winter wonderland

I love winter. I really do. It's the season of cold, and snow, and ice, and all of these things mean that skating season is in full force, which I love more than anything. I love photographing kids in the snow, but when it's the day after Christmas, and the windchill is -40, I learned that my limit for standing at the bottom of a sledding hill with my camera is 30 minutes. Then I have to leave, before I get really cranky, and before my fingers freeze, break off, and make me drop my precious camera.

These were taken at the aforementioned day-after-Christmas outing with my 20D and my 200mm lens. My mom stood next me and I helped her with the settings on her point-and-shoot. It was a good time, and I'm pretty happy with my pictures. I had the camera on manual mode, and I played with the settings for the first few minutes, landing on 1/400, f/10, ISO 400. I probably could have gone down an f-stop, since I had to brighten them a little, but it was a decent effort.


Bradley, the snowboard champ! Look at how pro he looks with his hands out for a bit of balance, but not so far out as to be uncool.


Kristin gets a push down the steep side of the hill from Daddy.


Kristin goes for a spin on the snow saucer, giggling as it turns to a stop at the bottom of the hill.


Danielle discovered that she preferred the sled with the brakes, but she was still quite brave for following the big kids down the hill!


Close-up of Bradley after a successful run. Note the super-cool transition shades!

Next up: Insanity begins as I try to condense my trip to Vancouver to cover the 2008 Canadian Figure Skating Championships into just a few posts. Eek!

and visions of sugar plums danced in their heads

There are few things in the world that are as beautiful as children at Christmas. Always an important holiday for my family, Christmas holidays were responsible for some of the best memories of my childhood, and I treasure every year that I get to spend with my cousins, watching the magic unfold. In my family, we open all of our presents from each other on Christmas Eve, after dinner, and then on Christmas morning, Santa comes for the kids. I admit, I still got a stocking on Christmas morning until I graduated from high school. I guess my grandparents didn't want to let go, since I was their only grandchild for the first 13 years of my life. Now, my grandparents are gone, but the family traditions live on. For Christmas 2007, my mom and I drove through a blizzard to her brother's house in St. Paul, Minnesota. I was still feeling awkward with my camera indoors, but I did get some nice shots of the kids. I have no idea how to remove red-eye effectively, though, so until I have time to play around with that a little more, some of these photos have red-eye. Next Christmas, the kids are opening their presents in a well-lit room if I have to bring in the floodlights myself.


The camera settings when I took this photo were a huge mistake, but I love the expressions on their faces so much that I played with it until I salvaged something nearly decent. It could still use some editing, but I'm just glad I managed to get something out of the image at all. I don't even remember what was so funny, but that's my Aunt Vickie, one of my favourite people in the world, with her youngest daughter, Danielle (age 6). Originally - 1/160, f/1.8, ISO 800.


Bradley, age 10, is one of the most chillaxed kids I have ever known. My parents and I gave him this Devin Hester jersey, and all he said was, "Coooool." My mom was worried that she should have just gotten him a Vikings jersey, but he already has one of those, and she thought the Bears touch was neat, since it was coming from us - plus he really does think Hester is the bomb. Then he wore the jersey for two days straight, so I guess he kind of loved it after all. 1/160, f/1.8, ISO 800.


I have never before seen someone so excited about a set of cleaning supplies (toy supplies or not), but that's Danielle for you. And unlike her brother, she's always going to tell you exactly what she thinks about things. She's so silly. 1/160, f/1.8, ISO 800.


My mom and I gave Kristin, age 8, her third (third!) American Girl doll. If you're not up on your AGs, this is Addy. When I was 10, after saving my allowance for two solid years, I bought my first American Girl doll - Addy. So I was really excited that my li'l cuz wanted the same one. If she were here, little-miss-detail-oriented would want me to tell you that she made sure that Addy's eyes were looking at the camera, as well as hers. 1/100, f/1.8, ISO 800.

Next: kids! sledding!

beginning to look a bit like christmas

I was an only grandchild until I was 13. While I enjoyed the way my grandparents loved to spoil me, family gatherings were always a little lonely, so by the time my uncle's first child was born, I was thrilled about the new additions. My cousins are the closest things I have to siblings; my aunt & uncle are like second parents to me. The problem is that they're in Minnesota, and I'm in Michigan, so I don't get to see them more than a few times a year, if I'm lucky. 2007 was a lucky year - I saw them in September, and then I visited twice in December - once to see the girls in The Nutcracker (Kristin was an angel; Dani was the "clapping mouse") and once at Christmas. These photos are from the first trip, only a week before my mom and I returned for the holiday.


Bradley (age 10), Kristin (age 8), and a friend, Samuel (age circa 5), spent about half an hour one afternoon sledding down a gentle slope in the backyard. Estimated angle of slope: 10 degrees, tops. They didn't care, though. 1/200, f/14, ISO 200.


Sometimes, the best part of sledding is falling off the sled - on purpose. They kept hoping I would chuck my camera aside and join them, but I couldn't make them understand that when I get cold and wet, I turn into my evil twin. No one wants that. 1/200, f/14, ISO 200.



This is Hannah, younger sister of the aforementioned Samuel. My aunt was technically babysitting these kids for her friend, but for most of the time that Hannah was awake, I was helping my cousins pretend to babysit her. I also got some great photos of her, although I still haven't figured out how to work with the lighting (or lack thereof) in my aunt & uncle's house. 1/100, f/1.8, ISO 1600.


I was put in charge of supervising the annual creation of the gingerbread house. Please don't ever make me frost one of these again. But once I got the roof frosted without throwing the the house through the sliding glass door in the kitchen, and once the kids stopped telling me, "Melanie, you're not good at this; Mommy can do it better," they had a great time finishing the decorations. It even turned out kind of cute. This is my favourite photo from the gingerbread house shoot, because of the way that Dani (age 6) is holding her brother's arm - totally candid. 1/100, f/3.5, ISO 800.


So the kids don't usually listen to me when I tell them to ignore my camera. Most of the time, I get cheesy grins and bunny ears. But sometimes, I get gems like this, while we were frosting Christmas cookies. (My aunt bakes a lot. She's not related to my mom and I.) I have a bad habit of aiming my camera toward their patio door, so the lighting on this isn't what I'd like it to be, but I'm trying to embrace it. 1/100, f/3.5, ISO 400.

Next time: probably another skating show, actually. I'm getting so predictable. But at least I'm really on the ball with the updates, and soon I'll be caught up, and then I can start taking pictures of random things again.