118 months (my heart)

Only took 118 months to get an amazing picture of my boys with real, actual smiles. ❤

Sad dog

Ziggy misses his boys when they’re at school.

Whistler on film

I brought my film camera (the old, beaten up Pentax K1000 that I’ve had since I was about ten) to Whistler, thinking the scenery there would make for much better photos than my backyard. I was sorta right…

I don’t know if the film was not great, or if I wasn’t getting exposure right or what, but these pictures feel a bit muddier and grainier than my last batch. I think the film was ISO400 this time as opposed to ISO200, which would certainly explain the grain. And I bought a new battery in Whistler but somehow the meter kept konking out. So maybe I just need more practice? Better film? A fresher battery? A less beat up camera? (Though this isn’t a hobby I want to invest a ton of money in.)

(None of these photos have been edited digitally in any way. The negatives were scanned for me at the photo lab.)

It’s also interesting to compare these with the photos I took with my phone. Maybe I’m just used to digital photography. I want to argue that the film pictures feel warmer or something, maybe I’m just hopelessly nostalgic or fooling myself.

Film left, iPhone right.

I look at the left photo and it just feels nice, but then I look at the right one and I think “oh yes, that’s much better.”

Who knows? Maybe I just need to try with better film, for a start.

Automattic Grand Meetup 2017

Back to Whistler!

And even more gorgeous than last year. The weather was stunning until the last day, and even in the rainy mist it was beautiful. On to the pics!

Day 1: Arrival and the opening party

Checked into hotel, found the view of the pool wasn’t quite as nice as last year, but I’m not complaining.

Look, it’s Bob! Not my big brother! Bob looks like my brother, only with dimples and technically younger than me by a couple of months. (But seriously tho.) Read More

Stars

Look closely, there are lots of stars.

I’m in Whistler again for our big company meetup, and there were rumors of aurora borealis. A giant group of us trekked to a lake tonight to see if we could catch the Northern Lights, but alas, they never showed up. But boy, did we see a lot of stars. (Click to see larger.)

And here’s a version the the exposure turned up – there’s the Milky Way!

Number 117

Why yes, I AM a big dork!

I just couldn’t help myself when I realized the boys were going to be 9 years and 9 months old. Yeah, 9 and three quarters.

I know, I know. But I can’t help it, I love Harry Potter, OKAY!?

Eclipse photos

I know, I know, no one cares about the eclipse anymore unless you actually saw the whole thing, but I had fun taking pictures of the patterns made by the light (mostly leaves and a steamer basket.)

So in order, there’s cereal box pinhole viewer, steamer basket, trees, trees, trees, trees, dog, trees, steamer basket.

9 years, 8 months

This month, co-starring Andrew, who has lost his first two teeth since we got here and is totally adorable. Emily gets home from camp tonight, otherwise she’d be in the picture as well.

The 8th month photos seem to be on trips a lot. Makes sense since that’s when we usually travel.

Happy 115 months!

We took the picture this month in Heather’s hallway. So lovely! I might move the location permanently to her house. Hope she doesn’t mind!

Linus’s smile looks a little forced, but check out the dimples on those three!

9.5 years old

I swear I took this yesterday, just didn’t have a chance to post it. (Deborah and I were too busy watching disaster movies.)

Yeah, we’re in Austin now, housesitting with Deborah’s family for another coworker. So far we haven’t done a whole lot, just relaxing, going swimming, working, that kind of thing. Yesterday we attempted an urban adventure quest downtown, but it kind of went to pot when it started to sprinkle, then everyone was hungry, and Miles’s ear started hurting. So after lunch at a pizza place and of course a Voodoo doughnut, I took Miles to urgent care where he was diagnosed with a double ear infection. Poor bunny.

Old school pics

Well that’s a misleading title, since we were just talking about school stuff yesterday. But no, what I mean is that I finally pulled out my old film camera and put some dang film in it and took some dang pics and got them developed. Finally! (As you can see, I’ve intended to do this for over four years now…yikes.) What prompted me after all this time was seeing some pics my friend Wendy took with a film camera.

It’s been so long I can’t remember why I never actually just, you know, did it. Turns out, the camera worked fine! The battery was even still good, the focus was fine, nothing weird or unexpected.

I didn’t spend a whole lot of time taking pics, I just kind of wanted to blow through the roll and make sure it actually worked. But here are the results! (Note: these were scanned by the lab I used, and were not touched at all.)

169466180002_1 — And more Ziggy. Grainy.

113 months

You can tell the school year is almost over. Miles is wearing two different shoes, Oliver has black pants instead of navy, and you can almost see Linus’s toes through his shoes. But by god, we are almost to the end of third grade!