dallin June 27th, 2010

Lunar Eclipse

Originally uploaded by D@lbo

In the game of Hearts, Shooting the Moon is a risky and tricky strategy which can pay off very well, or have dire consequences if the desired result is not achieved.

Fortunately, taking photos of the moon does not come with such disastrous consequences, but it can still be quite tricky to do. The moon is very bright, but surrounding it is complete darkness. Digital cameras try to measure the light across the whole scene to get a properly exposed picture. Unfortunately, with such an unbalanced scene, this means the the moon will be very over-exposed, and retain almost no detail.

This is one occasion where shooting in Manual mode (if available) is almost the only way to capture a reasonable picture. The camera wanted to take this picture with a shutter speed of 1/15th of a second. Even with image stabilisation, there is no way I could even get a clear picture fully zoomed in (at 250mm) with that slow a shutter speed (I need to get a tripod!). But, the moon would also have been completely blown out with no detail in it.

To capture this shot I had to increase the shutter speed to 1/640th of a second – 40 times faster than what the camera thought would be good! For those photographers out there, that’s just over 5 stops less light. Exposure compensation on my camera only let’s me adjust by 2 stops (up or down), so without dialing in all of my own values in Manual mode, I wouldn’t have been able to get anything like this. Looking at the settings now, I probably should have adjusted the Aperture, but that’s a story for another day.

Earlier in the evening I also caught this image of the moon rising over the clouds.

I was in a rush when I took this, so I didn’t have time to adjust the settings as I’d have liked to, and the pic isn’t as good as it could have been. That said, it was a very beautiful moment, and I was fortunate to see it and have my camera on hand to capture it, even if the capture isn’t perfect.

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dallin March 5th, 2010

Generations

Originally uploaded by D@lbo

Every 3 weeks Canon has a competition to give away an EOS 500D camera. It’s called the Hero Chain, and is a part of Canon’s Photochains. There is a theme, and anyone can submit a photo representing their interpretation of that theme in some way. Each person who submits a photo also tags something in that photo, which would be the next theme if they win.

The current theme is ‘Generations’. I was planning on doing something slightly odd or different for this theme, but when I got this photo of Joshua and his great-grandfather, I knew it was the one for me to enter. I am really happy with how it turned out in black and white, too. There are some really good entries, but I really do think that this is up there near the best of them. So, I’m not expecting to win, but I’d be grateful for anyone who can go and vote for me!

You can see my entry here on page 2. It’s unfortunate that you have to register with Canon World of Eos to be able to vote (but, I’ve never received ANY mail from them after signing up).

And of course, if there’s another photo which you like better and fits the theme better, please vote for that. Yes I’d love to win, but not if someone else is more deserving!

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dallin February 21st, 2010

Captain Josho

Originally uploaded by D@lbo

As I have mentioned previously, I enjoy taking photos. Well, I’d been looking into getting a nicer camera for a while, and I finally convinced myself to buy a Digital SLR in January. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money, so I found a Canon EOS 400D on eBay for $400. Considering this is what our Olympus u830 cost when we got it a few years ago, I thought it was a reasonable deal.

Anyway, I won’t bore you with too much information about the camera. But it is really nice to have a much better camera, and while an EOS 400D is no where near a professional level, just using a DSLR makes me feel like a better photographer. And the quality of the shots (when I get them right, or close to right) is just way better than most of what our Olympus gives us.

I’ve had the camera for three weeks now, and I decided I should start doing something with the pictures that I like. So, here I present the first one I’m uploading to Flickr, of Joshua being captain of the washing basket boat! He’s such a good little boy!

Posting a blog entry directly from Flickr is pretty simple, so if you don’t have the time or patience to check my Flickr stream very often, I’ll try to highlight some of my extra favourites here on Howesthat!

Til next time…

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kathryn October 26th, 2009

So Dallin does most of the blogging these days, mostly because he is better at it and I just haven’t quite got into the hang of writing blog’s yet! But today I’m giving it a go!

Life is sailing along busily but rather smoothly for all of us. Since Dallin last updated the blog Joshua seems to have grown fast! He gives us the most beautiful smiles everyday (as you will see below) and makes life completely worth it! We are lucky enough to have a boy who sleeps pretty well at night, often only waking us once. He loves play time, and we get some of his biggest smiles when he’s laying on his play mat and kicking or hitting his toys around. One of my favourite moments so far was when he fell asleep in the bath! He just lay there fast asleep and didn’t even flinch when I took him out and put him on the towel, which at the time was often a bit of a drama!

