When she arrived, Kathleen shared with me several samples of her business calling cards.  They are adorably wrapped as presents on one side (handmade!), and on the other is a description of her services.

(Yes, that is a tape measure bottom front, left — and super glue sticking up with a blue cap behind the tape!  Who knew the tools that would be useful to Ms. Elf!)

The text on her card reads:

“Gift-Wrapping right at your home…

If you need help with gift-wrapping ,I am the elf who can help you.  With experiences at Woodward & Lothrop and Hecht’s Department Stores, I can assure you that you won’t be disappointed in giving away your lovely gift-wrapped presents to your loved ones.  You can watch me and perhaps you’ll learn some tips from me.

All the materials (wrapping papers, ribbons*, bows, and gift tags) will be provided at the prices listed below.  There will be choices of formal, contemporary, or children’s wrapping papers.  Plus, a minimum of $10 an hour in wrapping.  If you prefer to use your own wrapping supplies then a flat fee is $10 per hour.

extra small (jewelry sized box) – $1.50
small (lingeries or socks sized box) – $2.50
medium (shirt sized box) – $3.50
large (robe or sweater sized box) – $4.50
extra large (Plasma TV or larger sized box) – $10.00 and up

Email Ms. Elf at giftwrapper2011(at)yahoo.com for questions or to set appointments.  In the meantime, enjoy the holidays!
*Ribbons may be charged additional depending on the quality and how much has been used.“

Above – “Ms. Elf”, aka Kathleen Miller, at work.  Finished product below:

Here are a few of the other gifts I watched her wrap today.

So, if you’re a little stressed this holiday season, you don’t want to miss out on this affordable, and time-saving way to make your gifts look beautiful!

She wasn’t kidding.  Our kids had a blast playing in the branches, and my son even went dare-devil and climbed the top of the roots.  Astonishing in size.

The Way I View…Halloween and Dress-up!

With a five year old and a three year old, and the rule that Halloween costumes go into the dress-up box, the major difference between Halloween and regular dress-up is the candy.  And, I suppose, the social element (my son actually got to wear his costume to school!).

This year, my little “Jake and the Never Land Pirates“-obsessed children happened to spot Jake and friends dress-up clothes at the Disney store somewhere around the beginning of the school year. (For those unfamiliar with this show, essentially Peter Pan had to leave Never Land and asked Jake, Cubby, Izzy and Skully-the-parrot to keep Captain Hook under control in his absence.  It’s adorable TV — not educational, but clean and adorable none-the-less.)

My son picked Peter Pan (since his favorite is the hour-long “Peter Pan Returns” special) and my daughter picked “Izzy”, the only girl in the bunch.  And I was thrilled because together the costumes cost less than the princess dress they had picked out of a catalogue for my daughter!

Since big brother was at school in the morning, my daughter and I did a little “warm-up” practice in the morning.

Above, she’s trying to get her doll Izzy’s feet to stay tucked to the side so they would both be sitting the same way. 
She can be a little ham when she wants to be!  But unfortunately, our little photo shoot was interrupted by  an important phone call “on the pink phone!”  (The call included several important text messages, as well.)

Shortly before we left, I got my favorite picture of her from the morning.  Just staring off.  So sweet.  I like the picture so much, I even fixed the boo-boo under her lip! 

When my son came home, and knowing I wouldn’t want to lug my good camera around the neighborhood while we trick-or-treated that night, I bribed them with pizza into going outside and letting me get a few pictures of them together.  It sort of worked.

I love how they ended up pretending to be Peter Pan and Izzy (though why they were fightingeach other is still a mystery).

And then they were done.  We went inside, where they got their pizza, and my son gave me one last “Peter Pan” pose.  The first one in this set is his interpretation of Peter Pan being a tough guy.

Hope everyone had a safe and fun Halloween!  Be sure to check out what Susan Edge Photography was up to this Halloween!

There seemed to be a very obvious way to photograph that theme…except that I find that when I photograph, I sometimes end up not really feeling “present” in an interactive sense with my kids.  And since this first day of school was a really big deal — Kindergarten = brand new school! — I wanted to be completely present.

But honestly, I think what I’ll remember about this year’s back to school drama was that we’ve actually just gone back to school…again.  Yep, beginning of October.  We took an almost 2 week break, less than 2 weeks after school started, to go to my brother-in-law’s wedding (and welcome into the family my awesome new sister-in-law!).  And  perhaps I haven’t mentioned — that wedding was in Maui.

