Alright, here I am again, as guilty as ever about not blogging in a timely manner. I just don’t understand how some of you regular bloggers actually keep up so well. Between work, and well, an (not that) active social life, I just don’t always find the time to sit here and pound away on my keyboard. I’ve received a few emails asking how Ben, the subject of my last post, is doing. I said that was what my next post would be about and I meant it. Fortunately for you, it won’t be as long. [caption id="attachment_121" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="1-year old Ben and his mother Jennifer"][/caption] The next time that I saw Ben after his surgery was the morning that he would be having his implants turned on. It was an adventure alright, but only before we got to the hospital. The car I was riding in had problems just a couple of miles from the part of the hospital that we needed to be at. Getting it to the side of the road wasn’t much of a problem, but getting to the shoot on time seemed to be more of an issue.  As quick as we could, we caught a cab ...

  (The above is a slideshow. Please use the arrows on the bottom left and right to navigate.)   It’s hard for me to blog about something that isn’t about me at all. That I really had almost nothing to do with, but was just blessed to be there. This isn’t my story- this is Ben’s story. I am just lucky enough to be one person to tell it.   Ben, who turned one year old this January, was born what is medically termed as profoundly deaf. Until this point, he has worn a hearing aid in one ear to assist him as much as possible, though even with this, his hearing was so bad, his mom described it as him not being able to hear anything that was quieter than a vacuum cleaner running right next to his ear. His hearing out of the other ear was non-existent.     Ben is the happiest little boy I have met, especially if you put food in front of him. The first time I met him, though brief, he made a wonderful impression despite the gold fish cracker orange drool that covered the area around his mouth. I met Ben at our newspaper office, as his mother Jennifer, ...

The holidays are definitely here, with just over a week until Christmas! I can hardly believe it. Our house is all decorated, and wow, has the weather been cold! This post, I figured I would share our Christmas picture for the year, as well as the technical details on how I made it. This is, of course, Amy and I in front of the this year's Christmas tree. I would have loved to be able to control the camera and take the photo, but the self timer had to do the trick here, and it worked okay. Anyway- the exposure itself is a six-second exposure, with the flash remotely fired at the end of the exposure through a white umbrella. The six second exposure allows the Christmas lights to really burn themselves into the image, and during the six seconds, Amy had time to draw a heard with a flashlight, and still hide it behind her back at the end to give her that "posed" look. So here is how it works: There is so little light hitting our faces before the flash that our movement doesn't really matter. The brightest things in the photo are the Christmas lights and the flashlight. ...

      This week, I would like to give a big congratulations to Craig and Casey for the engagement.      I work with Craig at the newspaper, and he truely is one of the most talented reporters that I know. It was quite an honor to have him come and ask me to shoot he and his fiance's wedding and engagement photos, especially when I know that he is friends with other photographers.      Craig and Casey wanted to have their photos done in Busch Park in Salem, and luckly, both the sun and beautiful Fall colors really seemed to cooperate with us. They were both troopers in getting these photos done, and were even willing to kick their shoes off, and wade into a stream. It was sunny, but hardly what you would call warm (however, I really probably got away with this because it is something that Casey suggested and wanted badly... sorry Craig.)      Craig and Casey, congratulations again, I hope you enjoy your photos, and I can't wait to shoot the wedding this June!