Dallin’s work is going well, and we’re really blessed that he is also able to be home 2 days a week which fits in well with my return to teaching. This is my third week back and I love teaching my students, it is a great job and I love seeing them learn and grow both in their piano skills and as people. It has been interesting trying to adjust to being a mum, and a teacher but we’re going well although I imagine the bigger and more mobile Josh gets the more challenging it will be!

In March this year I started something called ‘Project 365′ or ‘Photo A Day’. Many of you may have heard of it but it’s where you take a photo everyday for a year and then write what’s the photo’s about. It has been a great project that I’ve really enjoyed doing. It helps me look for something new/exciting in each day which is proving to be a good experience. I guess by the end of it I will have a record of time spent with loved ones, things I’ve achieved or something beautiful I saw everyday. So far I have pictures of some of the important events this year such as Dallin’s graduation (I was so proud of him!) and Joshua’s birth (The most life-changing event ever!) to some very ordinary things such as the washing that I spent all day doing, or something new I made for dinner! I have never been very good at keeping a journal so this is something that helps me keep a record of my life. I would recommend to everyone to do this, or something similar if you don’t already keep a journal.

I hope that after I have finished the year of photos that if nothing else I can write in my journal, a few lines everyday, about something that I have done or seen. Elder Henry B Eyring spoke once about the wonderful blessings that came to him and his family as, everyday, he recorded how he had seen the hand of God bless him and his family. Both he and his family have been able to read that record and experience joy as they remember the many ways they have been blessed. Although I don’t anticipate that anything I have written or may write will significantly impact or bless the lives of others, I’m sure that in years to come I will have great joy as I look back at the photos and reflect on things that otherwise would have been long forgotten. I may even learn a new lesson or two from them as I recall the experiences, and that will make it all worth while!

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dallin September 2nd, 2009

I’ve spoken before about my enjoyment of taking photos. When I got my first digital camera, I would often take pictures of flowers. Our neighbours had some roses and some birds of paradise, and I would spend some time over there trying to take some pictures. I would then come back and attempt to make a digital collage on the computer. It never quite worked out as well as I hoped, but I still enjoyed it.

Lately I have been rediscovering flowers. I took a bunch of flower photos a few weeks ago when my niece, Lady, was here visiting from Sydney. She is 3, and can already take great photos! I have also now discovered some Irises in our backyard, that mum planted who knows how long ago!

We went to my parents (Grammy and Papi)’s house several times this day. I noticed this caterpillar the first time we came in, and he was there the entire day, and eventually managed to eat this entire flower!

The Caterpillar ate the entire flower!

We went for a walk up at Morialta, and I was on the lookout for things to photograph. I know this post is meant to be about flowers, but this mushroom is too good to pass up. It was just at the edge of the path, hidden behind some grass and other foliage. It was as if it was in an entirely different world.

A tiny Mushroom

Kathryn noticed this one day when we were out walking – this blossom was caught in some sort of a web, and was just floating there. It would spin when the wind blew.It was a very pretty sight, and this photo barely does it justice.

A floating Blossom

This one was also up at Morialta. I had a good look at a wattle tree, and discovered several of these ball things, which I had never seen before. t kind of looks like it might turn into a typical Wattle yellow puff ball, but it is enormous compared to the other ones. Can anyone enlighten me?

A Wattle something

I spotted this growing in the back yard while Kathryn was in hospital with Joshua. I’d never noticed it before, and it looked very interesting. Mum informs me that it is the flower from an Aloe Vera plant. So, now you know, there is more to them than just the green spiky bits and cooling gel.

An Aloe Vera flower

I spotted these in the garden of the house next to Grammy and Papi. I couldn’t get over how sharp the petals looked, until someone pointed out that they are curled, which gives them the pointy appearance. But I think these are some of the prettiest flowers I have ever seen, especially when it comes to ‘regular’ shaped flowers (ie, ignoring lilies, tulips, irises, birds of paradise, etc).

Stunning!

