Evan in HD

Evan, First Time in HD from Pete Burke on Vimeo.

Sort of a technological quantam leap for the Daddy Diaries, we now have HD video! It's a little tricky to shoot Evan though, he moves so fast and I have to focus manually. Some of the focus goes a little soft and by the time I adjust, he's moved on! I'm just testing out the camera and seeing what it can do. So far, so good.

The Highlands Revisited

Genevieve and I were married at "The Highlands," an estate just north of Philadelhia in October 2006. Today, we went back to visit with Evan. The ground was like a wet sponge after all the rain we've had up here, but once the clouds parted and the sun peeked out, the weather seemed much like our wedding day; quite warm and humid. Evan had fun exploring the grounds and just being a kid. He liked pointing out the airplanes flying overhead.

The entire gallery available on Flickr.

Personality

The many faces of Evan Austin

One thing you can't accusing Evan of is not having personality. He is becoming quite the character, let me tell you. His personality is one of the great new things that have been emerging lately including his developing sense of humor, and pretending. He's also getting really good at identifying pictures, objects, and people, even though he can't say all of the words or names yet. I drew some pictures for him today with crayon on a piece of paper. I drew a fish, puppy, car, and ceiling fan. (He's always been fascinated by ceiling fans for some reason.) He was able to identify each item that I drew for him. Since he can't say all the words, he substitutes sounds for them instead, sounds that he's come up with himself. For fish, he opens and closes his mouth making a popping sound, just like when we feed the fish in his Poppop's koi pond. For the puppy, he just says "oof, oof." When he points to the car he says, "Brrrrrr." He even recognized my poor attempt at drawing a ceiling fan, he pointed to it and said, "ffffff." That's about as much of the word "fan" as he can get out at the moment, but he's trying! At bath time tonight, Evan had some of his fish toys in the bath with him. I was surprised when he just leaned over and put his face in the water and came up making a face like a fish. I think he was pretending he was one of the fish. He also like pretending he's one of the dogs. He crawls over to their dog bowls, goes "oof, oof" and pretends to eat out of their bowl. He's making some great progress, I'm very proud of him.

Happy Birthday Daddy Diaries!

New photos of Evan this morning.

Tomorrow, May 6th will mark one year since I began this little project I called the Daddy Diaries. How different things were then! Genevieve was 9 months pregnant, and the anticipation and excitement was almost surreal. I really wanted to document the whole experience, but I didn't really know where to even begin. I was totally new to blogging and trying to figure the whole process out. Looking back, there's probably some things I would have liked to have done differently. I would have liked to have documented the days leading up to the birth better, but to be honest, labor was so intense, I think Genevieve would have tried to kill me had I been trying to play journalist while she was going through pure hell. It's been great for my Mom & Dad, who are down in Florida. It's hard for them to travel, so it's been a great way of keeping them update on milestones, and being able to show them new photos and video clips the day they were shot. It's a big job keeping up with all of the photos and videos shot, and ultimately getting them up on the site. I guess that's why I find myself still up at almost 5am after spending the entire night, (after Evan went to bed,) organizing the new photos, backing them up on a seperate hard drive, and uploading them to Flickr.

There some new changes coming to the Diaries in the coming year. With the new camera I just acquired, the Canon 5D Mark II, I'll be able to shoot 1080i, full HD video clips. Imagine that, Evan's going to look at old DV tapes and MPEG clips and wonder how we ever watched such low quality video. I bought a UV filter to protect the lens incase he decides to throw applesauce at it, or throw a baseball at it. With the new camera, the quality of the photos will improve drastically, (I hope,) and I imagine that the sheer amount of photos will double if not triple. Luckily, Genevieve has been helping me out with the Daddy Diaries, and wrote most of the entries and took most of the photos for April. Her photography is really coming along, and I really enjoy her writing, so I'm looking forward to some more of her contributions to the blog in the coming year. Who knows, maybe this time next year, there will be another baby for me to write about...

OMG, the birds are chirping, time for me to go to bed, I'm sure Evan will be up in half an hour.

Meeting New Friends

Evan hanging out with his new friend Emma.


He also met a new puppy named "Fletch."



Natalie, (in the middle,) liked teaching Evan new things. The girls showed him how to tumble, and even did an elaborate dance routune for him.



Evan loved the attention he was getting, what guy wouldn't?

Live From Churchill Downs!

Evan's First Kentucky Derby. We're trying to cram a lot in during his first year.

(P.S. - The first TV I ever watched was analog black & white with a wire hanger for an antenna.)

Evan is 11 Months!

Man, how time flies. Evan is 11 Months old today, a month from today, we'll be celebrating his First Birthday. The memory of bringing him home for the first time is so crystal clear in my mind, it seems like yesterday. But here he is, seemingly all grown up almost a year later, walking, talking, and surprising us with something new everyday. Daddy tested out his new camera today. I finally got the Canon 5D Mark II that I've been dreaming about since October, so these are some of the first test shots. Still getting the hand of the camera. Looking forward to seeing what it can do. I hope Evan likes getting his picture taken!

**Check out the updated gallery from this shoot.**

Black & White Portraits on Flickr