September 10, 2006 by Amy

One…two…three!

Well, things are looking up. I’m not despising my own work any more, and am back to being somewhat pleased with it and ready to hang it around the house. The only issue now is that my picture-hangin’ dude wiped himself out in the yard today and is in no state to drill into the walls of our house. That project will have to wait until another day.

I typically have a love/hate relationship with my work. It is rare for me to love something when I first shoot it. I come home, dump the images into the Mac, and comb through them. The little voice in my head clicks off as I click them open, “Shit…shit…shit…more shit…you call yourself a photographer?!” So then I let them stew for awhile, and come back to them later, grudgingly thinking that one or two might be decent. As more time passes, I accept them more and more, and eventually admit that I have useable material that I wouldn’t be embarrassed to share with others. Then, even more time passes, and I start hating the “good” ones again. Actually, I start hating the fact that a lot of time has passed since I made decent images. Which is usually a pretty good proverbial kick in the butt to start making images again.

Besides managing to get the house clean and caring for Doodle, I was also a printing fool today, after blowing out my print heads of course. I’ve had a growing list of prints to make, and finally just sat down today and cranked through them. That feels good.

One of the prints I made is a 4×6 of this:M received a hand/footprint kit from his folks for Father’s Day, and it includes a mat with three cut-outs: one for the hand, one for the foot, and one for a photograph. We got the hand and footprint on The Bug’s first birthday, and have spent since then debating which image to put in the frame. M chose the one above, which I suppose means it is one of his favorites.

Making the image was considerably easier than getting the hand and footprints, by the way. It’s a good theory, to capture your child’s hand and footprints on a milestone day. In practice, it’s very, very difficult. Akin to herding cats, I believe. The impression material is quite attractive to little fingers and toes. They like to grasp the impression material, which makes for an impression that looks nothing like your adorable one-year-old’s hand but rather like something from the X-Files.

We ended up “tricking” her. Mommy held her and played the “One Two Three!” game, whereupon we bounce on one and two, then drop suddenly on three. She likes the drop, and usually gives a good squeal or two. So while Daddy plied the impression material to get it all ready, Mommy bounced around the kitchen. When he had it ready to go, and positioned on the edge of the counter, I worked my way over with Zozo. One more “One Two Three!” and down we went. Daddy was ready, and he grabbed the unsuspecting hand, pressed it in and pulled it out before she could dig in. Success! Repeat as necessary to get the foot impression.

To be parents, you have to be sneaky. And vewy vewy quiet, to quote the wise Mr. Elmer Fudd.