Walking around New York for a week with a seven year old was adventuresome and active. We never ran out of things to see and do, and walked 50 blocks a day on average. Carrying around a huge camera was not only cumbersome but unnecessary when you can slip a 4.5 inch, 4.9 ounce phone in your back jean pocket.
So here were my top New York adventures, recorded by my iPhone:
Brooklyn Bridge- Free to walk accross, and so amazingly beautiful. Views of Manhattan skyline, and the Manhattan bridge, this ended up on the top of my list. We even spit “Brooklyn” gum off the side after making a wish, a tradition I hadn’t heard of until that day, avoiding car windshields and open sunroofs was a relief.
Central Park: This was first on my list. After seeing countless movies and shows filmed here, I knew it would be cool- but I was not prepared for the Springtime tulips planted everywhere. It was beautiful. And huge! It was nice to let CJ play in a few of the playgrounds giving him a chance to make a few friends and just play.
Sony Wonderlab: This was a total surprise. It was a technology and entertainment museum full of hands on exhibits that were engaging and informative. We learned how to broadcast a news report, preform virtual surgery, control robots, create animation, edit videos, and mix music to name a few.
Top of the Rock: 30 Rockefeller has an observation deck that competes with Empire state buildings views, but with a plus! You can see the Empire State building.
Dylan’s Candy Bar: A candy store full of every imaginable candy creation you could dream up, and a bathtub full of gumballs. Do I need to say more?
Statue of Liberty: This went on my son’s list first. He was so excited to see this, it was almost more fun to watch him than to even look at the statue.
Times Square: Sitting on these red steps people watching was the perfect end to each day.
Baseball: Yankee’s, Met’s and Phillies are all a train or subway ride away. We fit all three in, and although we loved them all, nothing can compare to the energy and enthusiasm of the Yankee crowd. Batting practice was a great way to get settled into the ballpark, and offered the best opportunity to get a genuine leather souvenir.
Although I have a few pictures with my canon 5d that I love, and could never live without, it was nice to have a few days that we could leave that big thing back at the hotel.
Once upon a long time ago, when I was a rookie mom, I used to plan trips to the beach. Strategically I would chose toys and objects that we would play with once we finally pushed the BOB- bobbling with objects over its sides down to the sand. On a good day, Cj would play with one of those toys for a few seconds, and be done. Inevitably, one by one the toys would be offered up to the sea, or sand, until all we had left was a broken sifter and a half of a shovel. Predicting what he would do at the beach was harder than picking two lottery numbers. If I brought a boogie board, he would climb the rocks the whole time. If I brought a chair for him, he would join a gang of boys digging a gigantic hole.
So now, we pack the car with ourselves, and a bottle of water, and we are there. On low tides we come home with pockets full of treasures, and on high tides we almost always get wet, but each time we go, we have a totally different adventure.
Last week, we headed down to the beach with the intention of taking a few quick pictures of Cj’s moppy head before he gets his spring buzz. CJ raced ahead of me and began climbing the rocks. As a lady approached him on the rocks, I instantly rolled my eyes, thinking to myself, oh boy-what now? But she then came straight to me to let me know that there was a baby seal in the cave. Cj and I were thrilled. So exciting to see animals up close…..right? We cautiously entered the cave, and there in the back slinking away from us was a baby elephant seal. He was tiny. If you looked carefully you could count each and every rib along side his back. But he was so cute.
Another mom and I authoritatively assessed the situation, and ended up calling the Pacific Marine Mammal Resuce since we came to the conclusion that we do not have the slightest idea on weather or not he was ok. With in a few minutes, they were there. They brought a crate, and a huge net, a beach community version of the dog catcher.
The workers let CJ carry up towels and nets behind them into their truck. And just like that our friend was gone.
After a little investigation, we found out that they named our little baby Emma Swan, and she entered in critical condition. Immediately they started feeding her through tubes to get her healthy again. Despite the tireless efforts of the volunteers, we called the next day to find that she didn’t make it. What a sad sad discovery for us, but a wonderful experience for CJ and me as we fall deeper and deeper in love with this wide and unpredictable ocean.
