Friday - Branch

These shots were taken, once again, in St. George. Nate and I were in the backyard hanging out and I decided to try and get some interesting angles of this plant. I have no idea what it is, but if anyone else does, let me know.

For all the months that I've had these pictures, my intent was to NOT edit them at all. The sky was the most perfect shade of blue and as clear as any sky I've ever seen. There honestly wasn't a need for editing. But I kept looking at them, happy with the composition, exposure, and colors...yet they just seemed a little flat. So I finally decided to play with the colors and this darker shade of gray-blue really caught my eye. I also changed the color of the branch grayish instead of the tan color that it was. Of course, a vignette was added. To me, these changes made the shots look a little more "print-ready" rather than snapshots.

Well, I've gotta go now. We're doing a wedding shoot tomorrow and have some planning to do.

Desktop Backgrounds

We've added more desktop backgrounds. Here's a link to instructions on how to download them.

And Rob's working on our new RJSnowPhotography website. Expect to see it in the next month or two.

Oy

The kids have been a handful lately.

As a friend put it, "Nathan is a whirlwind!"

I thought him turning 3 would make things a little easier, but it's actually been worse. Tantrums upon tantrums. Not sharing at all. Absolute refusal to use the potty. Completely ignoring me and Rob when we tell him to do something. Utterly chaotic a few times a day. And he's experimenting with lying.

Madeleine is teething and trying to eliminate her afternoon nap.

Like I said. Oy.

On the plus side, they are both loving, fun little kids that I wouldn't trade for the world.

By-the-way...
Nathan's being tested by the audiologist again on Friday. His left ear failed the hearing test a few weeks ago and they want to check it again, hoping it was just fluid in his ear. We wouldn't mind a couple of prayers on his behalf. Thanks.

Foto Friday – First HDR

Taken with the Nikon D40 in Washington City, Utah on October 21, 2008. Manual Exposure Mode, 23mm, HDR of (1.0, 1/3, 1/10, and 1/30 sec) at f/4.5, ISO 200, Nikon Raw Format converted to Adobe DNG format. Edited in Lightroom 2.2, HDR in LR Enfuse.

I posted a few pictures in the last while that appear to have an “HDR look” that I created in Lightroom. Those are fun but I have really wanted to make a real HDR (High Dynamic Range) photo. This post documents my first attempt.

While in the St. George area I visited a mock town that was hidden inside Washington City. I saw these two sheds and was instantly fascinated by them! Alas that they were facing the wrong way (the background sky was brightly illuminated and the facades were shrouded in shadow. I didn’t bring a tripod but had my trusty bean bag (hey Mom, thanks for sewing that for me) so I was able to make this shot. I made a suite of exposures (see exposure data above and click on photo to see a super large version).

After import into Lightroom I used Timothy Armes LR/Enfuse Plugin to create the HDR photo. I used the automatic settings for my first run. I have provided the raw output from LR/Enfuse below.

So this is a good start. I now have a neutral exposure of the entire scene. Finally I did some extra tweaks in Lightroom to correct the white balance (ideally I would have fixed that before merging) and bring out more of the contrast to arrived at the version at the top of the post. So the photo isn’t amazing itself; however, I felt the process and knowledge gained were worth sharing. Please send any questions in the comments. Have a great new year and make time to enjoy yourself behind the lens this coming year!

Hubba-licious

WOW! Rob is H-O-T!!! Doesn't this look like the cover of GQ Magazine?

These are some fun pictures I took of him when we had the studio lights set up.

I was going through some saved emails I have from our dating time and found this. It's an excerpt from April 8, 2002. I wrote it to a good friend of mine detailing my first date with Rob.

"You ready to hear about my wonderful weekend? Why don't you just wish me congratulations right now and get it over with. Because it was so good."

"So I was going to call Rob Friday afternoon to finalize plans for that night. But HE called ME before I even got a chance. We chatted for a while then decided on him meeting at my house and I'd drive down there (Sky Box)."

"So he comes by and he looks cute. I did too. I had curly hair and you could tell he really liked it. So we're driving and all the while chatting and chatting. It's just so easy for us to find things to talk and laugh about. So we get there and eat and watch the Jazz game...well kind of...we mostly talked and didn't pay attention to anything else. We even shared our food with each other. Pretty cute."

"After the game we decide that we HAVE to run through the fountain. It's a must. So we both get wet and have fun doing it. At this point I know that we are having a blast...but I'm not sure if we are having a blast as friends, or as more. But then he puts his arm around me and I got my answer. Smooth. We drive back to my place all the while laughing again and talking about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Hilarious. So we hang out at my house for a while and then go to his to watch "The Three Amigos". This is where it starts to get interesting."

"During the movie we FINALLY put it out on the table and cuddle and more importantly...hold hands (don't you think that means more than cuddling? Definitely. No more questions about whether or not we only like each other as friends. So after the movie we're just sitting there talking and he says he needs to tell me something. I'm thinking...oh, crap. Here it comes. I'm going to be pissed. But instead this is what he says. "Just so you know, Kristie and I broke up this last week." wwwwwwwwooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhoooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"I WANTED to say, "It's about freakin' time!" But instead I say, "Oh, I'm sorry." He just says, no, it's cool. So she is totally and completely OUT OF THE PICTURE!!! Like I said before...you can congratulate me now."

"So it's getting late and he's driving me home. Then we get to my house and it's the somewhat awkward part of the date where you are on the doorstep saying good night. He gives me a hug and then we stand there with our arms around each other for like 5 minutes just looking at each other. In my mind I was thinking "is he going to kiss me, is he not going to kiss me." And I'm sure he was thinking, "should I kiss her, should I not kiss her?" Finally we just left it at that. But I know it won't be too much longer."

I'm SOOOOOOO glad I kept so many of my old emails and text conversations. There are so many amazing and funny things that I would never remember otherwise. I'll have to post more excerpts later.

Hope you enjoyed this little trip down memory lane with me.