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W- turned to J- and asked, “So, why don’t you want to go to summer camp?”

“The first reason is that I want to spend my time more wisely,” said the 11-year-old. I cheered.

“The second reason is that it’s just like daycare. If I go to daycare during school and camp during summer, then it’s the same all year round.”

“Variety!” I said, nodding.

“The third reason is that there are all these young kids running around,” she continued.

“So you’ve outgrown camp,” said W-.

J- nodded.

“Well, if you can take the responsibility for spending that time wisely, sure!” I said.

Kudos to her for knowing what she wants and going for it.

So we’re going to build photography experiments into our summer schedule.

We played lacrosse catch in a nearby park, and then we took pictures. J- was delighted with her silhouette experiments and her flower photography. She likes taking macro shots.

As the light faded, we switched to panning shots, catching cyclists and cars. Even when we were walking back home, she’d sometimes run ahead to take a picture of a passing car.

When we got home, she skipped ice cream time to play on the piano instead. She has figured out how to play both hands for “A Whole New World”, and she’s been learning “Part of Your World” and the introduction of “Fur Elise” almost entirely on her own. She asked me how to play parts of Fur Elise, so I showed her that the notes she wrote down were correct.

“This isn’t the real song, is it?” She asked.

I laughed. “Play the demo again, and look at the notes.” I traced them with my finger, like the bouncing ball of karaoke lyrics. “See, you haven’t been playing with training wheels. You’ve been learning the real thing.”

“Ooh! Cool!”

“Terrific! And what would let you enjoy piano even more?”

“Well… What about the Star Wars music?”

“Dum-dum-dum-dum-dah-dum-dum-dah-dum…?”

“No, the one at the beginning.”

“Oh! Okay, let’s go look for that…”

And now she’s off teaching herself the Star Wars Theme. =)

I tell this story because it’s a wonderful thing to help cultivate enthusiasm. We were watching J- chase cars with her camera, and W- said, “That’s the kind of enthusiasm I was thinking about.” I smiled and said that it takes only one interest. Once she knows what it’s like to be passionate about something, she’ll discover other things as well.

Ah, Mondays. =D

High Park

Peanuts sprinkled outside glass door + squirrels + cats = fun for everyone

(c) 2008 Sacha Chua, Creative Commons Attribution CopyLeft License

She’s really not as sinister as this, but I think it’s a nice picture anyway. ;)

Tim Sanders blogged about the importance of having at least one really good picture. It’s true: a good head shot adds a dash of personality to blogs, slide decks, corporate directory profiles, and everything else that forms part of your personal brand. If you don’t have a picture on your blog yet, think about adding one! Besides, photos tell stories. =) Here’s the story behind my current profile pic:

Last January, a colleague asked me for a high-resolution head-shot that would be included (along with something I said) in one of their annual reports. I no longer had the high-resolution version of the profile picture I was using at the time. Besides, I’d taken that picture myself in 2005 using a point-and-shoot camera and my desk lamp (you can see the ceiling of my dorm room at Graduate House!), and it was definitely time for a change. But where was I going to find a low-cost photographer on a Friday evening?

Right next to me, apparently. I asked W- to take my picture. It was a good opportunity to try the 50mm lens he got me for Christmas. We’d both read plenty of photography books, so we knew that we needed a plain white wall near a window with good light. The only suitable one was the wall directly across the bathroom, so W- set up the tripod across the threshold and I quickly put on some foundation and tucked my hair into a bun.

The window light was coming from my right, and the shadows were a little too dark. I tried turning this way and that, but I couldn’t turn too far towards the light because my face would then be at the wrong angle. The tripod was stuck in the doorway and we couldn’t move it further. Hmm…

Fortunately, reading books on photography and blogs like Strobist gave us the confidence to try a little lighting. W- had splurged on an external flash unit, though, and we put that to good use. J- got conscripted into holding the large white sheet of paper that was our reflector, and we bounced the light off that in order to fill in the shadows. W- also fiddled with the manual-focus lens until he felt that things were reasonably in focus. (Apparently, it’s hard to get the eyes sharp when the subject’s giggling too much because of the art direction and the assistant’s antics.)

Naturally, J- wanted her picture taken too. (I remember some particularly good zombie-J pictures from this session.)

I was still breaking out in lots of pimples at the time, so I edited the most promising picture in Gimp in order to tone down the distracting bits. I didn’t think I could do anything about my teeth (short of braces–tried them, couldn’t stand them), so I left those alone. Anyway, I ended up with a profile picture that made me happy and taught all of us a little more about playing with light.

My picture’s nowhere near as awesome as my mom’s, but that’s because my dad’s a professional photographer. I’d love to practice taking portraits of friends, and once we either have that yard sale or put all the extra stuff away, maybe I can have people over again… =)