Late nights.

Habits are hard to break. Ever since the kids started coming to our bed at nights my sleep has been off. It's a very rare night that I sleep straight through for more than 4 or 5 hours at a time. I find myself getting to bed around midnight and once in awhile a little earlier once the kids are settled in and the house is secured. But, like clockwork I am awake at 2 or 3am. Mostly cos during the night this is when one of them wakes up and heads to our room. I don't think it bothers El much. She loves the kids sleeping with her (they snuggle her). Me? I usually get kicked in the head or back and pushed right to the edge of the bed and sheets pulled off of me. My best sleep? On the couch. Alone. Nowadays my body has automatically taken to waking up at this time whether there are kids or not. Talk about brutal. Plus, it's hard for me to just go back to sleep. I usually end up walking around and checking on the kids and/ or using the bathroom. Then it's Netflix until I get drowsy again. Bad habit, I know, but I can't seem to shake it. We've been trying to get Nicholas to stay in his bed, but you know how that goes... Some nights are better than others, but tonight is one of the bad ones.

Experimenting again...

New York, a photo by erickpineda527 on Flickr.

I've always loved photography and have had a camera in my hand as early as 10-years-old. Back then it was my mother's 35mm Kodak camera. It was nothing fancy.

I recently went through some old photos from a trip to Italy back in 2002 (?) thinking I would have these scanned and saved digitally. Looking through the prints I realize now how much more experience I needed behind a lens. While they look great for keepsakes they were definitely needing some love. Poor saturations, light leaks, bad exposures. Oy.

I remember the excitement of coming home from that trip to Italy wanting to see what we shot. It looked great then. Not so great now. I have definitely gotten better at my compositions and am learning to embrace more digital techniques to enhance the overall effect. A lot of our images felt flat and lacking depth.

Enter Tilt Shift Focus. While a dedicated lens is very expensive, a photographer can somewhat capture this effect using similar techniques digitally. After playing with it a little I'm pretty excited to comb through the thousands upon thousands of photographs from all over the world and see what are good candidates for this technique. Woot!

All Growsd Up

Waterfront Park Kids, a photo by erickpineda527 on Flickr.

This past year has gone by so fast for me. A lot has changed. With my extra time I've (and some new lenses and filters) rediscovered my passion for photography. Charleston is an incredibly photogenic city. Earlier in my design career and as a student here I had already shot the obvious subject matter of blatantly touristy subject matter in a typical manner. This go around I've invested a considerable amount of time into exploring what most visitors here have missed.

Local farms, vineyards and distilleries; plenty of night shots after parks have closed, local neighborhoods and out of the way historic sites that seem to be mostly overlooked. There's interest in everything if...you...just...look...a little...closer.

And to boot it's been a great excuse to bring the kids to see something other than SpongeBob and Dora on the TV all day. TV in our house is kept to a minimum - it's usually reserved for nighttime right before bed. We call the short excursions "safaris" to add a little excitement for the two knuckleheads. They seem to enjoy the exploring, too. Even in Florida El and I would take road trips to little known attractions, gardens and other scenic spots (which reminds me that there is alot of other photography hidden away on my drive from Morikami Gardens and the Gulf Coast).

Speaking of change and kids...they've grown so much this past year. I recently posted a short video clip of collected photos Isa and Nico took on their "toy" Lego camera. It was cool to see what would capture a child's interest enough to photograph it. It also was a shocker to see how they had changed in the two short years here in Charleston. My children are my pride and joy and I'm stuck between happy and sad to see them progress the way they have. I love seeing them at this age and excited to see everyday how much they've developed, but at the same time sad that they're leaving a stage in their lives. Corny, I know.

A few words to describe Nicholas and Isabella:

Very affectionate and sweet to each other.
Unbelievably funny.
Naughty, but not in a bad way.
Shockingly intelligent for their ages, but maybe I'm biased.
Fun to be around with.

I'm pretty stoked about this coming year. I've got a project I'm working on. The notion was originally inspired by an old colleague and friend of mine in Orlando (Thanks Sweet T!), but it took a different turn from what she originally suggested for me to try. Nonetheless, it was an idea I was too embarrassed to even consider doing. But now in it's initial phase with a good lead I'm determined to complete it.

So here I am.