Left Coast Mama » Pictures

January (So Far) in Photographs

Gwen — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 05:37:40 +0000

I have been playing with both my iPhone camera and my T2i a lot in the last couple of weeks. I have especially been playing with Instagram (my user name is Gwen Floyd) and with my macro lens on the T2i. I got a new camera strap and I am amazed at how much of a difference it makes on my photo walks with my boys. I also love that Aidan is getting so excited about walking around with his dad and I taking pictures.

This picture of Quinlan was captured by Aidan.

Quinlan and Anthony at the Aquarium.

Wonder

Watching the sea turtle.

Playing with my macro and the water drops.

Neon

Unintentional heart bokeh.

Wrought Iron, peeling.

First Family Photo Walk of the year.

Hail

Industrial

I am so happy with the photo and I am not sure why. It just works.

Playing with focusing through a frame.

My companions on the Floyd Family Photo Walk.

I think this may be one of my new headers.

Best Day Ever According to the Boys

Gwen — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 05:15:55 +0000

Today we had the best breakfast ever, french toast and fruit smoothies. Then we got dressed and headed out into the chill air and sunshine to the Grey Cup festival. So much fun to see the Olympic Cauldron lit, and Bobs and Lolo. Two footballs and a microphone each and some tap dancing and you have just about the perfect day.

Seconds after the Olymic cauldron was lit.

Having lots of fun . . .

You are never alone . . .

Jump in, Action packed!

Muscles, Muscles you're the best . . .

Bobs and Lolo

Cindy Seahorse

Aidan and Quinlan with Bobs and Lolo

Touchdown!

Aidan Floyd here reporting for Global BC . . .

© 2011 Left Coast Mama | Permalink | One comment
Related: Aidan, Family Time, My Boys, outings, Photography, Pictures, Quinlan, Vancouver.

Brothers

Gwen — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 04:31:00 +0000

Aidan took the time to push his brother all around the playground several times, causing many parents and caregivers to comment on what nice brothers these two are. Despite all the friction that is sibling rivalry there is so much love between these two. Not many other siblings at drop off and pickup time kiss and hug their little brothers. I love my boys.

"Aitan, push me!"

"Hello World!"

Oh Christmas Tree

Gwen — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 07:08:49 +0000

We got a new pre lit Christmas tree this year. I actually took a few minutes this evening after choir practice to take some pictures of the lights. I love using the 50mm lens with a 1.8 aperture. I love the bokeh effect it has on the lights. I used to get this effect and I had no idea what I was doing. Now I am able to get this effect on purpose.

Quinlan's train

Aidan's Plane

I love this picture even though it isn't the best technically.

Bokeh, Bokeh, Bokeh, Train

Playing With Pictures This Weekend

Gwen — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 04:50:25 +0000

This is my down day so I played around with my iPhone camera and both the Camera+ and Hipstamatic apps.

This is not a typical November

Camera+ app

All Bundled up.

Camera+ app

Ron Basford Park

Camera+ app

I love shaking Hipstamatic to get random results.

Hipstmatic app

I am glad we have cold weather gear for the boys, but I may have to go and get a warmer coat. I really didn’t believe we would have as much snow as we got this weekend. In the 12 years I have lived in Vancouver, I have only seen snow on the mountains in November.

I am actually looking forward to what could be a white Christmas.

Bopomo Pictures

Gwen — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 23:45:24 +0000

Finally we have a family portrait that we don’t hate. Let me be clear, Quinlan and Aidan are the epitome of cute and photogenic, Anthony and I . . . are not. That is not to say that we can’t get good pictures of Anthony and I, it is just that when trying to get a picture of the 4 of us, we are the ones with the worried, forced smiles on our faces as the boys move here, there and everywhere. Luckily Bopomo Pictures is set up for that.

The Left Coast Floyds

When Bopomo Pictures invited me to come out to Morgan Crossing in Surrey to have some family pictures taken, I jumped at the chance. I had previously been to a shoot at the kits location for ChillMonkeys apparel and I was very impressed with the photographers, baby distractors and overall setup. Having been to the kits location I was eager to see what they were doing in Surrey. I was offered a free session (sitting fees are just $30,) 2 free pages of prints and 2 free digital images.