Oh, yes.

Still, just because a family wedding is a very good excuse to miss school, doesn’t mean we should miss educational (okay, a little touristy…) opportunities along the way!  Which is how we ended up at a very touristy (but lots of fun!) luau at the Marriot in Lahaina.

Of course, it was crazy beautiful — the dancing, the music, just the general setting.  But the highlight, if not the most authentic part, for my children was the fire dancing.  They sat transfixed while I put my D700 to the high ISO test, and played around with some slow shutter speeds.

That last image gets me every time.  It was so dramatic.

So here we are, in October, just now starting to settle into the school year, still battling a bit of jet lag.  Such is the price of visiting paradise, I suppose!

(Totally worth it.)

For another looks at “back to school”, check out Photography by Susan Edge, and just the most adorable stylized back to school shoot!  You don’t want to miss it.

- Danie

We had planned to shoot on dry land, with the scenic water and setting sun forming a serene backdrop…but the kids wanted to play in the water, and before we knew it, they were IN the water!  So was I, for that matter.

As the mother commented to her husband — “Aren’t you glad you ironed their shirts this afternoon?” 

The Way I View…Summertime!

Even though the only beaches I could go to growing up were on lakes, I’ve always loved the beach.  This summer, we’ve discovered that we’re less than an hour drive from Sandy Point in Annapolis, and we’ve been out there a few times with the kids!  Since I’m now used to the ocean, going to the bay, with virtually no changes from tides, is a huge adjustment, but still, this beach, with the bridge in the background is just gorgeous.

We were killing time, waiting for that golden hour to start.  The photographer’s dream — golden glow of sunset.  Except that, during the summer, the sun sets really late around here, and my kids were ready to go long before I was ready to start shooting pictures.  Still, we managed to play silly games and keep them going.

I had an idea in my head for the image I was looking for this particular day, but my daughter, at 3, doesn’t exactly take direction.  Luckily, my 5 year old was willing to be my guinea pig (in exchange for some bribe I don’t remember). Or perhaps willing is too strong a word….

Having put up with five minutes of trying different angles, etc., my son was completely done with pictures — but luckily, sibling rivalry worked in my favor, and my daughter insisted that she get to lie in the sand, too!  (If you follow my Facebook page, you’ve seen the first of this next series).

I had the shots I was looking for — the rest was just gravy after that!

You can see the light getting more and more golden as the photos progressed.  We were exhausted by the end, but the patience was worth it.  The beach, the light, the fact that we could keep the kids up later with no repercussions — so many parts that I treasure about summer.

Wishing your summer is filled with beautiful light and love as well!

Don’t forget to check out Jo’s gorgeous beach pictures (Photography by Jo Lien)!   For some fun, you can follow her link to Susan Edge Photography and then click all the way through the circle!

- Danie

One of my favorites — trying to get Mommy and her two boys and baby — when who should appear but the adorable 4 year old cousin!

The expression on Baby’s face in this next picture makes me smile every time I see it!

We finished our session with some good ol’ dancing fun (for the kids who are old enough to dance, anyway).  This was some version of ring-around-the-rosie.  Or inspired by…or something….

Terrific way to spend a morning — so glad to meet you, K family!

All the best,
- Danie Smallwood

“Why you want to shoot RAW.”  Talking about exposure mistakes.

While my kids played at the park this unbelievably pleasant-temperatured Wednesday afternoon, the ice cream truck arrived.  (As usual.  Sigh.)  I realized a few minutes later, I had a child sitting almost completely still, sitting on a bench in nice, even light!  Since I’d had the idea for this series for a few weeks, I grabbed my chance.  So apologies for the somewhat uninspiring sequence below, but the chance to capture this many pictures of my child, with the only variable being the shutter speed, well, that is a rare gift, indeed!

The following images illustrate pretty well why I consider shooting RAW to be, among other things, a great insurance policy against exposure mistakes.  Assuming the center images, shot at f/4, ISO 800, SS 1/400 sec, are the “correct” exposure, look what you can do in Lightroom, doing nothing more than adjusting the exposure slider to add 3 stops of exposure (for the top images) and take away 2 stops of exposure (for the bottom images).