So, until next time dear ocean. We may build towers upon your sand, search for treasures, see a whale riding your waves, meet a friend, or go for a swim in your freezing waters. But we know one thing for sure, we will have a wonderful experience with you as our friend.
It is a photo editing software for your phone or ipad. Cost is from $4.99 to free.
(Every once and a while it is free, so keep your eyes out if you are against purchasing apps.)
Before Snapseed, I admit to opening my image in a few different apps sometimes to get the look I wanted. Snapseed has everything you will need to edit, and more.
Let’s begin.
After you open your image in Snapseed, you have a selection of areas to edit. Basic adjustments are under tune image. You will find the following five areas to edit.
Brightness, ambiance, contrast, saturation, and white balance. This covers your basic overall feel of your photo, or helps if there is any exposure issues.
One main menu option that I love, is selective adjust. You can bring up the exposure on one small area such as the face, and then also bring up the background in contrast or brightness. This offers detailed control and specific artistic possibilities. Brightening or saturating a certain area on your photo can ultimately bring more attention to that aspect of your photo, offering a better focal point.
This application offers endless options when it comes to a vintage look to your photos.
In the main menu options, there are three that can embellish your photo to look romantic, aged, or vintage. Those menu choices are Vintage, Drama, and Grunge.
Vintage has a few set settings that you can apply to your photo, along with control over the strength of the texture or brightness of the filter.
Drama offers much more of just that. It is more radical changes than the vintage filters giving your photos a more dreamy or dark ambiance.
Grunge can add strong textures with a variety of styles to add to that “rock and roll” vibe of a photo.
Overall the ease of use for this application is great. The controls are easy to figure out, and playing with your photos will be addicting.
The sky is the limit when it comes to looks and styles for your photos. You will have a blast turning your phone photos to art, or just helping those photos look their best. I love that if I am out and about and have a few minutes waiting in line, or sitting at the park, I can edit my favorite photos. Once I get home, they are ready to print and frame, or share with family and friends. This saves me so much time in the long run, and best utilizes my in between moments while out.
I highly recommend this application for photo obsessed moms such as myself.
Water adventures is what Orange County is known for. It seems I also gave birth to a fish who loves surfing, stand up paddle boarding, kayaking, swimming, pools and sprinklers to name a few. And because I love taking pictures of my little guy using my phone, I will tell you one thing I have learned definitively. Water and phones DO NOT MIX well.
But water and pictures, now that is just perfection in my eyes. The water can sparkle in a noon day sun. Water can create texture with the sun set behind it. Water can add motion and coolness to a photo.
So until a week ago, I used this genius contraption, it is called a ziplock bag. Cost- about 2¢.
There are a few problems with this solution.
1. How secure can it really be? Even if you do see the yellow and blue turn green, it is just a small thin piece of plastic.
2. You cannot manipulate the apps very well, and you lose all functional aspects of your camera, especially under water.
3. The bag makes all your pictures blurry
Then I splurged and purchased a Lifeproof iphone case. Cost- about $70.
Advantages to this case are that you can drop it, dip it, splash it, freeze it, and it will keep your phone safe.
You can take pictures under water, as long as the button to push the trigger is out of the water. You get clear perfect underwater pictures.
Besides the high price tag, the not so cool things about this case is that although the website claims that with this case on, you have complete function of your phone, I found it difficult to use the touch screen. It also lost all capability for the speaker phone for some reason. Basically I was hoping for a case that would “lifeproof” my phone from toilet drops and car exiting tricks that I am so good at. I hate smashing my screen or ruining my phone, but it did not live up to that standard of daily use I would need. I kept getting frustrated with the sensitivity of the screen.
Another frustrating factor is that it is very very difficult to take this case off and put it back on, for great reasons, I get that. I do want it to be safe. But the manufacturer recommends that you only remove and put this case on around 50 times so as to not compromise the “waterproofness.”
So you have two choices; keep it on and get used to the screen issues, or take the time to put on and remove it 50 times. I am sure you will get better and better at it.
They have a few cool accessories that you can purchase too, like a belt hook, and floatation ring.
