Show me your teeth

Above: Ty & Brandon

After using my compact macro lens on wildflowers and random branches, I figured I needed to try out the portrait quality on that thing before my two-week return window was up. Naturally, I headed up north, where smiles and goofy faces are in abundance.

Above: Corbin

My brother-in-law is the self-proclaimed smartest, um, person alive (there is an inside joke that goes a bit differently than that, but we'll save that for another time, eh?). I figured he could give me a straight-forward opinion on the ease of use of the lens. I was having trouble with it; it felt really clumsy and I couldn't figure out the right distance for macro vs. portraits. He took many random pictures (he inherited the randomness when he married my sister. sorry dude.) and introduced me to a new way to get Corbin to smile for pictures... "Show me your teeth."

On my northern adventure, I also took some close-ups of my cousin's lacrosse stick and one of Corbin's toys. The pictures turned out ok, but with each shot I felt like I was weighing more on luck than on control of the lens.

Above: Lacrosse, anyone?

Above: This thing is actually tiny

Above: See what I mean? Luck, pure luck.

Above: Headphones work better this way.

So, the pics turned out all right. It was still clumsy and ackward and involved a lot of unnatural poses. "Corbin, look at auntie... Corbin, over here..." tends to wear on the poor kid being photographed, the photographer, and any one else in the vicinity.

I ended up borrowing Cole's 1.8 50mm and close-up filters and heading back up to Arlington. The 1.8 is sooo fast; I was able to capture some more candid moments of Corbin (check them out below). Who knows if my work will ever make it into a gallery; who knows if anyone will ever want to buy it... one thing I do strive for, though, is to create photos that my friends and family will cherish... they are the audience that matters, right?

Oh, one more thing to note: that adorable rocking horse. My grandpa made a handful for the grandchildren when we were younger... that thing is 30 years old! I love it; and it is such a wonderful feeling to watch my sweet little nephew enjoying it, too.