Some Time with the Newest Grandchild

Liza had an appointment yesterday so she stopped by our house before the appointment to drop Ace off here so he could spend some time with Gee and Papa.  Gee took a few hours off from work and emerged from her home office so she could take full advantage of this opportunity.  

As with just about all babies, Ace immediately took notice of the camera clicking away a few feet from his face.  This is actually a good thing because it makes it very easy to keep their attention for a short while.  Since the camera has their attention, they also will naturally look directly at the camera as the shutter is clicking away.  The other great thing about photographing newborns is that they don't dart around and scurry about in fast unpredictable directions like a toddler does.  

Although these photo sessions with newborns can be pretty easy to accomplish, time is extremely limited so you need to have a plan and move quickly.  Within minutes, hunger, pooping and naptime happens and then everything else is on hold for a long while and that is pretty much what happened yesterday. 

Ace was alert, in good spirits, and curious about the camera so it was fun.  He also was full of quite a few facial expressions and, fortunately, I captured a few of them...

I have a photo of Kenzie, as an infant, with this same exact expression on her face (photo above)...  Different things were happening in each photo nine years apart but it was interesting to have accidentally captured this exact same expression on Ace as he was looking over at me.  I don't usually look down to review the photos on my camera as I'm shooting so I didn't notice that I had captured this expression while I was shooting.  It wasn't until I came across it on my computer that I realized I captured such an animated expression.  I actually chuckled as soon as this photo filled the screen on my computer because it instantly reminded me of Kenzie and the photo I captured nine years ago.

Different areas of the room had very different lighting so I had to change settings each time we moved from one part of the room to another in order to keep the set of photos looking similar.  The light and color temperature of the light was vastly different from one side of the room to another.

It didn't take long before hunger captured Ace's attention more than Gee and I could so he let us know immediately that he was not doing anything else until he had a bottle...   I understand as I get like this sometimes too...  particularly on Friday and Saturday evenings right around five o'clock...

As expected, a bottle settled him down immediately.  He was falling asleep before he even finished his bottle and, as he was drifting off to sleep, I moved over to the piano and played for a bit.  When he fell asleep in Gee's arms, I then turned the television on quietly to sit down for a while and maybe take a nap myself.  

An interesting thing happened when a television commercial started playing Steppenwolf's "Wild Thing"...  this definitely captured his attention even though he was snoozing.  Ace instantly popped his head up with wide open eyes.  I guess he likes that 60s music...  I could get along with that!  He faded back to sleep as he slowly lowered his head back down to Gee's chest.

Gee and I had a nice time with Ace and I think I captured some good photos of our time together.  Naturally, we look forward to more time with him soon!