Jason is fascinated by photographs of people he knows, especially ones of me, Juliette, or himself. Just this morning he was shouting excitedly about the background image on Juliette's laptop, which is a picture of him that we took at Legoland. When we were decorating the tree on Saturday, it was very important to him that I know that one of the ornaments had a picture of Mommy and Daddy.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40, Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 DX lens, and Vivitar DF-383 flash (with Gary Fong Lightsphere). Manual exposure mode and TTL flash mode (-1 EV). Aperture f/1.8, shutter 1/500, ISO 400. Post-processing in Aperture 3: cropped out elements below and to the left; slight curves adjustment; polarize brush over the tabletop and central ornament.

Thoughts for improvement: The composition is a little cluttered and I'd like for the wood grain in the table to come out a bit more, but I like the little bit of storytelling here.

We got our Christmas tree on Saturday morning and decorated it in the afternoon. Jason was an enthusiastic participant, though his sense of Christmas tree aesthetics doesn't yet include concepts like spreading the ornaments around the entire tree. (Juliette had to do a bit of redistribution after Jason went to bed.)

This little guy is one of my favorites of our ornament collection. He looks so jolly, out for a little Christmas stroll. Right on, I say.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 DX lens, in manual exposure mode. Aperture f/1.8, shutter 1/30, ISO 800. Post-processing in Aperture 3: cropped out a bunch of stuff to the right and above; slight curves adjustment.

Thoughts for improvement: I went back and forth between this shot and another that had a slightly different angle. I decided on this one because the angle was better on the subject, but the bokeh in the other one was much nicer, with nice, round highlights. In this one, the background looks a little muddy. The focus is also a little soft on the subject.

Long-time readers (and, most likely, if you're reading this, you're a long-time reader) will know that I'm a big fan of the movies. Going to the movies used to be my and Juliette's main weekend activity. In 2004, for example, we saw 56 movies in theater—a bit of quick math will tell you that that's more than one per week. Indeed, it wasn't unusual for us to pack in three in a single weekend, not even including the times we spent an entire day at the Newport Beach Film Festival.

But then we had Jason and we had to change our habits, temporarily, at least. We still go, of course, usually when a parent is visiting and wants to provide free babysitting—it works out to about one movie every other month or so.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love my son and not only do I not regret our decision to have him, but I have found the experience rewarding and enriching (and sometimes challenging and aggravating) and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Still, I do miss being wrapped up in film culture the way I used to be. I used to know the release schedule weeks or even months in advance—these days I not only don't know what's playing, but even when I bother to check I still don't recognize most of the titles.

This past Saturday found me with a mixture of excitement and apprehension as we decided to take Jason to his first movie: Tangled. Excited because of the prospect of finding a new way to connect with my son, to introduce him to something that had been such an important part of my life. Apprehensive because, well, he can be kind of a handful.

Some people don't seem to care if their kids make a scene in public, but that's not me. I remember once sitting through a movie—I think it might have been Batman Begins—during which an infant in the audience screamed the entire time, and the father's only response was to get up from his seat and stand in the aisle. That guy? Not me.

Nor would it have been me this time, if Jason had decided to throw a fit. No, Juliette and I agreed that if he didn't behave we would just take him out.

Now, Jason does have some experience watching movies and TV at home, so we were hoping that he would be ready. On the other hand, he also has a tendency of getting up to do something else thirty minutes into a movie, so it was hard to say how this was going to go. We did our best to prepare him, telling him that once the lights went down we all had to be quiet. We picked a relatively short movie and didn't get there too early and give him extra time to get bored. And we made sure we got enough snacks to last him through the film. Even with all that, when the first preview started, I held my breath.

Turns out I needn't have worried. The previews rolled and he didn't make a peep. He didn't get scared by the monsters in the trailer for Voyage of the Dawn Treader. He didn't even get vocally excited during the preview of Cars 2, despite the fact the Lightning McQueen may just be his favorite person. (Or, as Jason calls him, "Mata Teen.") The movie started and not a sound. Five minutes passed, then ten, then fifteen. I looked over and there he was, eating his popcorn and paying rapt attention to the screen. I was so overcome by pride and happiness at being able to share this with him, I actually got a little misty.

The movie was good, too, and I'll have a review up this week. But for now I'm still basking in the glow of a successful family movie outing. Hopefully, the first of many.

