Fatherhood Friday: Ballerina
Emily had her ballet show last weekend and she want me to take some pictures of her in her costume before it had to be taken back. Sam got in on the act also 🙂
(Sorry to Facebook people who have already seen these).
Nikon D70s, 50mm f1.8 Lens, ISO 200, 2x 500W Electra Stobes with shoot through Umbrella Softbox and Barn Doors for Backdrop.
Fatherhood Friday: Adventure To The 800 Year Old Rimu Tree
The other day, Emily had a teachers only day at school so we decided to go and have an adventure finding the 800 year old Rimu tree at Otari.
I took the backpack for Sam but she ended up walking most of the way holding Emily’s hand which was very cute.
I have to say that the XA3 did a great job of the tricky light conditions.
Olympus XA3, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film Pushed to 1600 ISO, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Fatherhood Um… Wednesday: Rolleinar And Rolleipar
Quite some time ago Wellington street photographer Julian Ward lent me a Rolleinar 1 and a Rolleipar for use with my Rollei. The Rolleinar 1 acts as a close up lens meaning you can get much closer than the Rollei’s 3.5 feet close focusing range. The problem with this is that since you are looking through the “viewing” lens which sits above the “taking” lens you get parallax which means the image you are seeing doesn’t correspond to what the camera sees. Thats where the Rolleipar come in. The Rolleipar bends the light so that both lenses see the same thing.
Anyway I finally managed to find an occasion to test this out when the girls had their faces painted at a writers week event in Civic Square a couple of weeks back.
Next step is to take it to the street now I know how it works 🙂
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Rolleinar 1 close up filter, Rolleipar paralax correction Lens, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Fatherhood Friday 33: Testing Olympus XA3
So I bought a new camera off TradeMe (NZ’s equivalent of Ebay) last week and it turned up on Monday. It is an Olympus XA3, which is a 35mm fixed 30mm lens and fully automatic but really small and super sharp, that was bought out around 1985. It was described as non-working so it only cost $30NZ and the research did before I bought it seemed to suggest that it was probably a contact problem which would be easy to fix.
It arrived in the middle of the Snow storm on Monday and I was surprised when I put new batteries in it worked fine 🙂
This is the kind of small camera that means you can really always have a camera on you and still shoot film… Sometimes the Rollei is just a bit big to always carry around when you also have a 2-year-old with you.
These are some shots, mostly of kids due to the fact we were pretty much housebound due to the Snow and copious amounts of rain we have had all week, from the first roll I put through it.
They are quite contrasty mostly since I was using 400 ISO Film pushed to 1600 and then developed at 1/9 dilution rather than the 1/19 dilution I would usually use (I was in a bit of a rush to Develop).
All in all I quite like them. I currently have a roll of 800 ISO colour negative film loaded but unless it is really cool I think I will go back to 400 pushed to 1600.
Olympus XA3 Camera, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film pushed to 1600 and developed with Ilford LC29 at 1/9 Dilution, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Snow Flurries
It’s unusual for it to snow enough for it to settle in Wellington but we had a couple of storms pass through and there is still snow on the ground this morning.
Yes I took some on the Rollei and Half Frame but you have to wait for them 🙂
Nikon D70s, 18-70mm Lens, Sb80DX Speedlite.
Fatherhood Friday: Adventures In Cooking
Ok so this isn’t a normal type of post but it was a fun experience so I thought I would share.
About a week ago Emily suggested that we make gingerbread houses (I’m pretty sure she meant real life sized ones, or at least dolls house sized ones) since every couple of weeks we make gingerbread men while Samantha has a lunch time sleep and then decorate them the next day at the same time. Sam usually wakes up once we have done most of it but there are always things left for her to do as well (usually eating the decorating things and left over dough as well as cutting the last few shapes out).
So I thought what the heck lets give it a go…
I drew out a quick sketch (thank you 5th form technical drawing) to make sure it was kind of what Em was thinking and then made up a small model to check it would work and also to be used as a cutting template.
We made the gingerbread like normal and just after we had finished making it Sam woke up so she got to help ( I secretly think that she knew we were doing something fun and woke up so she wouldn’t miss out).
