Pumpkins, Pedal Cars and experimental Photographs

The kids have no school today due to UEA weekend. Bill decided to take the day off from work, though he didn't get a free day from school and has class tonight :(. We have had some free passes to Cornbelly's Corn Maze + Pumpkin patch (it's at Thanksgiving Point) since the beginning of the month, but every weekend has been cold and wet, so this was our first chance to use them. We were expecting just the run of the mill maze and pumpkins but were treated to oh, so much more.




They had two fun pedal car tracks. One track for the bigger kids and one for smaller. They had a huge "slide mountain", with all sorts of different ways to get down. They had a giant blow-up Helamonster maze. It was pitch black inside and you had to feel your way through it. It was complete with giant blow-up Helamonster internal organs --ewwwww. They had a kid corn maze and two adult mazes, a hayride and our favorite----









a giant bouncing pillow (it was like a bounce house without being enclosed). All of us bounced around forever. We had a great time! The weather was even fantastic.













I had a photographer's assistant (Bill-he's the right price) today and so I was able to experiment with my fun jerry-rigged digital Holga lens I just picked up. The point of this lens is to highlight the middle of the frame, blurring the edges to create a vignette feel. It is crazy to try and get any focus out of, since it really is a lens from a Holga sawed off and rigged to the front of a body cap the size of my digital camera. (see example below)























I also experimented with using some pantyhose as a makeshift soft focus filter. (I had those left over from William's costume. It is something I have wanted to try for a while, but never have the hose since I refuse to wear them!) You can tell the boys are sick of me, by this point, using them as guinea pigs for photos. Hence William's cheery expression. (see example below)

Gross-eeries and someone you hope not to meet...

It is my favorite time of year again; my boys' birthdays and HALLOWEEN! (Only the greatest holiday ever!)I have a friend who posted pictures of her daughter in a gorgeous Cinderella dress (you know who you are) and I can't imagine what that is like, since my boys like things slimy, scary, or spooky-- no princesses or fairies for them. This year, they figured they would just wear the scary costumes from last year again, because they loved them so much. But then magic happened: I found the world's most perfect boy costume. It is funny, it is disgusting, it is original (to a degree, since I did find it on the internet!) Gross-eeries! It was easy enough to make, that even un-crafty me could handle it. It was a paper leaf bag with cardboard inside to hold it's shape with empty food cartons labeled "nasty nibble", "surreal cereal", "putrid punch" and "rotten eggs". It also had maggot covered sausages! I made the "sour milk" hat out of folded posterboard and the trick or treat bag from a paper grocery sack. William was so excited about this costume. He got a flyer at school about a "Monster Block Party" at the Galivan Center, and his first words to me after school were "Can we go, Mom so I can be in the costume contest?" His next were "Have you finished my costume yet?" So today, we Barbers4 joined around 300 other kids at a Monster Block Party where William WON! He won funniest costume! Go William! (Go William's Momma for making the darn thing!)




Now from funniest to freakiest. I have had this shot in mind for a solid month now, but needed some help to execute it and so I have been waiting for Bill to be around and have time to go with me to shoot it. I took it with my Holga in B&W and shot multiple shots without advancing my film, so in the Holga shot Romney should look like a ghost. But since it may be 6 months before I get that film developed, I also took my digital SLR with me so I would be able to see what I might (might being the operative word) get on the HOLGA (it also makes it easier to post to the blog :). Romney is a skeleton version of the grim reaper and he looks menacing while walking through a graveyard. (buckled in the back seat of our car, not so much)

Like I said, no princesses here.

Newsflash: Romney wins "pole"

Romney read this headline over my shoulder and handily asked "Where's my pole, then?". Ha Ha Ha

Pokemon Masters

Today we celebrated William's 9th birthday. He had wanted a Harry Potter birthday, but at the last minute (ie: about a month ago :)) he changed his mind and requested a Pokemon party. Being equally ignorant to both, it didn't matter to me. This was the most stress free party I have hosted in all my birthday party hosting years. William wanted to invite only his 3 favorite friends from school and it was pretty much a glorified play date. We made pokeball fuse bead magnets and then I bought felt and the kids all created their own Pokemon stuffed animal. It was funny to see 8-9 year old boys all sewing! I made Pokeball cupcakes and the last 15-20 minutes they spent looking at and trading Pokemon cards. William had a wonderful day and said it was his best birthday yet. Awwww... he says that every year :)!

Will you be my friend?

Romney has a special talent that the rest of us Barbers 4 don't really have, in that he can make a friend no matter where he is. William has piano lessons on Fridays and outside his teacher's apartment is a playground. The first week, Romney had gathered all the kids together and had a group of 5 of them (some as old as William) working to create a fort in the sandbox. The second week he managed to talk the kids at the playground into a game of red light, green light. This week he meet a boy who spoke only Korean, and yet they had a rousing game of tag all over the play-set. Oh, to be 4 years old and free on any inhibitions. I learn so much from my kids.

A digitial shot of a print from my 35 mm traditional film toy camera

Say what? I am going broke developing test film from the Holga, so I am cheating and bought a HOLGA lens configured to work on my digital SLR, so I can stop paying for developing. I am not sure how that will work, I will try it out tomorrow. I did get my first roll of film back (the film from this camera is NOT pricey to develop so I will not have to cheat digitally!) from my Super Sampler camera. I took a shot of the print hanging on my fridge with my digital camera, so perhaps that is cheating. Whatever! It is the only way I had to post it here. I love the effect. The blue on the bottom is a result of light leaking in to the camera and it makes it look like I have captured a rainbow. I am having too much fun for my own good. I am not sure when I will return to "serious" photography.

The Birthday that just keeps on giving...

Thanks Anne, for the Target gift card. I went and bought a frame for one of the photos I shot with my toy camera. It was a challenge to find a square frame, but I did it and now it is hanging in our front room! Happy Birthday to me!