"Glass must be full." I don't know what that is supposed to mean in the context of a gas pump, but taken—probably completely incorrectly—as an optimistic directive it's kind of nice. Especially considering the grayness and cold temperature of the day.

But this is an accidental interpretation, one that I didn't notice until I came back to the image several days later, and that I'm now forcing onto it. Really, I just liked the texture of the paint on the gas pump and hoped I could find an interesting angle. I wonder how often the meaning we find in art is like that—accidental, forced. Often? If so, what does that mean?

OK, now I'm really wandering. I'll stop.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 DX lens, in manual exposure mode. Aperture f/8, shutter 1/30, ISO 400. Post-processing in Aperture 3: curve for highlight recovery and contrast.

Thoughts for improvement: Couple of things here. First, the sky is very uninteresting. This is in part because by metering for the pump, the sky was overexposed, and although I was able to bring it back down because I shot in RAW format, it's still very flat. It's also in part because it was a cold, gray day, and the sky was actually boring. The other thing is that this would probably have been better with a wide-angle lens—18 mm or shorter, most likely.

Next to the center where Juliette's sister-in-law, Colleen, works is a small farm, and she included that in our tour. Jason was very interested in the goats and sheep, and at one point as we were walking past a little pond he announced that he saw a duck. (I didn't see one, but his eyes are sharper than mine.) On our way back out, we walked by this old tractor garage and the red gas pump next to it caught my eye. As I lifted the camera to my eye, Colleen mentioned that her daughter had taken the exact same shot for a photography class project. I guess that means I'm not terribly original, but I'm OK with that.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 DX lens, in manual exposure mode. Aperture f/2.8, shutter 1/250 sec, ISO 400. Post-processing in Aperture 3: cropped and straightened; curve for contrast; burned over the roof in the background.

Thoughts for improvement: As with yesterday, I'm pretty happy with this one. I like the contrast of the red gas pump with the wood of the garage. I like the way the square window works in the composition. I like the textures in the wood panels, the red paint, and the grass. I think I like pretty much everything about this picture.

"The Popculturist Hears WTF":

There’s something about funny people that has always been fascinating to me. A truly funny person has that combination of intelligence, insight, and charisma that is immediately recognizable and impossible to ignore. I think, too, part of the allure is the recognition of a skill or talent that I don’t have, myself, but that I respect and admire in others.

The day after Thanksgiving, Juliette's sister-in-law, Colleen, took a bunch of us on a tour of the place where she works. She's a science educator, and she works at this neat center where kids can learn about different aspects of the natural world. Needless to say, Jason had a blast.

The first thing we did was take a walk along a path around the property, where Colleen showed us (mostly Jason) different plants and animal signs. The pond in the photo above apparently has frogs in it in the spring and summer. When we visited it was the end of November, though, and very cold, and there were no frogs to be found. Jason didn't mind. Actually, neither did I.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 DX lens, in manual exposure mode. Aperture f/2.8, shutter 1/160 sec, ISO 400. Post-processing in Aperture 3: crop to 4x5; curve for exposure and contrast.

Thoughts for improvement: I'm pretty happy with the way this one turned out. I like the ripples in the water from where the previous night's rain was dripping off the trees. I like the reflection, and the color of the needles in the water. The only thing might be to exclude more from the photo, maybe by cropping even tighter around the area where the ripples are.

This Thanksgiving, it seemed like every time I turned around, I saw Jason putting on the clown nose his aunt gave him. He just loved it. If I make my guess, he's going to flip out at the chance to play a red-nosed reindeer in the family performance of "The Night Before Christmas."

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 DX lens, in manual exposure mode. Aperture f/1.8, shutter 1/60 sec, ISO 1600. Post-processing in Aperture 3: white balance correction; curve to increase exposure; slightly desaturated yellows and greens.

Thoughts for improvement: This is obviously a grab shot and I put little to no thought into the composition. So from a purely visually aesthetic perspective, it's not a great image. As a capture of a moment, though, I love it. I love the excitement and furtiveness about his body language, and the way he's kind of tucked in between the shoes and handbags. About the only thing I wish I'd done differently is that I wish I'd thought to put the flash on my camera, as that would have let me shoot at a lower ISO, producing less "grain."