We made enough parts to make 4 gingerbread houses (since this was a trial run) and the rest got turned into a conglomeration of Christmas trees, teddy bears, people etc…
Into the oven they went and 15 minutes later we had some slightly distorted but still entirely usable house pieces …
At this point the story was put on hold due to the fact that the next day when we were due to ice and decorate them Samantha had a blinding 30 minute tantrum and didn’t go to sleep and was grumpy for pretty much the whole afternoon.
Friday comes round and things go to plan, Sam goes to sleep and we mix up some icing ready to decorate (I was going to make the usual pink icing but Emily insisted that I make chocolate icing). I put together the first house but made the mistake of putting the walls on the inside of the ends which meant the roof didn’t fit so it had to be pulled apart and re-done which made it look a bit messy before we decorated them.
After they were all put together we put them in the fridge for 30 minutes so they would set and started decorating the rest of the gingerbread.
We each decorated 2 houses and I think for a first try at making them they turned out pretty well.
Nikon D70s, 18-70mm Lens.
Fatherhood Friday 30: Twas The Night Before Christmas… Half Frame Styles
Well kinda the day before christmas and in some parts of the world when I publish this, the day before the night before christmas… Wow that was pretty confusing…
As you can probably guess the girls are all pretty excited and riled up (all 3 of them, big one included).
One last shopping foray to complete for the girls to get each other a present and then its time to kick back and relax… At least until Boxing day when I’m working again.
Canon Demi Half Frame Camera, HP5+ 400 ISO Film, Canoscan 9000F Scanner.
Fatherhood Friday 29: 8 Sleeps til Christmas
Wow! Where did the year go?
Emily is getting very excited and pretty much every night before bed saying “I hope Santa comes tonight”.
The christmas tree has been up for a number of weeks and Samantha has only nearly pulled it over once so far and has been remarkably good about not opening the presents that have started to appear under it from various well organised relatives 🙂
The bike track is still under construction but they have the small people track finished, Emily is getting super fast going around a I can hardly keep up with her on my bike… Looks like there is going to be another daredevil in the family….
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, Canoscan 9000F Scanner.
Fatherhood Friday 28: Bunnies
Only 22 days to Christmas….Eekkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk!
We all had a day off together which for us is pretty unusual since I work weekends and some week days and Amanda works during the week, we were supposed to go camping but the weather forecast didn’t look the best (it turn out that we should have gone cause the weather was nice).
So we decided to make the most of our time and went out to Staglands, which is a reserve/petting zoo about an hour out of Wellington.
The girls loved seeing and interacting with the animals (except for an over friendly goat which tried to follow Emily around and shoved its head into Sams pushchair looking for food).
Nikon F5, 50mm f1.8, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, Canoscan 9000F Scanner.
Fatherhood Friday 27: Pipes and Flying Bikes
I havent done one of these in a while, mostly due to a backlog of film that I have to develop 🙂
Things have been slowly moving towards summer with the weather getting better and more opportunities to head outside and play in the sun.
Street shooting Mondays have been reinstated with Sam in the backpack and us roaming through town looking for photo opportunities (and occasionally playgrounds).
Emily is getting very excited about christmas already and we have started to put up our christmas tree with a few decorations being put on it each night. The tree is looking slightly comical due to the fact that most decorations are on the top third of the tree away from where Sam can get them.
Sam through a pipe.
Emily, Frog and the flying Bike.
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Fuji Neopan 400 ISO Film, Canoscan 9000F Scanner.
Fatherhood Friday 26: Kites, Bikes and Mud
All I can say is that it has been a full on couple of weeks!
Samantha finally got Chicken Pox, unfortunately on the day my parents arrived for a 4 day visit, and after the first day Emily had a 3 day bout of vomiting and diarrhea. So lets just say that the girls werent at their best for the visit.
Anyway here are a few shot from one of our trips to the ,still being built, bike track.
Nikon F5, 50mm f1.8, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film.
Fatherhood Friday 25: Chickenpox and Cabin Fever
Whats worse than a week of chickenpox? A week of torrential rain and not being able to go out and run round AND chickenpox.
Both girls are starting to go a bit crazy and Emily is starting to talk non stop all the time…
At least today it is finally sunny and both girls are out on the deck running round chasing  each other and screaming happily.
Apart from the spots Emily has been pretty much normal all week and has done a brilliant job of not scratching.
Darkhalide Photography 
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