It’s Suzanne’s birthday–surprise!

It’s not often that I can surprise my wife.  In a good way, that is.

Suz has planned and pulled off two surprise parties for me in the last few years–I’m a little slow on the uptake when it comes to paying attention to birthdays.  For my 40th birthday last summer, she invited some friends over and, even after they’d arrived, I still wasn’t aware it had been planned.  Duh.

Suzanne celebrated her 40th birthday last week and, with this milestone occasion, I felt we needed to do something special.  With the help of some of her friends, I began laying the groundwork several weeks ago for a surprise party on Friday.  I checked with her girlfriends to make sure the date was clear–no problem.  Friday, Feb. 26, was good.  The main issue was getting everyone to the house without blowing the surprise.  Normally we have Family Movie Night each Friday, which means we’re all in our PJs and the kids stay up later than usual.  I didn’t want to have guests show up unexpectedly while we were all in “relax mode;” that wouldn’t have been the good kind of surprise.

As it turns out, though, Ryan, the husband of Suz’s friend Deanne, shares the same birthday as Suzanne.  Deanne and I reckoned that we could get Suz to invite them over on Friday for a mutual birthday celebration.  Perfect!  This was the last piece we needed to keep the surprise a surprise.  So Suz and Deanne made their plans and everything else fell in place.

Instead of our usual movie night, we played a game with the kids and put them to bed earlier.  Ryan and Deanne came over around 7:45 and the other guests were instructed to arrive at 8:00.  As friends began appearing on our porch, Suzanne had no clue what was happening.  Mission accomplished: she was surprised.  In a good way.  She even said it was the best 40th birthday party ever.

Many thanks to Deanne, Ryan, Shannon, Rob, Chantell, Eric, Rachel, Natalie, and Bethany for being available, bringing food, and being our friends.  Thanks for making Suz feel loved.  And happy birthday to you, wife.  You are loved indeed.

A Boy After His Daddy’s Heart

Liam made this picture today.  To many it will look like a snapshot.

It’s not.

This picture was made, not taken.  And for that reason, it’s not a snapshot; it’s a photograph.

Photographers distinguish between taking and making a picture.  If you see a scene, raise the camera to your eye (or, as is now the case with most small digital cameras, hold it at arm’s length in front of you) and fire away, you are taking a picture.  If, on the other hand, you see a scene or subject, visualize how you want the final image to look, consider the background, think about your composition, analyze and–if necessary–modify the light, and thus create the means to achieve your vision–then you are making a photograph.

Liam is always cooking up and working out some idea in his head.  He is great at visualizing and works hard to execute and achieve his vision.  For this reason, he loves building toys: Legos, Snap Circuits, K’Nex.  He also loves tape and paper and scissors because, to him, these are tools for creating things.  One of his favorite Christmas gifts was a bag of various kinds of tape–duct, masking, transparent–from his grandma.  Liam isn’t just building things; rather, he is creating with intent.

He’s often seen or helped me set up an environment for making portraits: set up a background, put up lights, measure, shoot, check, repeat.  This evening he was building with his K’Nex blocks and evidently decided he wanted to make a picture of the tractor he built.  As we were preparing for dinner, he was building a background for his photo session.  He used two sheets of paper, a ruler, the lid from a container, and, of course, tape.  All of this was unprompted: he didn’t ask me for advice or help; he just set himself to it.

After dinner I walked into the den and found him hard at work on the next phase of his project, making the pictures.  Here are some “behind the scenes” images:

While reviewing his pictures on the camera’s monitor, Liam noticed that the white background didn’t fill the frame completely on some of the images–he hadn’t achieved his vision.  We talked about how to correct this (move back physically from the subject and zoom in).  Some were blurry (hold the camera steady after you focus).  He wondered if maybe he should be using a tripod; I suggested that setting the camera on the floor would work for this session.  He asked if there was a way to use the computer to take out parts of the image you don’t want, like the carpet instead of the white paper.  Sometimes, I said, but it’s better to get it right “in camera” whenever you can.  He wasn’t pleased with the way the shadows appeared in his photos; I told him we’d work on off-camera lighting another time. 🙂

As a photographer, I love the way he came up with this idea and then pulled it all together.  Liam had a vision and worked with the tools he had at hand to execute that vision–brilliant.  Not too shabby for a seven-year-old.

As his daddy, I just love him.

How to Help Haiti

As Suzanne noted yesterday, we’ve both been to Haiti before and have seen for ourselves the poverty before this week’s devastating earthquake.  As we’re all seeing now, the people of Haiti are now faced with unimaginable conditions and many people, thankfully, are eager to help.  Since so many organizations–both good and bad–will make use of our contributions, how can you help?  Here are three responsible and credible organizations we’d feel confident giving our money.

Red Cross – The American Red Cross is well-established in the disaster relief community.  If you own a cell phone (and who doesn’t?), you can easily donate $10 by texting haiti to 90999.  As of 6:00 AM today, the Red Cross reported via twitter that nearly $3M had been raised through the texting campaign.

World VisionWorld Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization in locations around the globe, including Haiti.  Suzanne and I have supported the work of World Vision for over 13 years and have complete confidence in its leadership and mission. They’ve provided a quick link on their home page for donations to help the people in Haiti.

IDES – Founded in 1973, International Disaster Emergency Services is another well-respected Christian organization that brings desperately-needed food, water, and services to hurting people around the world.  Our local church has partnered with IDES for two decades and we highly recommend them.

Please support and continue to pray for the wounded and dying in Haiti.  This impoverished country faced many challenges before the disaster; it is difficult to imagine how they will recover.

Quote of the Day (QOTD)

Me: What are you going to do with that wire, bud?

Liam: I’m using it for my evil genius.

Me: Your evil genius?

Liam: No–I mean my mad scientist.

Somehow I’d guess those are still closely related.