Halloween Ball 2024

I have attended the Upper Elementary Halloween Ball a few times in the past with Veronica. We had a year off, and now it was Omri's turn to attend! He went as Jake from State Farm :-).

I took about 150 photos of the event as the volunteer roaming photographer. We turned the lights up for this group shot.

And here is a sample of some of the more experimental photos I took with a slow shutter and a flash:

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Veronica turns 14

Yes, there was another big birthday around here, on Thursday of a busy week.

The morning of her birthday...

... she opened -- at long last -- her own iPhone:

She had to bake something for a school assignment, so she made her own birthday cake this year:

 

Somehow, she had the night off of all rehearsals and lessons, so we went out to dinner out at Churchill Street:

Love this girl so much!

I've got one of these photos from every year, and it's going to be pretty cool when you see them all together:

Not pictured is the sleepover she had with 8 friends from school the next night. That one is going to be off the record.

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Camp Du Nord 2024, part 2: Canon shots

We stayed in the Tote'm cabin again (our third time out of five visits to Du Nord).

It is positioned on a rocky cliff overlooking the lake.

This was our first time there in the fall and it definitely had a different feel to it.

Crowded s'more sesh (R is in the lower left):

So much fun to shoot at dusk:

Coffee on the rocking porch:

Omri may be regretting the decision to wear shorts:

Uno:

Checking out that moon:

Guess that's about all I have, other than a few film shots that I won't see for a while!

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Camp Du Nord 2024, part 1: iPhone shots

We had a lovely MEA weekend up at Camp Du Nord. (My Canon photos aren't quite edited yet, so these are iPhone only.)

The water was so cold, but going in the Finnish sauna first sure helped.

R and I took some hikes while the kids were in "age groups."

The colors were past their prime, but it was still such a nice fall setting.

We played a lot of card games... something that rarely seems to happen at home anymore.

I was a little nervous paddling in that cold water, but Omri and I did make it out for a quick trip to Blueberry Island and back.

The moon was full and bright.

More to come!

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The SpongeBob Musical at CPA

We've had a lot of SpongeBob in our lives lately. You might remember Veronica was in a high school production at Ashland near the end of summer. Immediately after that, she started a middle school production at Children's Performing Arts. This time she played Karen, the personification of a computer who is married to evil single-celled organism, and it was so much fun to watch what she did with the role!

Bio:

Friends from school (photo by Linda):

Selfie by Linda:

As usual we weren't allowed to use our phones during the show, but I'm worried they won't be selling a recording this time, so I captured this little clip with a hidden phone camera:

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Post-rehearsal bagel with sprinkles

Omri joined too because he doesn't want anybody eating bagels without him.

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Eagan Art Block Film Festival 2024

"Waking World" showed at the Eagan Art Block Short Film Festival last weekend, and it was another fantastic night. Veronica, the star of the film, accompanied me. It was her first time watching it because she hasn't been able to bear seeing herself onscreen (and I, honestly, was more nervous about showing it to her than the rest of the sold-out movie theater). Our film is a small-scale production, but it held its own against some, admittedly, more impressive films with much larger casts and crews. We participated in the Q&A afterwards where shared our inspiration behind the film, some of the challenges we faced, and some thoughts about our use of color (that even tied into the red shirts we wore to the festival).

We were the last film of the night:

The audio and video scaled up well in the theater. I was happy with the presentation!

I submitted the film to one other festival (in addition to some others we've already been rejected by) and maybe we'll try for a few more, but getting accepted seems like a long shot. I am starting to get excited to move on and make something new, something potentially bigger.

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