It had been raining before I got a change to go out and see these blue irises (the white ones come up first). Their shape allows them to catch perfect drops of water in some very interesting places. I took plenty of photos, and would have taken more, but I had to come back inside to look after a home and family.

Blue Iris

Click the continue link to see some more shots of the irises and red/yellow flowers (someone needs to tell me what they’re called!)

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dallin August 30th, 2009

And a whole bunch of dirty nappies in there too.

Joshua has been home for two weeks now! It’s been pretty crazy, and we’re all learning a lot, but we’re all doing great. The midwife came and weighed him on Friday – he has gained about 330 grams, which is 10% of his body weight. I think that’s pretty impressive. We had to feed him through a syringe for a few days, but that is pretty well all sorted out and he is feeding well now.

He is such a good boy for us – he sleeps really well and isn’t bothered too much by noise. He been sleeping for up to 6 hours some nights, which has been really nice. We are both still very tired, especially Kathryn, but we’re doing well. He has been great at church the last two Sundays, too – he sleeps through Sacrament Meeting, Kathryn takes him out to feed during Sunday School, and he comes back in a lies awake contentedly in his snuggle bag during Priesthood/Relief Society. He hardly makes a noise, and several people have asked “Where’s Joshua?”, because they didn’t notice him.

He still loves his tongue, and it is constantly going in and out of his mouth. He is also quite good with his fingers, stretching them every which way.

Just as I am writing this, he has been working hard at holding his head up. And filling his nappy. One of those is much cuter than the other…

We have taken a bunch more photos, and I’ll include some for you below.

*Edit* Joshua is being blessed at church this Sunday, September 6th, in Morialta ward. We meet at 9:00 am at Firle Chapel, 120 Gage St, Firle. We’d love for people to come, but we realise that it is father’s day, so it could be difficult for many.

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dallin August 15th, 2009

Joshua Josiah Howes was born yesterday, August 14th at 2:34pm, in the Lyell McEwin Hospital. He weighed 7lbs 4oz, or 3285g (I think), and was 50.5 cm long. Everyone is doing well – and much better after a decent night’s rest.

The full account may follow sometime later (or it may not…) but just very briefly, labour was about 12 hours long, ending with a successful, natural birth. Kathryn was amazing. When I took my ring off half way through, my hand hurt a lot less! As a follow up to the last post, the doctors at the Women’s and Children’s didn’t feel comfortable with her delivering there, in case something went wrong with her heart, since they have no adult ICU there. We chose Lyell McEwin over Flinder’s as it is closer for most of Kathryn’s family, a newer, nicer facility and the same distance for us. There were no issues with Kathryn’s heart during labour, and no major issues at all. But, it was kind of nice being treated as ‘high risk’.

Anyway, you didn’t come to read what I’m writing, you came for pictures. So, here you go…

Hopefully Kathryn and Joshua will be coming home on Sunday.

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dallin July 27th, 2009

I’m going to tell you the story of our last week. We didn’t tell many people about it as it was going on, because we didn’t want people to worry (there was never anything to worry about). So don’t feel like we don’t like you just because you didn’t know that all of this stuff was going on – not many people knew at all! To tell the story properly though, I’m going to have to go back nearly three weeks, when it really started.

On Saturday July 4th Kathryn’s heart woke her up at about 6:00am. It was beating very strongly, very quickly and had a very erratic beating pattern. It was pretty odd. But she felt fine (just a bit freaked out) and we’d both heard that funny heart beats and other heart oddities are quite common in pregnancy. So we weren’t overly worried about it. And I was tired, so I went back to sleep. Kathryn stayed up for a bit, and looked up some information on the internet.

By the time I had to leave at about 8:00, her heart was still going about the same. I gave her a blessing before I left, and she tried to go back to sleep. By the time she got up for work (it was her last day!) at about 9:00, she felt fine, and as far as she could tell, her heart was beating normally. We planned to page Amy, our midwife, sometime during the week to let her know and check that everything was ok, but we both forgot about it.

Fast forward to this last Monday morning. At about 4:00, Kathryn woke up hungry. I think she got some food, and came back to bed just before 5:00, and went back to sleep. Then at 6:00 her heart woke her up again. At first it was beating very hard and fast, and then after a few minutes it switched to the irregular beat, similar to the last time. Again, we weren’t especially worried, but we decided to call the hospital, just in case. They were also not worried, but recommended we come in and get it checked out, just in case. Both of us fully expecting to be home within 2 or 3 hours, we didn’t shower or have breakfast, we just went straight in to the Women’s and Children’s. It was 6:30 when we parked the car.