But this picture, I took this by bringing out my camera in a zip lock baggie, then laying down on the paddle board, and taking my camera out of the bag. I balanced on the board fine, but I will admit to being a tad bit nervous about it slipping into the water.
Until I find a better solution, I will be using my Lifeproof case in the water and snow. At least 50 times anyway.
It’s called A Race to Nowhere. A powerful indie with buzz, accolades, and criticism. My son’s elementary school had a recent screening, and dialogue has been popping up with parents of friends from CJ’s sports team for months.
The film covers the changes in education over the past few years, and the impact it is having on our children. If you plan on your children EVER attending a school of some sort, elementary, high school, college, inform yourself on our current state of education. Watch this film.
Basically the blame is put on No Child Left Behind laws, testing, pressure to succeed and get ahead, and getting into colleges that are looking for the best of the best in college applications.
It would be a lie to say that these current changes were the sole reason I left teaching, but it would be equally wrong to say they didn’t have an impact on my decision. I left to raise a child, follow a passion. But the truth is, at one point, education was my passion. I loved teaching, watching children learn. I still enjoy the wonder and magic of discovery. A Race to Nowhere covers the problems with our current education programs including, homework, suicide rates rising, AP classes, loss of thinking, pressure, low test scores, test scores, tests and depression. A lot of deep topics, I know. It is a powerful, painful and pertinent film for this generation.
The movie sites studies about homework. This was my favorite part. Here is the correlation between homework and performance in school broken down:
Elementary age+ homework= nothing gained by it and may actually lower scores
Jr. High kids+ homework = not a significant gain in preformance
High School age + homework = nothing over an hour improves scores
So to me, this said “Go out and play more with your kids” Let them have free time, let them explore.
There are really only two solutions to this problem.
1. Get involved with your school and your child’s development
2. Communicate with the school, your board meetings, your district, and your teacher on what your child needs.
To find a screening near you, check out the list of schools in your area that are screening this film.
Here is a little something from my iphone from my play afternoons together with my boy.
When it comes to holiday traditions, there are some moms out there that make pinterest look like kindergarten artwork. You know who you are. You are tracked down on my Facebook radar, posting cute pictures of your Elf on a Shelf TP-ing your Christmas tree, Homemade Gingerbread houses that look like they belong in the pages of a magazine, and ya, you already finished your shopping and mailed all your HAND WRITTEN holiday cards. It is exhausting just thinking about it, I think I will eat another one of your amazing homemade cookies you dropped off last week to make me feel better about it all.
But alas! I have discovered a holiday tradition that takes all the pressure off me, and it is WONDERFUL! It brought me back into the spirit of traditional holiday cheer in a low maintenance way. It is the Festival Ballet‘s Nutcracker performance at Irvine Barclay theater, and it can instantly create a tradition in your family that has low upkeep. All you have to do is buy tickets and go. Done.
No cleaning up after. No remembering at 3am that you forgot to move the darn elf. No planning around rush hour Santa visiting hours. Just buy your tickets and go.
As ballets go, this one was amazing. I have seen professional ballet performances by almost all the major Ballet companies, and the costumes, dancing, and dancers were right up there. Probably because they intermix adorable local talent and professional dancers from the American Ballet Theater and the Joffrey Ballet. The special effects were enough to light up and capture the attention of my six-year-old boy, with snow falling to the ground, and canons firing off. And the music! Oh the music. Tchaikovsky music fills the shopping malls for a reason, it cheers and warms, and makes you want to dance.
Two thumbs way up for this performance, and a strong suggestion to pull out your fancy dresses and make this a tradition with your family. And the best part is, the dancers do all the work!
Over the weekend I attended a jungle themed party celebrating one year old’s first birthday. You expect the parents to be walking around with a camera following the waddling birthday boy. Dad had a flip video, mom with a point and shoot. But there were camera’s in the hands of grandparents, aunties, and friends. Enough cameras to fill the shelves of the electronic department at Target. (I had mine!)
What is everyone after? Just the perfect picture. The snap that will capture perfectly the day, the moment, and be the souvenir that can bring back the memories of that special moment for years to come.