In fairness, there were still a few spots of unrecoverable highlights on my son’s shoulder even in the overexposed RAW images; but otherwise, both the adjusted RAW images are completely usable (except, perhaps, for fine portraiture).  In contrast, both the underexposed and overexposed JPEG images on the right are “worthless” (a technical term, not related to sentimental value).

For additional perspective on these above images, here is the complete set I shot, including the straight out of camera images I used above.  From start to finish, these were all shot in under two minutes, and the light appeared consistent throughout.  Notice that, while the colors are more saturated in the JPEG images, there’s a richness of detail in the RAW images that’s lacking in their JPEG equivalents. Not for nothing are the RAW files called the “digital negatives.”  Again, all images are ISO 800, f/4, straight out of camera.

(On a side note, neither the RAW file nor the JPEG file were even remotely recoverable when overexposed by 3 stops.  In digital imagery, you lose detail in the highlights much faster than in the shadows, leading many photographers to believe it’s better to slightly underexpose than to risk blowing highlights.)

But, you say, the whole point is to get the exposure right in the camera, not in post-processing.

Ah, too true, my friend.  It will not do to assume shooting RAW means it’s okay not to properly meter before your shot.  Still, mistakes happen.

For example, in the same trip to the park this afternoon, I looked up to saw a ball land at my children’s feet. a tiny poodle followed the ball, which surprised my daughter, who knocked over my son, and then plopped herself down in his lap.  I just wanted this shot, and unfortunately, the cloud cover had lessened considerably since I’d been taking pictures of them just five minutes earlier, resulting in a picture that was quite a bit overexposed.

In Lightroom, I brought the exposure down about a stop, recovered some highlights (because the light was pretty harsh there, parts of the picture were blown beyond recovery, like the poodle’s back).  I finished my edit with this:

Is this an award-winning picture?  Naw.  But it’s now a decent lifestyle image of my kids being so typically my kids, you know?  My daughter’s trust in my son, my son’s suspicion of that dog….

To conclude, I will concede that there is a downside to shooting RAW.  Namely, it’s more expensive than shooting JPEG.  It’s like the book, If you give a mouse a cookie….

If you want to shoot RAW, you’ll need a camera that can shoot RAW files (I believe all dSLRs can, and a few point-and-shoots).
If you buy the new camera, you may as well buy larger memory cards (RAW files are big!).
To get those pictures off the memory cards, you’ll need a program that can read RAW files, like Adobe Lightroom (which is awesome, so you probably want it anyway).
As you start filling up LR with your images, you’ll realize you need a bigger harddrive.

See?

There’s also a convenience factor.  RAW files are not processed, so you can’t stop off a CVS with your memory card to print a bunch of 4x6s for a scrapbook for grandma.  And the iPhone doesn’t shoot RAW files (yet), so it takes quite a few steps to post to Facebook using Instagram.

So shooting RAW isn’t going to be the right decision for everyone.  But if you’re reading this, I assume you probably want to take the absolute best images of your family that you possibly can, and shooting RAW is, I believe, an important part of that!

Not convinced?  Wait until next week for Part II of this series. 

“The way I view Motherhood.”

I struggled with this.  Obvious choice?  A mother-child photo.  But then one morning, I woke up and saw this (thank goodness my camera was nearby).

Yes, that angelic little face.  The face of my little angel who wakes up before I do, and happily climbs out of her crib and joins me in bed.  Sometimes she even cuddles!  And sometimes she confuses my bed not just with her own bed, but also with a trampoline.

Not only is it tiring to jump on my bed, but apparently it’s thirsty work, too.  Yes, my daughter travels with her paci, her blankie, and her own waterbottle.

Unfortunately, this little one knows how cute I think she is.  Check out this mischievous little grin!

It’s always preferable to wake up to the grin, than to the feet, however.

Just when I’ll think perhaps my daughter is going to settle in for a real snuggle (aka, I might be able to go back to sleep)…I see another head peeking over our bed!

Sleep is clearly a lost cause.  Playtime has arrived!

After a last series of death-defying feats (aka, learning to do somersaults), it’s clearly time to go down for breakfast.

And while lying lazily in bed of a morning may be a treasure I don’t often experience anymore, when I look at these little faces, it’s impossible not to see the greater treasure that I have now.

Ha!  Sappy enough for you?  Ah, Mother’s Day.  (On said day, I did get to sleep in, with no kids actually in the bed, anyway!)

Now, don’t forget to check out Heather‘s view on motherhood (it’ll make you laugh, and nod in agreement)!