When she arrived, Kathleen shared with me several samples of her business calling cards.  They are adorably wrapped as presents on one side (handmade!), and on the other is a description of her services.

(Yes, that is a tape measure bottom front, left — and super glue sticking up with a blue cap behind the tape!  Who knew the tools that would be useful to Ms. Elf!)

The text on her card reads:

“Gift-Wrapping right at your home…

If you need help with gift-wrapping ,I am the elf who can help you.  With experiences at Woodward & Lothrop and Hecht’s Department Stores, I can assure you that you won’t be disappointed in giving away your lovely gift-wrapped presents to your loved ones.  You can watch me and perhaps you’ll learn some tips from me.

All the materials (wrapping papers, ribbons*, bows, and gift tags) will be provided at the prices listed below.  There will be choices of formal, contemporary, or children’s wrapping papers.  Plus, a minimum of $10 an hour in wrapping.  If you prefer to use your own wrapping supplies then a flat fee is $10 per hour.

extra small (jewelry sized box) – $1.50
small (lingeries or socks sized box) – $2.50
medium (shirt sized box) – $3.50
large (robe or sweater sized box) – $4.50
extra large (Plasma TV or larger sized box) – $10.00 and up

Email Ms. Elf at giftwrapper2011(at)yahoo.com for questions or to set appointments.  In the meantime, enjoy the holidays!
*Ribbons may be charged additional depending on the quality and how much has been used.“

Above – “Ms. Elf”, aka Kathleen Miller, at work.  Finished product below:

Here are a few of the other gifts I watched her wrap today.

So, if you’re a little stressed this holiday season, you don’t want to miss out on this affordable, and time-saving way to make your gifts look beautiful!

“Why you want to shoot RAW.”  Talking about exposure mistakes.

While my kids played at the park this unbelievably pleasant-temperatured Wednesday afternoon, the ice cream truck arrived.  (As usual.  Sigh.)  I realized a few minutes later, I had a child sitting almost completely still, sitting on a bench in nice, even light!  Since I’d had the idea for this series for a few weeks, I grabbed my chance.  So apologies for the somewhat uninspiring sequence below, but the chance to capture this many pictures of my child, with the only variable being the shutter speed, well, that is a rare gift, indeed!

The following images illustrate pretty well why I consider shooting RAW to be, among other things, a great insurance policy against exposure mistakes.  Assuming the center images, shot at f/4, ISO 800, SS 1/400 sec, are the “correct” exposure, look what you can do in Lightroom, doing nothing more than adjusting the exposure slider to add 3 stops of exposure (for the top images) and take away 2 stops of exposure (for the bottom images).

In fairness, there were still a few spots of unrecoverable highlights on my son’s shoulder even in the overexposed RAW images; but otherwise, both the adjusted RAW images are completely usable (except, perhaps, for fine portraiture).  In contrast, both the underexposed and overexposed JPEG images on the right are “worthless” (a technical term, not related to sentimental value).

For additional perspective on these above images, here is the complete set I shot, including the straight out of camera images I used above.  From start to finish, these were all shot in under two minutes, and the light appeared consistent throughout.  Notice that, while the colors are more saturated in the JPEG images, there’s a richness of detail in the RAW images that’s lacking in their JPEG equivalents. Not for nothing are the RAW files called the “digital negatives.”  Again, all images are ISO 800, f/4, straight out of camera.

(On a side note, neither the RAW file nor the JPEG file were even remotely recoverable when overexposed by 3 stops.  In digital imagery, you lose detail in the highlights much faster than in the shadows, leading many photographers to believe it’s better to slightly underexpose than to risk blowing highlights.)

But, you say, the whole point is to get the exposure right in the camera, not in post-processing.

Ah, too true, my friend.  It will not do to assume shooting RAW means it’s okay not to properly meter before your shot.  Still, mistakes happen.

For example, in the same trip to the park this afternoon, I looked up to saw a ball land at my children’s feet. a tiny poodle followed the ball, which surprised my daughter, who knocked over my son, and then plopped herself down in his lap.  I just wanted this shot, and unfortunately, the cloud cover had lessened considerably since I’d been taking pictures of them just five minutes earlier, resulting in a picture that was quite a bit overexposed.

In Lightroom, I brought the exposure down about a stop, recovered some highlights (because the light was pretty harsh there, parts of the picture were blown beyond recovery, like the poodle’s back).  I finished my edit with this:

Is this an award-winning picture?  Naw.  But it’s now a decent lifestyle image of my kids being so typically my kids, you know?  My daughter’s trust in my son, my son’s suspicion of that dog….

To conclude, I will concede that there is a downside to shooting RAW.  Namely, it’s more expensive than shooting JPEG.  It’s like the book, If you give a mouse a cookie….

If you want to shoot RAW, you’ll need a camera that can shoot RAW files (I believe all dSLRs can, and a few point-and-shoots).
If you buy the new camera, you may as well buy larger memory cards (RAW files are big!).
To get those pictures off the memory cards, you’ll need a program that can read RAW files, like Adobe Lightroom (which is awesome, so you probably want it anyway).
As you start filling up LR with your images, you’ll realize you need a bigger harddrive.