Last week we had a play date at the park with a good friend. Cj sat on the swing and watched this friend pump her way up higher than I could push him with a bum knee. That was all it took. Like the week he was determine to learn how to do the shuffle, I knew he wouldn’t stop until he figured it out. Our friend was able to teach him what I had tried thousands of times before…. but she suddenly had new ways of saying the same thing I was saying. And really, the only difference was it came from a kid, and not me. But it worked, so I am happy, and he learned how to pump by himself. If you are a friend of playing at the park with your kids, you know how huge of an event this really is.
So of course I wanted to capture it….. but I wanted to capture that perfect picture. So I took, and took and took some pictures. Here are a few: (and I deleted around 20 others)
I wanted his silhouette to not be cut off or blended into the tree behind him, so I just sat, watched him pump, and all the while snapping away on my phone until I got what I thought was the perfect picture to capture the essence of the day! Untied shoelaces and all.
This post has been floating around in my head for about one month, one week, and nine hours. I am not the type to want to blog about something depressing, sad, or challenging. Not because I don’t believe we should talk about it, but just that everyone has enough on going on in their life, the last thing they want to read about are the things in my life that are getting me down. Today, I am making an exception. And here is why.
Sunny days are great. Days where nothing goes wrong, and everything falls in place. Sure, they don’t happen all that often, but we often spend time reflecting on those special days of the past, or hoping for those days sometime in the near future. But today is now, and it is what you have. Today I am swamped in emails and client proofs, orders and editing. On top of that, one month, one week, and nine hours ago, I had an accident that blew out my ACL and Miniscus in my right knee along with slightly fracturing my tibia. If you are a mama of a small child, you know what this means. You never truly know your impact in your life till you are gone, I am talking It’s a Wonderful Life style. My chore list was short, but they were all pretty essential tasks like feeding the family, and getting CJ to school. And although this injury has allowed me to feel invaluable and needed, that can be nice, it is frustrating to be in pain and not be at your best when you really need to be.
If I look back, I realize that at each time in my life where a little rain fell, there was a valuable lesson to learn. In other words, something good came out of it, a flower or two might have sprung up due to the challenges that I faced. So what, you might wonder bloomed for me from this little fall of rain?
First, I have hired an assistant. Something I might never have done, yet something that has brought a huge difference in the way I run my business. Next, I have had to streamline my workflow to free up more time for physical therapy and doctor appointments. This can eventually help me down the line and free up more family time creating a better balance for me and my job. My shooting style is pretty active. Run and tickle the feet, run back and focus. So with a bum knee I have had to create a few more tricks in the bag that do not require running back and forth.
One of my most favorite props to use is an umbrella. Probably because in Southern California when you say umbrella your first image is probably an umbrella on the beach during the summer. They offer color, and the opportunity to play with a small child. When I was young I used to try to see if the wind could blow me away while holding one, or if I jumped off a rock if I fell lightly to the ground as in cartoons. So when it rains around here, we are usually jumping around in it. A pretty good metaphor for my life right now.
And don’t feel too sorry for me over here. I am, after all, getting more sympathy than I really deserve.
It is easy to be negative about small things as a parent,
Waking up on a Monday morning,
Loosing our cool with our kids when we don’t want to,
lace up shoes for a six-year old,
Being late for drop off,
I think you can picture my morning.
But negative space can have a positive impact on our phone pictures.
Negative space is when you include a whole lot of nothing in your picture. Be it sky, background, hair, or a wall, negative space is the area that surrounds your subject. The negative space can add many positive aesthetics to our photos. It draws our eyes to the subject, it can give our photos the sense of simplicity, it can give our subject a chance to let out a sigh of relief. Something us parents can totally relate to, right?
Palm trees dot the coast of California, and make up a huge icon of the region. They always seem to calm my crazy monday morning….
This is an illustration of what is positive(white) and what is negative(black) space in this photograph.
Because this was a silhouette, it makes for a simple teaching tool. But here are a few more examples of how much I love negative space when I see it in Orange county:
Let’s turn try to turn all those negatives into positives today.
