The Worden Family

Well, she's been the star for the past 11.5 months and now it's time to show off her Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes lookalike parents. I wanted to do an urban feel with this family, actually, Mikey wanted to take the pictures in a bowling alley. I thought...hmmm, maybe that can be my next challenge...for this one, I just wanted a nice red brick wall. Easy to say, hard to find. So, instead, I drove around my house and found some pretty good locations. Longs, Zia's and a park, all within 0.7 miles of my house...perfect.

These took a lot of work just because I couldn't even think of the best ways to pose Mike and Liz, I was too focused on getting a picture where all three of them were looking at the camera. I had to do a bit of PSing to create those pics where I get all three straight on. Still, I have even more pictures that I want to work on because they are really good...but I have to catch up with some actual work (you know, my actual job) first. I wish Scott would get a great raise...and be the sole breadwinnder. Come on, Scott.

Sleep just gets in the way of living

I have so much I want to do that I wish I could just skip a night of sleep every week just to get more time to do those things. Like tonight, so excited...stuff I want to read, things I want to look up, things I want to write...ugh, stupid sleep. I know Scott feels the exact opposite. If he could find a way to sleep more, he would quit his job.

I haven't posted anything in a while. I'm on third watch and I do miss hanging out with people. I have less time so I have to do the basics and put socializing second. But I did have a Sunday off and I got to walk Maluhia Gardens with Abby and Jen. I've never been there before. They are so much fun to talk to. It's like being in high school where you just gab about the boys you like, except now you just talk about your husbands. Same thing, we're just a little older and walk a little slower.

Tomorrow, I'm taking photographs of Haley and her creators...whoa, that sounds weird. I had this idea of a beach shoot, writing Haley's name in the sand...blue sky and oceans, vast white sands. Mikey said "that's not us, we don't go to the beach." So, I drove around today and found three possible sites we are going to try out tomorrow. Here's crossing my fingers.

I'm essential!!!

Not always good news.

Oahu is kicking up a windstorm. Yesterday morning, Scott and I woke to find a lot of items previously not on the floor now on the floor. After I dragged Scott to the gym and then went to work, I started hearing whispers of some Mayor-given directive. We're isolating two floors below ground so we're in a little cocoon. But later in the night, the higher-ups actually drove back in to town and our director came to talk to us. Apparently, because of the impending high winds still to come, Mayor Mufi had issued the day off for all non-essential city workers. And our supervisor told us "technically, you guys are NON-essential." Yah!!! I was pretty happy being non-essential.

Then our director came in later and said "No, technically, you guys are still non-essential, but we want you guys to come into work anyway." So, everyone else is home, and I'm here at work. Aaww, darn being so important.

Woke up this morning, not even a breeze.

Haley's First Christmas

We barely scraped in time to do Haley's Christmas session. Her proud papa asked that it get done sometime in November, and I just made it. Liz brought her over on New Year's Eve. It's been overcast for all of December and I don't have anything that really suffices as an indoor studio. So, I pushed our dining room table into the corner and taped Christmas paper to the wall, and then played around a LOT in photoshop to work out the color and white balance.

The other challenge was Haley's quick mobility. She wasn't interested at all in sitting still. We had to start feeding her mum mum crackers non-stop. Then we took her outside for a change in scenery.

Happy New Years!!! Silly fun on a rooftop

I keep repeating myself but we are still shorthanded at work. There's only two of us on my midnight shift so we were required to work all holidays, Christmas and New Year's Eve. I managed to get out of Thanksgiving only because I had already pre-purchased a ticket to the big island. So I brought in the New Year 2009 with the people I love, my coworkers. Hee hee...that's what I kept telling Jasmina. She was on the shift before but she stayed late to watch the fireworks with me. I kept saying "oh, to spend New Years Eve with the person I love" and then sighing..."and I guess it's Jasmina. She actually came up with an idea of going up on the helipad to watch the fireworks at midnight and we got real excited. We took up our cameras and tripods and it really made the night so much more fun.

Unfortunately, the two big public firework displays (Off Sand Island and off Waikiki) were both blocked by tall apartment buildings in our view. However, we can count on the good people of Hawaii to have choke 'illegal aerial fireworks. Jasmina had a shutter cord so she didn't have to press the actual camera button, to cut down on the camera shake (because we used long shutters for the night lights). But, I don't have a shutter cord. So, I kept my camera on a tripod and used a timer. I'd press the timer...listen to the beeping for six seconds...and pray that there would be fireworks going off when the shutter actually opened. It was hit-or-miss with a lot of misses. And town definitely didn't have as much illegal fireworks as Kaneohe would have...I guess the lack of yards might be a factor.

(Thank you for illegal aerial fireworks...the haze was so thick you couldn't see the mountains in the distance)

(I was worried that we would get in trouble for being up on the roof...but now, instead we were joined by a crowd of other poor souls working on New Year's Eve)

(Hey, I have a twin)
I used a long exposure on my camera to get the city lights...then held the flash in my hand and fired it on myself by pressing the flash button. Then I ran to the other side and flashed again before the shutter closed. Because I move, the city lights also shine through the picture giving it the ghost look.

Jasmina trying to do the "Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil"
Except that when she covered her eyes, she couldn't tell when I fired the flash so she ran out of time to do the third one.

(I love 2009 already!!!)
Used hand-held flash to light up ourselves and a flaslight to draw a heart.

BTW, good thing this cheered me up...because the rest of the night was crazy hard. I never want to work New Year's Eve again. Alcohol...fireworks....people roaming around all night...not good.