This year we had Thanksgiving at Juliette's brother's house in Massachusetts, and among the many things that delighted Jason during his week-long trip to the East Coast were his aunt and uncle's napkin rings. There was a pig, a giraffe, a lioness, several kinds of insect, and—as you can see—a zebra. Juliette asked me if I staged this shot, but as far as I remember this is how I found it.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and 35mm f/1.8 DX lens, in manual exposure mode. Aperture f/1.8, shutter 1/60 sec, ISO 800. Post-processing in Aperture 3: white balance temperature 2500K, tint -3; curve for highlight recovery and contrast.

Thoughts for improvement: It was a little difficult to balance the light color properly—aside from the candlelight, there was also an incandescent overhead light and a compact flourescent floor lamp in the room. In a more controlled environment I'd have made sure that all the lighting had the same color. I like the candles and highlights in the bokeh, but the background does feel a little cluttered—possibly it might have been better to move the rear plate out of the shot and put some more candles in its place. It also might have been good to stop down a bit in order to get some of the salad on the foreground plate more in focus, but given how poorly the D40 does at ISO 1600, I was a bit constrained in terms of exposure.

If you're anything like me, you have at least a few books lying around the house that you bought a long time ago but never got around to actually reading. For me, up until last month, that book was Robin Hobb's Ship of Magic.

I picked it up when it first came out in paperback on the strength of Hobb's earlier series, The Farseer Trilogy, which I had liked quite a bit even though the ending had left me a bit cold. Nevertheless, my aversion to starting an unfinished series was strong enough that I ended up sticking Ship of Magic on the shelf and ignoring it for almost eleven years. Last month, I finally got to the point where I'd read every piece of fiction left in the house, and decided to finally give it a go.

Before I did that, though, I went back and re-read The Farseer Trilogy, figuring that since this new series was a follow-on set in the same world, I should re-familiarize myself with the background. In some ways, that turned out to be a help, because I would otherwise have missed a number of references in the new series to events in the old one, references that weren't exactly necessary to understand the new series, but which added significant depth to the world and some of the characters.

On the other hand, plowing through all six books in rapid succession, it was impossible not to compare the two series, and I found The Liveship Traders somewhat lacking in comparison to its predecessor.

As I mentioned, The Liveship Traders is set in the same world as The Farseer Trilogy, starting ten years or so after the events of the first series. Rather than continuing the story of the original characters, though, the new series moves to a different part of the world and tells a story that is only tangentially related to the first.

As the series opens, we are introduced to the Vestrits, a trading family from the port city of Bingtown. The Vestrits are the owners of a liveship—a ship carved from magic wood that imbues the vessel with a life of its own, most noticeable in the ship's animate figurehead. The protagonist, Althea Vestrit, returns home from a voyage on her family ship, only to have her father die and her inheritance—ownership and captaincy of the ship—taken from her. Althea leaves, determined to regain her ship and make a name for herself. From there, we're brought along on a tale of full of nautical adventure, pirate battles, and even war, beneath the surface of which lurk secrets from ages past.

Now, you'd think this sort of thing would be right up my alley, and in a lot of ways you'd be right. I'm a huge sucker for Age of Sail maritime adventures, as evidenced by my love of C. S. Forester and Patrick O'Brian. Combine that with the fantastic setting, epic plot, and excellent action scenes, and it should be perfect for me.

The problem was that too much of the characterization felt forced or flat to me. Part of that came from the more distributed focus—unlike The Farseer Trilogy, which featured only one point-of-view character—The Liveship Traders bounces back and forth between half a dozen or more perspectives, including all of the main antagonists. There's a lot of potential with a structure like that because it gives us a chance to sympathize or at least understand everyone, even the "bad guys." Unfortunately, nearly all of the antagonists seemed almost cartoonishly unreasonable, making it next to impossible for me to connect with them.

Things did eventually turn around with most of the important characters, but it took so long for that to happen—well into the second book—that I would never have gotten to it if not for my inability to walk away from a story I haven't finished.

Still, I don't want to sound too down on the series, because as difficult as I found the first volume, so much is paid off—both plot-wise and character-wise—by the end, that it was ultimately a very satisfying experience. It's of particular note how skillfully Hobb works the plot, starting with a relatively small-scale story of family drama and nautical adventure and building it into an epic, world-changing saga. As long as you're the kind of person who can commit to a series for the long haul, who doesn't need resolutions early and often, I'd say this one is definitely worth your time.

Ship of Magic

Started: 10/6/2010 | Finished: 10/13/2010

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Mad Ship

Started: 10/19/2010 | Finished: 10/26/2010

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Ship of Destiny

Started: 10/27/2010 | Finished: 11/1/2010

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