Looks like the "food truck renaissance" thing that's sweeping the nation may finally be taking hold in San Diego. Today was a nice enough day out and I was interested enough to check out the MIHO Gastrotruck that I skipped out on the free lunch my company provides on Thursdays. It made for quite a pleasant afternoon.

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Nikon D40, Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G DX lens
f/1.8, 1/640, ISO 200.

It always kind of surprises me when Jason actually listens to me. About fifteen minutes before I snapped this picture, Jason and another kid had both reached for the same toy at the same time, which went about how you'd expect. I had reminded Jason that he needed to share and wait his turn, and though he wasn't thrilled about that, he went along with it. Eventually, they both got their turn and moved on to other things. Fifteen minutes later, I turned around to see Jason impatiently shuffling his feet, hands jammed into his pockets as he waited for another kid to finish playing with another toy he wanted. He wasn't particularly gracious about it, but he did wait and didn't whine or cry. I was impressed.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G DX lens, in manual exposure mode. Aperture f/1.8, shutter 1/125 sec, ISO 400. Post-processing in Aperture 3: white balance adjustment; curves for contrast; levels to darken shadows and brighten midtones.

It was at this point that I realized that Jason was pretty much done with pictures. This was the last shot I took that day.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G lens, in manual exposure mode. Aperture f/1.4, shutter 1/1250 sec, ISO 200. Post-processing in Aperture 3: straightened; auto white balance adjustment; curves for highlight recovery and contrast; levels to darken shadows and brighten midtones.

"I want a stick."

"OK, let's go over there and look for one. Here, how about this one, is this a good one?"

"No."

"OK, let's keep looking."

"OK. This a good one!"

"That's great."

"And this a good one!"

"Right on, Jason."

"This a good one and this a good one. I have two sticks."

"That's right, you have two sticks."

"Can I keep them?"

"Well, you can play with them here in the park, but once it's time to go then you have to leave them here."

"OK. Oh! That a good one!"

"No, Jason, that's not a good one. That's a pencil."

"Oh. OK."

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 50 mm f/1.4G lens, in manual exposure mode. Aperture f/2, shutter 1/2500 sec, ISO 200. Post-processing in Aperture 3: straightened; curves for highlight recovery; levels to darken shadows and brighten midtones.

Getting Jason to cooperate when I want to take his picture is not terribly easy. But I figure that if I can get him to hold still and look at the camera, working with other kids ought to be a breeze.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G lens, in manual exposure mode. Aperture f/2, shutter 1/1250 sec, ISO 200. Post-processing in Aperture 3: straightened; curves for highlight recovery; burned the background; dodged over the subject; further dodged over his eyes; levels to darken shadows and brighten midtones.

I like to call Jason "Monkey," among other things. Sometimes it fits a bit more than others.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G lens, in manual exposure mode. Aperture f/2.8, shutter 1/1000 sec, ISO 800. Post-processing in Aperture 3: straightened; max recovery; burned over the background; levels to darken shadows; curves for contrast.

It's been hard to find time to get out and shoot lately, what with everything that's been going on lately. Happily, I was able to combine some family time and business planning this weekend when I took Jason for an outing to Old Poway Park. I needed to scope out the grounds and check the quality of the mid-day light in advance of a promotional event I'm planning for next month, and Jason needed to get out of the house and play after being cooped up for several days due to illness. He was, of course, insistent that we go straight to the playground first, but once he'd gotten some good climbing and sliding time in, he was pretty agreeable about the test shots I wanted to take.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G lens, in manual exposure mode. Aperture f/2, shutter 1/1250 sec, ISO 200. Post-processing in Aperture 3: cropped to square; curves for highlight recovery; levels to darken shadows and brighten midtones; dodged over Jason; burned over the bright sky and ground; added vignetting.

Well, now we're in for it.

This is from the wedding Juliette and I attended back in October, a couple of close friends from our college days. Each table had a different theme taken from a story that was meaningful to the couple. Ours was "Rivendell," which I imagine most of my readers will recognize from J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. As you can see, it all came together beautifully.

Looking over the shots I got that day made me think it would be a lot of fun to shoot weddings. Stressful, but fun.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G DX lens, in manual exposure mode. Aperture f/1.8, shutter 1/60 sec, ISO 800. Post-processing in Aperture 3: slight curve for highlight recovery and constrast.

Sometimes Jason falls asleep when we're driving somewhere. This can be problematic because if it's before his nap then he most likely won't take one later. Even if he's already had a nap, he still usually wakes up grumpy. So, if he hasn't woken up by the time we've reached our destination and we're not pressed for time, sometimes we just sit around, try not to make any noise, and wait for him to wake up on his own. This can take anywhere from a couple of minutes to over an hour.

As you can see, this eventually leads to me getting bored.

Technical info: Shot with a Nikon D40 and Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G lens, in manual exposure mode. Aperture f/8, shutter 1/30 sec, ISO 800. No post-processing.

Thoughts for improvement: Well, it's neither particularly interesting nor well-composed, so there's a lot of room for improvement as an image. But it does work pretty well as an example of the way I see and think, which is why I picked it.