Grass, Swimming, and Cell Phone Photography

It turns out I’m allergic to grass. I mowed the lawn one day and then went about weezing and gasping and overall finding it difficult to breath for several hours. It gave me a lot more sadness for my little Jesse. It is really no fun to have to suck in every breath of air with all your might and still feel like you haven’t filled your lungs.

But, that’s really nothing to do with anything. It’s not like I can’t sit on grass. I sit on it just fine. I just have to avoid inhaling it. Big whoop-dee-doo. Mike and Abe can mow the lawn.

Though, to be honest, I think mowing is one of the more pleasant chores to exist. I’d take it to doing dishes any day. And it sure beats a kick in the pants. (What? What am I even talking about?)

Anywho, since you asked, here is a picture of Jesse at swimming lessons. And Goldie too.

Goldie doesn’t actually need swimming lessons. (Heaven knows how I actually have HALF of my children worry-free swimmers now.) She just begged to take them one last summer because . . .  well . . . it’s swimming. Penny and Jesse on the other hand . . . they passed off like one of the ten or so things necessary to move out of level 1. I think they mastered something like “bobbing up and down”. But never mind that. I’m sure they will be swimming their little hearts out . . . someday.

Moving right along to the next wholly unconnected thought:

I am, as you know, quite fond of using a nice camera and manually knowing how to mostly do what I want with a photo these days. I shy away from taking pictures with our point-and-shoot or with my mobile camera because it irks me so not to be able to control much. But, one can’t deny that it is rather handy to have such a small and easily accessible camera on hand.

Last week Blaire showed me how Instagram worked. It is a little like facebook, but no status shenanigans; only shared mobile pics. Yes, yes, some cetainly upload dslr pics, but it seems to be controversial and viewed a bit as cheating, so, I daresn’t. (It’s not a word spell check recognizes, but it’s a word. Dare not. I dare not!) So, the past few days, I have been messing around with my phone camera a bit more than usual – trying to be less averse to using it.

And , it has been kind of fun! With my dslr pics, I don’t like to over-edit them very often – meaning that, even though different filters and actions are fun, they don’t generally strike me as timeless the way natural looking color or black and whites do; and, for my main documenting of my kids, I want timeless. My style, sure, but I don’t want to look back and be put off by photos that strike me too much as part of a fad that came and went. However, with my phone pics, it has just been fun to goof off and do what I will with them. I downloaded an editing app or two, and let me tell you . . . if you don’t think my girls fell IN LOVE with “lumie” and the ability it gave them to cover themselves, and me, and Anders, and Lego men with blurry colorful things. Well, you are wrong. Oh, . . . you’ll be seeing hazy blobs covering us in phone pics for a long long time . . .

And, some normal moments were also captured (and didn’t look too bad):

And, I even discovered that I could actually – using a bit of knowledge about light, etc. capture something that didn’t look too terribly far off from what I am used to getting with my fancy-pants camera!

Here is a cell phone pic of Daisy (edited in snapseed):

And here are the pictures I took at the same time with my Canon:

Yes, well, I’m not jumping ship and becoming a full time iphoneographer (particularly since I don’t even have an i-phone). All I want is a bigger fancier camera and bigger more expensive lenses, BUT it’s been fun messing around with other means of capturing moments. It all appeals to whatever little artsy genes are floating about inside of me. Yes, even (or perhaps especially) Lego Revolutionary soldiers covered in sheer stars.

So, there you have it. Bless you all. And have a good night’s sleep.