Tag: pictures

Through Ezra’s Eyes

Through Ezra’s Eyes

For Ezra’s fourth birthday I got him his very own camera. I thought it might be neat to post some of his pictures here every once and a while.

All these photos are taken exclusively by him since his birthday. I think I’ll post pictures of his on here from time to time. This is very exciting for me. I love seeing what he captures.  Continue reading “Through Ezra’s Eyes” →

Black and White Project: Day Eleven

Distances.

It’s been a while, basically a month, since I last posted. I don’t really know why I have been labeling them in “days” when really they are just entries. But I still do plan to have a total of 30. I’ll get there eventually I suppose.

One of the reasons it has taken me a long time to post is because I recently moved into the city of Chicago. For the past four years I have lived in the northern suburbs of Chicago. People for some reason still called that living in Chicago, even though it can easily take an hour to an hour and a half to get into the city with medium traffic on the interstate. It would take an hour by Metra train. But that’s the key I think. People in the Chicagoland area assume that if you can hop on a train from where you’re at and it goes into the city proper you can say you live in Chicago. I mean, I told people that I lived in Chicago when asked. Not anyone from Chicago, though.

When I lived about a mile away from the city line of Indianapolis I used to feel really guilty when I told people I lived in Indianapolis. I didn’t live in Indianapolis, really. I lived in Greenwood. But no one knows where that is at unless they are familiar with the Indy area, so you tell them Indianapolis. I was like 10 miles from downtown Indy. Then I moved up to the north suburbs of Chicago, and it’s like 28 or so miles from the middle of downtown Chicago. But everyone said they lived in Chicago up where I was. I pretty quickly felt a lot less guilty for saying I lived in Indianapolis.

Distances are so strange. How we define what is far away and what is close seems to change depending on where you live. The mode of transportation really does help define what is close and what is far. When I lived in the north suburbs of Chicago, the closest store was a Dominick’s grocery store. It was 1.7 miles away from my apartment. That was really close for up there. The nearest Taco Bell was almost 3 miles away. Where I live now, however, 1.7 miles is actually pretty far away. That’s just because within a half a mile radius of where I live now there’s dozens of stores and restaurants. I walk everywhere I go now. 1.7 miles isn’t impossible to walk obviously, but it takes a while. And on hot summer days, you just don’t want to walk that far.

The other day there was a shooting 1.7 miles from where I live. In the city, that’s far away. That’s a totally different area from where I live. Different neighborhood, different demographics. If a shooting would have happened 1.7 miles away from us in the suburbs, people would be running for their lives. Protests. Neighborhood watches. Parents wondering if their kids could play outside anymore.

Anyway, Sarah and I are getting used to the city life. It’s been good. It’s so easy to get used to. Walking everywhere is wonderful. Not needing to drive nearly at all is incredible. Sarah takes the train to work everyday. Micah and I go to the plaza right outside my apartment and watch all the children run around, listen to the musicians, watch the clown. It’s great.

Here are just a few pictures. I haven’t been taking as many as I should now that we’re here. I starting to take more, though. Hopefully I’ll update more often.

IMGP3672_SnapseedMicah enjoys hanging out at the plaza watching all the kids run around and play.

IMGP3707_Snapseed Sarah and Micah enjoying the fireworks at the park near our apartment on the Fourth of July.

IMGP0277_SnapseedSarah and Micah walking through our new neighborhood, Lincoln Square.

IMGP0301_SnapseedMy new office, when I want to get some work done. A great local coffee shop.

Hanging with Friends

I’ve spent the last couple weekends hanging out with some friends from Japan. They’ve been to our place a number of times, but it’s nice to be able to visit them in their home and eat homemade Japanese food. Incredibly delicious. For some reason I always remember to take pictures when I am with them, so I have pictures to share. I frequently forget to take pictures of events that don’t seem out of the ordinary. I have been wanting to change that up a bit. I simply just want to be taking more pictures all of the time. I want to basically be taking pictures every day if possible. That probably won’t be as hard to do when I have a baby around.

Speaking of baby, Micah was due last Wednesday the 12th of September. No signs of baby arriving yet. Sarah is scheduled to be induced on Thursday at 4:00 am if she hasn’t had the baby already. She will go in to have some tests done on Tuesday to make sure everything is alright.

It seems that people are beginning to really see me as a photographer, so I will be doing some photo shoots in the near future for money finally. I recently shot a friend’s band at a live show for some money and I will be shooting some family photos, an engagement session and some potentially some projects for me school here in the near future. This makes me feel better about buying a lens recently. I will at least be able to put it to some great use, and be able to pay it off quickly.

My love of photography grows by the day, and I hope to gain more and more skills and become more knowledgable about how to take better and better photographs. Who knows? Maybe I’ll never need to get a real job ever again. (Even the editing of photos is kind of fun for me…it’s rarely ever work for me.)

I am kind of scared to see how many pictures I am going to take of our newborn, though.

Getting Closer (and a stubborn baby)

After having to reschedule two times, today Sarah and I finally got to go get our last ultrasound for Micah. Usually, most people would not have to get this ultrasound at 34 weeks, but last time we went (week 20 — hard to believe!) the placenta was low lying, and so they wanted to make sure it was still not that way because that would mean Sarah would need a C-section.

So this morning we drove down to the Mid-wife’s office. I perhaps was more excited for this than even Sarah was. That’s saying something because Sarah is very easily excitable. But I was excited to see little Micah’s face and toes and everything else (hopefully also things solidly confirming that he is indeed a boy…).

In case you didn’t know, just because you have insurance it doesn’t mean that required procedures and tests are covered. In fact, many times they are not. We just switched insurance providers yesterday, so thankfully that means that this ultrasound will be covered to a certain extent under our new insurance policy (hopefully). Otherwise, if we had gotten it last week it would have been about $500 just to take a few pictures of Micah. Now that is an expensive photo shoot!

After waiting around and reading “Architectural Digest”  in the waiting room for a while (for the nesting aspect in me) Sarah was finally called back. We went back and had our last glimpses of Micah inside the womb. Apparently the womb is not all that spacious. He was all scrunched up. The technician checked every part of his body. We looked at his brain, measured his femur, heard the heart pump, checked out his bladder and kidneys, double checked that this baby is indeed a boy (and yes he is), and finally…his little face. Nope. He put his hands crossed over his face. He is already camera shy. Doesn’t he realize who his daddy is? I have multiple cameras and multiple lenses ready to capture about 5,000 pictures a day of this little goober! But no…all we got a glimpse of was of “supposedly” an eyelid and part of the left side of his face. Bummer.

The good news is that he is healthy, and everything seems normal. He is 5 lbs 1 oz. He has the normal amount of amniotic fluid. His heart with all four chambers is pumping strong. Bladder seems to be working and he is peeing up a storm. Things look good. And that is very nice. But all I wanted to see was his cute little face. Sarah did remind me that we will be seeing it very soon. Indeed, we will.