Comments on: Boys’ report: 28/3

By: sgazzetti

sgazzetti — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 20:44:46 +0000

DarkoV: Posterized tulips nothwithstanding, we do minimal editing as a rule. This is out of laziness/busyness more than any sort of principal. If we do open a picture in an editing program, it's likely to be for routine cropping, straightening, and perhaps a little exposure adjusting, rarely anything more extensive. I had to look at the data Flickr maintains to see if I had made any changes to this picture, and it appeared that some minor adjustments were made. iPhoto (which I use for most quick editing) preserves by default the original if you monkey with anything. Here's the unaltered picture as it exited the camera: A quick look tells me that any changes were pretty minor; maybe I tweaked the contrast or brightness a little. I'm glad you like it. While we LOVE our primary camera (a Pentax *ist DS -- yes, that name is daft, but it's a GORGEOUS camera to work and play with) I think the magic of this particular shot is in the lens: I took this photo with a 50mm f/2 lens that is old, humble, and battered. But it's lovely glass, and the fact that it is fully manual forces you and the camera to work a little harder to eke a good picture out of it. Thanks for appreciating our work! (It doesn't hurt if the kid is cute to begin with. Perfect spring sunshine helps, too.)

By: DarkoV

DarkoV — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 19:51:19 +0000

Mr. Sgazzetti, This picture? Is this a completely unadulterated picture, i.e., no Photoshop clean-up/brightening of the sky, the trees, Adam's features? Or was there any of this happening? Just wondering, cuz the colors are so vivid. Compliments to your skills, your camera, your son, and Slovenija's clean airs.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 19:35:04 +0000

Very, very cute!!!

By: jdog

jdog — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 20:49:27 +0000

The way you describe Ike reminds me so much of So. Except the farting; for us, that didn’t start until he developed his insane love of hard-boiled eggs. But he was all muscular and doing push-ups all the time, and he still is. He’s buff. He has baby buns of steel. 36 inches and 36 pounds already! By the time he’s 13, we’re no longer going to be able to afford to feed the little booger. He will have to learn to hunt with the wolves.

By: gaoo

gaoo — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 20:32:27 +0000

Sweet lens baby baby…
Like we didn’t miss you enough already.
You betch yer a__

By: sgazzetti

sgazzetti — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 21:15:52 +0000

It’s nice to hear words of appreciation for these pieces I write so utterly selfishly. The boys grow so fast and so enjoyably that I fear that if I don’t take notes it will pass us by and be gone forever. Which of course it will in any case.

I have long been a great fan of the tag, which is like the Mickey Rourke of tags if is the Bruce Willis of HTML. Sorry, that analogy is an 18-year-old indirect reference to a memory of a ghost of a joke and is for exactly one person (tell me if you see it, Rashid).

The white lab coat of DarkoV’s imagining is actually a vomit-flecked fleece pullover.

Jane probably should get out more, but then again, our not getting out more (or at all) is how and why these things get written in the first place.

By: Jane

Jane — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 20:17:57 +0000

I’m with DarkoV; This is, once again, a pleasure to read. I look forward to these each month in fact.

I should probably get out more.

By: DarkoV

DarkoV — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 13:42:29 +0000

Love the picture of Adam sitting and ruminating in the living room (?)! to be able to sit on one’s ankles! Oh, what flexibility was possible at that age. If I tried that position now, I’d be 911-ing for a team of chiropractors to massage me into an uncoiled position.

As are your usual standards, your repartee on progressions into childhood are gems. I imagine you in a white lab coat, taking notes on a clipboard and murmurring into a tricked-out iPod your subtle perceptions, minimizing the observation’s effect on the actions before you.

By: sgazzetti

sgazzetti — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 11:56:13 +0000

We’ll get right on that, Simon.

Uh, you do realize that for that plug-in to work, both you and Paola will need to have chips implanted, right? Inside of left elbow seems to work best.

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 11:51:51 +0000

Actually, if you could come up with some kind of icon that denotes “British, but married to an Italian and living in Belgium”, that’d be cool.

By: Erik R.

Erik R. — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 11:06:44 +0000

Next time you want to freshen up your blog, you might try a Flickr Flash Badget Wordpress Widget. :-) I only stopped using it because of a routing problem with my server making outbound connections.

By: Erik R.

Erik R. — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 11:01:42 +0000

Wow, great post! Nice usage of the tag and the second person when describing Ike.

By: sgazzetti

sgazzetti — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 09:06:27 +0000

Glad to know we're not the only ones in danger of warping their little minds with bathroom treats. You like the little flag, I hope? It's turn-offable. This guy is indirectly responsible for that little innovation. Gotta keep it fresh.

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 08:22:53 +0000

Whoa – just saw the little Belgian flag next to my name. Cool.

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 08:21:20 +0000

We’ve been doing the “chocolate bribery toilet training” thing with M & Ms, and it works well. No sooner has she sat on the bowl and started to tinkle than she squeals “chocolate, blue one!” (although she never seems to mind what colour she gets).