See?

There’s also a convenience factor.  RAW files are not processed, so you can’t stop off a CVS with your memory card to print a bunch of 4x6s for a scrapbook for grandma.  And the iPhone doesn’t shoot RAW files (yet), so it takes quite a few steps to post to Facebook using Instagram.

So shooting RAW isn’t going to be the right decision for everyone.  But if you’re reading this, I assume you probably want to take the absolute best images of your family that you possibly can, and shooting RAW is, I believe, an important part of that!

Not convinced?  Wait until next week for Part II of this series. 

“The way I view Motherhood.”

I struggled with this.  Obvious choice?  A mother-child photo.  But then one morning, I woke up and saw this (thank goodness my camera was nearby).

Yes, that angelic little face.  The face of my little angel who wakes up before I do, and happily climbs out of her crib and joins me in bed.  Sometimes she even cuddles!  And sometimes she confuses my bed not just with her own bed, but also with a trampoline.

Not only is it tiring to jump on my bed, but apparently it’s thirsty work, too.  Yes, my daughter travels with her paci, her blankie, and her own waterbottle.

Unfortunately, this little one knows how cute I think she is.  Check out this mischievous little grin!

It’s always preferable to wake up to the grin, than to the feet, however.

Just when I’ll think perhaps my daughter is going to settle in for a real snuggle (aka, I might be able to go back to sleep)…I see another head peeking over our bed!

Sleep is clearly a lost cause.  Playtime has arrived!

After a last series of death-defying feats (aka, learning to do somersaults), it’s clearly time to go down for breakfast.

And while lying lazily in bed of a morning may be a treasure I don’t often experience anymore, when I look at these little faces, it’s impossible not to see the greater treasure that I have now.

Ha!  Sappy enough for you?  Ah, Mother’s Day.  (On said day, I did get to sleep in, with no kids actually in the bed, anyway!)

Now, don’t forget to check out Heather‘s view on motherhood (it’ll make you laugh, and nod in agreement)!

Yesterday, while we waited for my son to get home from a playdate, my daughter and I got the chalk out.  I thought we would practice numbers, but she really just wanted to dump out the box of chalk and fill it back up.

This game was, apparently, absolutely hysterical.

Finally, big brother came home and we we drew the hopscotch game (an especially tricky variety, in fact).  My son’s glower at me had nothing to do with me taking pictures (for once), and everything to do with my suggestion that the stone had bounced off the 7, not the 8.

And with that, I leave you with best wishes for Passover, Easter, and apparently US National Tartan day, according to a good friend of Scottish heritage.  Who knew!

- Danie Smallwood

Almost.

Then I realized I had rain pants and rain boots in the car!  And hoody sweatshirts!  Hurrah for never bringing things back into the house!

So we drove to a mostly empty parking lot with some puddles, and I told the kids to just go to it.    I did ask occasionally that they not stand directly in front of a garbage can, but basically, I took pictures and they played.  It was awesome!  (No, seriously, they said so.  Score.)

This next picture is a BIG deal.  My daughter had literally just learned days earlier how to jump (you know, both feet off the ground at the same time).  If you look closely, you’ll see this rain storm came at the perfect time for her to try out her new skills!

Now it can be warm and sunny again. 

- Danie Smallwood, Bethesda, MD Children’s Photographer

Coloring is very serious business, as you can see.

Eventually, she decided to rejoin the boys, who had started to watch the movie “Cars” (see previous post with the other two boys).  They hadn’t settled in yet, and apparently the chaos called for an emergency pacifier (aka, sneaking it when I wasn’t looking!).

I find I don’t mind TV nearly as much when my kids decide to use toys to reenact the scenes!

Contemplating the deeper meaning behind the “Cars” cars?

Suddenly, she found herself engrossed in the movie!

My thanks again the extreme indulgence of my good friend for letting me take so many pictures yesterday!

- Danie, Bethesda, MD Photography

This last image shows my mischievous daughter and I having a stand-off about whether she’ll be allowed to play with her blinds in her big girl bed.

Here’s to the hope that she’ll be able to sleep this weekend!

Merry Christmas!

And 6th day of Hanukkah and 3rd day after the Solstice.

We had a wonderful Christmas here.  My 2.5 year old daughter is finally old enough to have anticipated Santa’s arrival last night, and my son’s fever that caused him to sleep through church services on Saturday night miraculously disappeared in time to open presents this morning!

I think the most memorable part of this Christmas will always be the Purple Potty.  My daughter asked Santa to bring her “Purple.”  Period.  Later she added that she wanted a Purple Potty.  As we are just starting potty training, I felt comfortable sending a message with our Elf on the Shelf, Crispy (seen above), asking Santa to update her list with a Purple Potty and Purple shoes.  Santa was, to our eternal relief, able to oblige.  And she was pretty darn excited, too!

Wishing you and yours a peaceful start to the New Year — I will be away from email and other social media starting December 27th until 2012, but can still be reached by phone at 202-739-1941.

- Danie Smallwood