I Can't Move!

God, I've literally seized up this evening after lifting what felt like a million tons of rocks and sandstone slabs today. Something my younger body would have laughed at, now kills me. Still, the pond is done. Well, almost. The rockery at the far end still needs more bloody rocks, and the edging needs to be grassed and fettled into level, but I'm pleased with the result. Tomorrow I'm painting the youngest s new bedroom in her new home they took the keys to yesterday. If I can move, that is ...

Oh, to be a molly coddled baby again. These two shots were taken right after his bath. The lighting is courtesy of the bay window which gave him these sparkling catch-lights in the eyes. I can see myself reflected in those eyes.

Hand held at f2.8 using the Leica and the 35mm Summicron. Manual focusing with a squirming baby is a delicate task! Shooting at minimum distance and moving the camera itself backwards and forwards to try and keep just his eyes in focus whilst also trying to entertain him into an expression. The margin of error in this task is non-excistant. Out of ten shots, only three were in sharp focus. 

Yes, I could have used a smaller aperture for better depth of field, but as I wanted that shallow dof, I persevered. As it turns out the room behind him faded to black anyway. But then I was already shooting at 1/25sec so for a smaller aperture, I'd have had to increase the ISO. Not much of a degradation in IQ but I like the smoothness of 160 iso. So, persevere I did, pheww.