4:50 AM

They did an ECG and kept her heart rate and the baby’s heart rate and movements monitored. The baby was very happy, and Kathryn felt fine, she just had a very odd heart beat. She was beating faster than the baby, which is very odd indeed (Baby’s heart rate is about 150bpm. Kathryn was about 180 when we first got there). The doctor came and took some blood, and we just sat in the room, with the instruments beeping. Every so often we had to reset the alarm that would go off, because her heart-rate was too fast. They wanted to keep her monitored until the heart rate returned to normal.

This is going to be a bit long, so click the continue link to get the rest!

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dallin July 5th, 2009

I have always enjoyed taking photos, but I have never done very much of it. For a long time, the biggest problem was probably the waste of film and money associated with developing it. Because so few photos could betaken on a roll of film, and developing a roll of film was so expensive, I was always very reluctant to take a photo.

Thankfully I live in the era of the digital revoultion, and it’s fantastic! Since I got my first digital camera (about 2001), I have had more freedom to take photos, and attract less criticism from my older, female sibling. For Christmas 18 months ago, mum got me a new digital camera, an Olympus u830. I’ve been really impressed with it – it’s not a proffessional unit, but for a point and shoot it does a great job.

Recently, Kathryn has begun a ‘Photo-a-day’ project – taking a photo of something every day, and recording some brief journalling about the event. This has led to taking photos of some more random and odd events. It has also led to taking more photos in general. A lot more. So with all of that disclaimer and introduction, I want to share a few photos that I have taken over the last few months. I won’t commit to posting photos regularly (clearly I’m not good at updating our blog), but I’m going to try!

A ladybug on the front wall at home

The RAA came to look at Kathryn’s car on this day, and while I was out the front, I noticed a whole heap of lady bugs on the front wall. I took a few pictures of them, but I think this was my favourite one. These lady bugs were all quite orange, rather than the more traditional red. It was pretty cool though. And then that afternoon, we heard the school kids out there finding and looking for them.

The Adelaide Temple

This is a picture of the Temple on the day that Tracey and Jonathan were married (May16th). It rained a bit through the day, but there was some blue sky in the morning, allowing for some lovely Temple shots like this one. I love the Temple, and I love photos of the Temple, and this is one of my new favourites.

If anyone is interested in full-sized copies of any of these or other photos, I’d be glad to e-mail them to you.

*Edit* – I’ve just added a simple way for me to add new photos to the random banner up the top, so you should hopefully see some new pictures in there if you refresh a few times, too!

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dallin December 7th, 2008

We went to Hungry Jack’s for dinner last night, which isn’t very common for us, but we were hoping to meet some friends there. Unfortunately we had to leave before they got there.

From where we were sitting, we had a good view of the playground and the entrance to it. It has quite a high fence around it, with a gate at the entrance, which has a magnetic latch which you have to lift, in order to open the gate. This is not unlike the sort of gate you might find around a pool or at the entrance to a Kindergarten, to stop children from being able to get through. We sat there considering a few reasons why the would have such a system to keep children in or out of the playground.

As we sat there, we saw a boy who was determined to get into the playground. We watched as he slowly pulled a chair from a near-by table towards the gate. We watched as he crawled up onto the chair and stood up. We watched as he lifted the magnetic latch. And we watched as he tried to open the gate. In vain. The problem was the the chair, the very tool he was using to aid his entrance (or perhaps escape) into the playground was blocking his progress.

We considered this scene for a moment, and thought how sometimes the very actions that we perform while trying to get ahead, can often impede our progress. Hastily organised and poorly thought out plans can put us in a worse position than where we began. But a little more fore-thought, and perhaps some input from someone a little older, wiser or more experienced than ourselves, can simplify the process and help us achieve our goal. And our Father in Heaven is of course the ultimate source of that guidance and assistance.

Fortunately the boy did end up reaching his goal. Two other children came to his aid – one pushed his chair back slightly, and the other held the gate open while he climbed down so that they could move the chair away and open the gate.

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