The first signs of Spring around the Rowe household, is the ‘DING!’ of the bell on Dekker’s trike.  Such a fun time of the year, and finally able to resolve some of the built-up cabin fever.

Tucker James was born Nov 16, 2011 – 1:16PM.  Weighed 9lbs 1.5oz – 22-inches, with a 15.25 inch head.

The moment my boys were born are forever burned in my memory.  I would do anything for these boys.

Like I mentioned in the previous shot, Dekker is learning – everything is new, everything is exciting.  At the pumpkin patch, they have live animals – which Dekker loves.  He’s all about the cows, horses, sheep, goats, the whole lot.  I think he tried to get the horse to bump his stomach at one point.  Just loves the animals.  Near the goats, they have various contraptions to help feed the goats.  This lame Dad forgot to bring a $10 roll of quarters, so we didn’t actually _feed_ the goats, but we had a blast _acting_ like we were.  Dekker figured out the pulley system quickly.

We visited a pumpkin patch outside of Lincoln this past weekend with my family.  Dad was out of town, but my Mom, sisters and their families all made it.  We had an absolute blast.  Dekker is at the age where everything is still new and absolutely AMAZING!  I love this picture, purely from the excitement you can see on Dekker’s face.  It isn’t a smile, it is almost like he is about to burst!

This was the last shot I took.  I’m really happy with how it turned out.  The bursts of light are pronounced, you can see both sections of the bridge, and the exposure was long enough / late enough that it shows no sign of people – and there were people walking on the bridge.  I love that about the long exposures.  The main towers / supports are probably a bit over-exposed, and using a filter I probably could have done this shot a bit better, but for more of a ‘getting started’ shot of this type, I was really happy with the result.

The last shots I took on my trip downtown were of the pedestrian bridge.  I had my tripod, and these were 1 of 2 or 3 shots I was really after on this outing.  I setup the tripod, lined up the shot, and popped open the shutter for 20 seconds.  I closed the aperture down to f/16 in this shot, and it turned out pretty well!  The glossing / smoothing of the river looks really neat to me, against the sharpness of the wires on the bridge.  I had read that closing the aperture down would produce some of the starbursts around the light, which I was really after.

This is in Heartland of America Park.  There is a bit of a lookout at the end of one bridge, which is where I took this shot.  I didn’t have my tripod with me, so I was using the concrete ledge to steady the camera.  Anything beyond 3 seconds just didn’t turn out that well.  I need to go back.  Funny story here, shortly after taking this shot (and only 1 or 2 more) a guy stopped and started asking me questions, rapid fire, about everything from the camera, to buying computers from pawn shops, to education, to marriage, kids.  He talked for well over an hour.  I said to myself, as I walked away, that took an hour of potentially ‘good shots’, but maybe that guy really just needed someone to listen to him.

I started playing with manual modes a bit more.  I thought downtown would have some excellent lights for some longer exposures.  Here, I was still hand-holding, and it turned out pretty well!  The buildings in the back stayed pretty sharp, and I could capture the motion from the ride.  I wish I’d stepped back a bit more, to get a wider shot, but there are tons of trees right off this street, and this was a pretty good view.

Omaha once again did “Sand in the City” downtown.  Some really impressive sculptures!  I still had my buddies 35mm f/1.8 lens, which has just GREAT low-light performance.  One of the sculptures had an ‘Omaha’ sub sculpture on each of the 4 sides.  I thought it looked pretty cool, and turned out a bit better than my attempts at capturing some of the other displays.

This last Monday night my sisters came to town with their kids to celebrate Mothers Day with my parents.  Typically, it is just Stef, Dekker, and I, but this week we decided to share the spoils, well, we provided the spoils this time.  My sister bought a 50mm f/1.8 lens a while back, but has refused to learn how to use it effectively.  50mm has a bit long of a reach for indoor shooting, but the 1.8 is just…fun.  Fun enough, that you just need to work with it.  The really fun part about the 1.8, coupled with a camera that supports several focus points, is you can get close, and sharp on a part of a face, and other features start to blur out.  I really like this effect.  In this pic, I think it focused just to the right of Dekkers eye, and even the eyelashes start to blur a bit.  What fun it is to shoot with that lens.  It has solidified in my mind, that I will be getting the Nikon 35mm f/1.8 soon.  The 35mm should be just right for indoors, and if we venture outside, I can just get closer if I need to.

The other fun with the f/1.8 is it is nice and wide open, giving you plenty of ‘low-light’ shots without having to bump up your ISO to noisy levels, and keeping a nice fast shutter speed.  I think on this pic, I was in ISO 400, and still got a 1/80 shutter speed.  Becky has a nicer camera than I, save that it is a Canon, but I probably could have bumped the ISO to 800, without adding noise, and would have had a really nice shutter speed.  I just had a blast with that lens!

The 35mm f/1.8 is strikingly hard to find these days.  I check Adorama pretty regularly to see if they get any in, and it seems like they never do.  They do have a nice 50mm f/1.4 though…