I have three daughters and twenty-five grandchildren, with two more to be born this year. It’s fun, at least for the first hour to an hour and a half. Old people get tired out by all the activity, the conversations, the racing about, and so forth. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
I have already posted recent images from my oldest daughter’s household here, and from my youngest daughter’s here, so here are the ones from the home of my middle daughter, Alexandra, and her husband, Aaron.
Most people have heard the line from one of the Tolkien films, “What about second breakfast?” Well, my middle daughter’s household is on what is called the Old Calendar. This (Julian) calendar is used by some Orthodox Christians, while the majority follow the Gregorian calendar, which is used generally everywhere. More on this here. The upshot is that we celebrated Christmas on December 25 with our youngest daughter, but on January 10 with our middle. For those on the Old Calendar, Christmas is actually January 7, but we wanted to exchange gifts on a day when Aaron could be home.
I used the Lensbaby Spark lens, with its manually controlled selective focus. I pull back and twist the accordion barrel of the lens to put in focus what I want, and leave the rest of the image blurred. I rendered the images in black and white, and adjusted the exposure, black point, and white point, to increase contrast. Many of the faces are not really sharp, but I find that this simplifies the image. The expression in the face stands out.
With these kind of domestic images, you can aim for a “documentary style,” in which the subjects ignore the camera, or you just catch them unawares. With kids, however, the big black eye of the lens captures their attention. If they are old enough, they smile for the camera self-consciously. If they’re younger, they just look.
There is a lot of of affection, of camaraderie, of play, with 9 kids in the house.
Guests like grandparents give older kids someone besides their parents to talk to.
Kids sometimes are quiet on their own; they need a break from interaction with others.
Parents work hard to make Christmas what they knew it to be when they were kids.
The festivities are done for another year. These family rituals, hard work though they are, will be the good memories of the kids in no time at all.