The mid afternoon slot was good as we had a number of other things to do that day but it did mean that since Quinlan’s nap was truncated and the kids had also been to a birthday party that things could have gone south very quickly. Luckily Bopomo is prepared for this and always shoots in pairs, a photographer and a baby botherer clown smile maker puppeteer someone to get the kids attention where the photographer wants it. The space is child proof and the photographers know how to get incredible pictures out of your child.

Quinlan

The process was pretty painless, a half hour shoot, about 15-20 minutes for the photographer to go through the shots and put them on the computer for you to see, then the choosing time. Anthony and I had been over this process recently so we were pretty decisive. We ended up choosing 5 pictures, 1 of the 4 of us and 2 each of the boys, and we also got 3 of them as digital images.

Aidan

I am glad that we had this experience at Bopomo. I was beginning to think that we weren’t ever going to get a good picture of all of us together.

Welcome to November! NaBloPoMo Here We Go Again!

Gwen — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 04:16:28 +0000

How is is already November? How is my youngest already 2? The answers to these questions are all a matter of time moving faster than I’d necessarily like it to. So since I feel that I am not nearly ready to write much after being tired from a long day of swimming lessons, school and rounding up the boys, I am presenting a mostly picture essay of our Halloween. Too bad none of my pictures of the boys turned out.

We went all out with the decorations this year. The boys had fun putting up the spider webs with me.

This weekend was a fun mess of Halloween, movies, geocaching, cleaning and more Halloween. On Friday Aidan had both a class party and the annual Halloween Howl that evening. While he enjoyed all of it, the pinnacle of the whole evening was probably the firefighter patch one of the parents gave Aidan. This parent was a firefighter for Delta and was very impressed with Aidan’s costume. Aidan was happy with all that he was able to do and had a blast. When he got home he was very tired and it took him all of about 5 minutes to get to sleep.

Saturday Aidan and I went to see “Scooby-Doo: Curse of the Lake Monster” and I think it wouldn’t be exaggerating too much to say that Aidan really didn’t like it. I am not sure why, but he was so worried about the scary parts that even the funny, parts had him upset. Good thing the movie wasn’t too long and when we met up with Anthony and Quinlan all was fine. We had a good day playing tourist downtown.

I think it is fair to say that Sunday that Aidan was excited to be going trick-or-treating. So after a long day of cleaning, drama class, pumpkin carving, we finally made it into our costumes and out the door to go hunting for candy. As usual we went down to False Creek Co-op next to False Creek Elementary. This is a complex that really does Halloween well. They get a tonne of kids and they really decorate and get into the holiday.

This is typical of the complex. Most places are well decorated.

One of the more interesting pumpkins at the co-op.

Even simple carvings can be very effective.

Aidan was having a hard time waiting for his little brother. As he said, I was so excited I forgot my manners.

After knocking, Aidan noticed the hand coming out of the mail slot . . . he backed up pretty quickly.

Again, sometimes simple is very effective.

We trick-or-treated for about an hour, but we decided that we were finished when we had to keep reminding Aidan to say thank you. He was so excited about all the candy, and he wanted to see what he was given right away that he kept forgetting. While Anthony and I understood, we decided that before we got too much more frustrated with the lack of manners we had better quit for the night. I don’t think Aidan was too disappointed.

When we got home, I got out the tripod and took some pictures of the pumpkins I carved. Some turned out, but I still have a lot of work to do with balancing the colours and light situation. The first few are outside, but since there was too much light that I couldn’t adjust I continued the shoot inside. And before you ask, it had nothing to sdo with cold or how hard the concrete and tile were on my knees. Really, nothing at all.

Quinlan has a thing for owls and this is my fall back pattern.

I was running out of time so this one is just a free form simple carving.

Another owl simplified from a picture in the October Martha Stewart Living.

See the SPOOOKY web?

Next year I think I will do a pumpkin with only stars. Now if only I had a starburst filter this would have been a fantastic photograph.

I like the way the three pumpkins are so different, yet they go well together.

Hope you had a great Halloween!

© 2010 Left Coast Mama | Permalink | 2 comments
Related: blogging, children, Family Time, Halloween, My Boys, National Blog Post Month, Pictures.

First Day of Kindergarten

Gwen — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 03:18:03 +0000

Another milestone met by my eldest boy Aidan. Another milestone met by his parents. The much anticipated first day of kindergarten. I am excited to have Aidan in “real” school.

