Six becomes eight

If you have been following me having fun with Photoshop.. kind of reached the limit on the last two.

Redid the one with six kids.. which translates to "spent another 15 minutes on this one to perfect edges and blemishes you can catch when zoomed to the max" 

and got this one with me in it. The third set of three was unusable. There was simply not enough room in the couch to seat 9 of us!

That one kind of almost got out of hand because the white balance on the two shots got messed up. Not because of the camera setting but because the sun moved outside the window in the 30 minutes between dress up sessions. Took me a good 30 minutes to try and match colors on my face to the closest and then merge the raw images. 

Bottomline? "It is difficult but doable! and if you can spend even more time it would have been posible to match the tones on the two versions of me".

On a funny note the kids have been going through an emotional upheaval of sorts. They miss their mom but don't know how to express it..

This morning though a funny thing happened. The little one woke up and said "Daddy, I had a nightmare. Thought mommy is back already!"

Me "don't you mean a dream.. not nightmare?" 

She didn't get the difference for some reason. She breaks out into tears for no reason and slams the door in anger at her grandparents, again for no reason! Later this evening she admitted "I miss mommy!" 

A minute later she says "But... BUT, I get to sleep in your bed from the beginning.. I have been planning that since mommy told me she was going to India!"

So for now, she is happy to sleep on my arm.

We are finally done with the Navrathri rounds tonight! 

Five becomes six..

Got the hang of it now.. 

Can go to sleep now! 

The many Paavaadais of 2012

Paavaadai is the name for the south indian frock, usually made with silk and gold embroidery and this blog has a picture of my two little darlings in their new Paavaadais almost every October festival season as they dress up and go to the Golu's of friends and relatives.

This year having been very busy at work, did not get a chance to do the pictures before or after the golus on most days. So today we had a portrait session for 45 minutes. 

Begged them to co-operate for a merge photo and they did 3 dress changes in 45 minutes and we precisely engineered the seating positions.. the first set is below.

Just getting warmed up. Will post the rest over the week. There was one overlap that cannot be overcome on this set.. will have to figure a way around that tomorrow.

A big thanks to my darlings for co-operating!

More later.

Double trouble

San is in India. The kids are bored.. we can explain.

Have been doing the dressing up the kids and taking them to visit Navrathri golu routine since Friday evening and so far we are on schedule!

There will be a post with all the Golu Photos in a gallery in a couple of days.

Yesterday while visiting a golu, the kids were asked "So how is life without Amma being around?" and the answer was very short..

"Fun!"

There was shock all around at the answer.

Then the little one went on to explain the logic. "When amma is around, she keeps giving us chores to do and keeps telling us what to do all the time. Now that she is not there, we are not all the time being told to do this and do that. So it is fun, but it is also boring! So we miss Amma"

A couple of things to learn from this :

All of San's screamings have been providing pure entertainment value for the kids. So she might as well stop.

As for me, not telling them what to do is not exactly interesting. I am boring. So it is time for me to give them chores...

This morning we had an idea to take photographs of them in their different paavadais in one shot.. They are both protesting on the value of three dress changes for a 30 minute photoshop! In the meantime, I wanted to see how the concept will work. So while they were fighting on the couch, fired a few snaps and merged them.. 

It seems to work pretty well.

Let us see if we can sit 9 people on this couch without an overlap...

A picture is worth... a short play!

Every year Jr. brings this school portrait picture request from school. It is "attractively" priced at anywhere from 28 to 100$ depending on the package.. attractively for the kids that is! 

The photographer in me is never happy with the pictures and the CFO at home says "Didn't we fund all that expensive camera equipment? No way we need to pay for any pictures!" 

This year when Jr. got me the form and envelope told her "how many times have we gone through this? I am not even going to have this conversation. You can have this one with yourself. Face me and act like you. Then face the other way and tell yourself what daddy will say in response and be done with it!"

She thought it was actually a great idea and humored us with the little one edging her on.

The result is..

she did pretty good. At the end she tossed the form and now she gets to spend 14 or 28$ at Target.. depending on if the little one also co-operates and doesn't insist on a school portrait! 

Next year, we do not even have to do this play. We can just review this video. 

Life just gets simpler every year!!!