Anthony's cousins Josh and Jena arrived yesterday, so today was a day of relaxed play and casual photo opportunities...

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Happy
Anthony's four-year-old cousin Josh Kreta

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Happy Happy
Anthony's 22-month-old cousin Jena Kreta

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Happy Happy Happy
three cousins' quality time

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/100 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Rapt
attention to the bright toy in the foreground

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/160 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Tippy Toes
sounds better than the more accurate “Tippy Knuckles”

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/125 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
this scene was preceded by an announcement of
“Jena Eat”

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Lecturing Grandpa
Explaining the finer points of dinosaurs of the Cretaceous Period
photo by Marci Kreta

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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/3.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos

My sister arrived yesterday with her kids, Josh and Jena, for a week of summertime play. Josh invited Anthony for a race outside almost immediately, and it was all I could do to keep up.

Four-year-old Josh wasn't fazed when seven-year-old Anthony turned out to be faster, and they raced a lot. I think Josh just wanted to show off how fast he was (because in his dinosaur-loving mind he's a velociraptor).

We were tidying things up before they came, and Anthony helped Grandma fill a bird feeder. At first it was troublesome because the feeder was taller than Anthony...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 48 mm — ¹/125 sec, f/2.8, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
First Try
seems to work okay, but there's a better way

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 42 mm — ¹/125 sec, f/3.5, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Second Try
much easier

After they arrived and initial races were out of the way, Josh presented Anthony with a Star Wars Clone Wars shirt that immediately became a favorite.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/125 sec, f/2.8, ISO 5600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Present

Anthony later presented Josh with some toy cars from Japan, but Josh was so deeply involved in sharing his (strikingly impressive) dinosaur knowledge with Anthony that he didn't quite notice...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 56 mm — ¹/100 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Dinosaur Lesson

Later, it was time for more play outside...

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 340 mm — ¹/400 sec, f/6.3, ISO 1400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Wearing His New Shirt

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 240 mm — ¹/400 sec, f/6, ISO 450 — map & image data — nearby photos
Dodging Traffic

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50 mm — ¹/400 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Dodging Balls

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 140 mm — ¹/400 sec, f/5.6, ISO 450 — map & image data — nearby photos
High-Speed Pass
Josh's hair flies around in a blur when he runs

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 460 mm — ¹/400 sec, f/6.3, ISO 320 — map & image data — nearby photos
22-Month-Old Jena
“Jena” is short for “Genevieve”, my mom's mother's name, which explains its lack of two Ns

Jena is an exceptionally sunny child, just like her cousin Titi. Maybe it all runs in the family, because their youngest cousin, 8-month-old Claire, has an apparently even more sunny disposition. Last I met her, though, was three months before she was born.

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I've got a lot of Lightroom-related stuff brewing that I've been wanting to release, but have been waiting for the energy to do proper writeups before doing so. But like the Tree Publisher plugin for Lightroom I released the other day, I've decided to just release things as is rather than wait indefinitely for free time that will never happen.

So, I've just added some simple JSON encode/decode routines in pure Lua to the short list of Lua routines I've published. I use these JSON routines in many of my plugins, and thought others might find them useful as well.

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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/250 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Morning Commute

In my most recent post about KidZania, Anthony had baked bread at a bakery. After that he did the radio show I posted about in May, just after our visit. Then it was time for a stint as a construction worker....

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/250 sec, f/1.4, ISO 4000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Safety First

He'd done this before the first time we came; this was the only job he repeated.

It was getting late, but he was lucky to get one more experience in before KidZania closed for the evening: health-care aid.

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/4.5, ISO 2500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Initial Instructions
as the parents wait outside of, and photograph though, a large window

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/4.5, ISO 1100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Meeting the Patient

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 95 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/5, ISO 2500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Gentle Touch

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 95 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/5, ISO 2800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Affixing the Cast

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/5, ISO 1800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Gauze Wrap

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/5, ISO 4500 — map & image data — nearby photos
All Together Now

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 58 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/5, ISO 1250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Ready For Discharge

And with that his second trip to KidZania was done.

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I've just released as beta a new plugin, my Tree Publisher Publish Plugin, in beta. I wrote it months ago but had been waiting until I had the time/energy to write up documentation before releasing it, but the way things are going, time and energy are not in my foreseeable future. So, I'm just going to go ahead and push it out in beta without docs, and see how it goes.