Aidan Patrick Floyd age 5.5 years

I wasn’t too sure how Aidan was feeling about kindergarten. Most of the time Aidan was quite happy to talk about going to kindergarten and today he finally asked me what would happen if he skipped school today. I laughed a little and asked him what he wanted to do instead. He said that he wanted to stay home and play. When I informed him that if he didn’t want to go to school we would have to set up a schedule of learning time with mommy every day. He very quickly remembered that his friends would be part of the school experience. This was the first real indication that Aidan was a little nervous about going to a new school. He was used to the kids from preschool and was a little sad that none of them would be a part of his new school.

Once we started the first day of school routine and the pictures on the steps out front Aidan started to get excited about going to school. The walk took us about 22 minutes and hopefully I will keep to my resolution to walk most days.

Aidan on the playground outside his classroom.

Aidan’s teacher seems nice and I was happy to get a chance to see how she works in the classroom and how she was with the kids. While I know from experience that things are not always the same when the parents aren’t around, she had a nice easy way with the kids. This is a good thing because between her two classes she has 44 kids to work with.

Quinlan on the new equipment.

I had a chance to sign up for a chat with Aidan’s new teacher and I was honest about where he is in terms of his reading ability and his tendency towards talkativeness/lecturing. I didn’t tell her that he is also adding and subtracting numbers at least up to 12 because I didn’t want to seem like I am bragging. I am so glad that she was excited that he is reading so well, it really reassured me.

I also have my first volunteer option for his classroom. When I offered to get some things for the classroom like kleenex, Mme. L asked me to make play dough. It is a good thing I have a very cool book with all kinds of recipes.

Quinlan making faces.

The walk home wasn’t as frantic and we took our time and got a celebratory hot chocolate from Starbucks. Both boys downed it very quickly and without mess. I was very impressed. We also managed to meet Monette and Malachi on the way home. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to chat as she was rushing to get another child from school.

When we got back to the house and changed Quinlan I took the boys out to the courtyard to play with the camera and get some better pictures of the boys. While I didn’t manage to get them together I did get some really good shots of Aidan for the first time in a long while. He actually didn’t have the “Cheese” face all the time.

This little boy was in fact saying "Cheeeeeese"

All in all it was a good day. Sunshine, walking, hot chocolate, playing on a new playground, meeting new people, a pirate ship shirt (without a tie), what can be wrong with that?

Aaaaaar!

© 2010 Left Coast Mama | Permalink | 6 comments
Related: Aidan, Education, Firsts, milestones, My Boys, Pictures, Pirates, playgrounds, Quinlan.

Photo Friday: GeoWoodstock

Gwen — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:23:09 +0000

I have a number of posts I am in the midst of writing, like a summary of my first weekend away from the boys, and I have a lot of pictures for these posts. Since the posts are not ready and I want to be posting more of my photographs as well I thought I would have a mostly wordless post. Entirely wordless is beyond me so I am posting on a Friday.

Fake castle in front of a property on the way to Carnation, Washington. I think it was just a farm.

The line up of cars behind us on the way to GeoWoodstock.

Hand detail of the Troll in Fremont, Washington. The Troll is a huge sculpture underneath one of the Fremont Bridges.

One of the Three Billy Goats Gruff just down from the Troll. Fremont, Washington.

May Brings . . . Winter Weather?

Gwen — Tue, 04 May 2010 02:37:06 +0000

I had my second of three photography field trips last night to learn about night photography. Yes, last night. The night of very cold rain and wind. We started out with nearly the whole class but after about 20 minutes we had lost half and by an hour and a half in we were down to six women including the instructor. I made it all the way through but by the end I was very cold, though not too wet. In fact I am pretty sure it took me several hours to get fully warm again, I even wore socks to bed. Looking through my pictures I think I got some good shots, at least until I got too much water on the lens.

Here are some of the best night shots:

The boats by Monk McQueen's on False Creek. Not quite dark enough yet.

Playing with shutter speed.

I like the way the path of lights leads us down the dock.

The water on the ground was very reflective.

Playing with a long exposure. Interesting effect.

Looking at downtown. I think I want one of these starburst filters.

I seem to like less light than my camera's lightmeter suggests. I really like the way the dock seems to soak up the light.

Notice the water on the lens. This was my last shot of the night. Brrr