Xavier was very interested, as most kids his age are, in the gear we brought with us.  Since this was a light shoot, we only brought a monopod topped with a shoot-through umbrella. It was fun to watch him experiment with what the umbrella did to both light and sound.

As any sane two-year-old would on a beautiful Vermont morning, Winslow only wanted to run around and have fun. We took a few minutes off and let him play in the puddle (keeping mostly clean!) before we started up again. He may have been squirmy in some of the posed photos, but his cuteness makes up for it completely!

What an adorable family.  Thanks for spending some time out in the brisk fall weather!

OK, so I’m mostly just testing a newly installed plugin… Please forgive the noise!

When the snow melted, I saw all these little things over my lawn and got curious where they came from.

The problem I had was this... a squirrel chewed through my (relatively) new siding and into my attic. Yesterday, I put up the heavy screening you can see, which kept him from getting back in, but didn't stop him from chewing some more and making a hell of a racket last night.

Having solved the blockade issue yesterday, my challenge tonight was to prevent the squirrel from doing any more damage (to the house and to our sanity.) Having used cayenne pepper to keep rabbits out of the garden, I figured it might work on the house, too. These were the contenders.

The winner. A slight back story. The powders all smelled too sweet and we didn't have cayenne in the house. Tobasco is OK, but didn't seem all that hot. The chili oil is some of the hottest I've ever cooked with, but while my mouth remembers being scalded by it, my nose wasn't impressed. The Dumb Ass Hot Sauce I've had in the house for a while. Why, you ask? Well, because it's so damn hot that I fear using it on many foods. This hot sauce made taco soup so hot that Fluffy wouldn't finish his serving and had to beg for mercy.

But how to apply it?  Aerosolize it.  If it’s good enough for anthrax, it’s good enough for me.  I found an old spray bottle in the garage; it had previously been used to apply paint stripper, so it was probably laced with all sorts of poisonous chemicals to boot.  Bonus.

Under no circumstances what-so-ever should you test your sprayer in the kitchen.

I drenched the opening as much as I could, spraying into the louvers and onto the screens beneath as well. It should be noted at this point that wearing a mask and goggles is probably a good idea, should you try this yourself. Dumb Ass Hot Sauce really burns the nose & eyes! Definitely apply in a well ventilated area, preferably at arms length or further, standing upwind, and above your target. Don't ask why I make these recommendations. At least I didn't fall off the ladder.

I suppose I could have gone after it from the roof...

You can't forget to stop and smell the flowers along the way; as long as you don't have allergies. If you rub your eyes at this point, you're pretty much screwed.

Tawny, on our warmup run down Mach Schnell. 

She found the white room.

Jake in the Black Forest woods.

9-year old Sam ripping some turns in loose snow.

Tawny, cruising on some post lunch runs.

My Aunt Theresa, skiing the trees near Bananas off of Gad-two.

Cruising down to the house on our last run of the day.  We were going to make one more until we realized that it was nearly 4pm!

Woke up this morning to clearing skies and another few inches of snow.  Can’t wait to see what we find today!

It turns out, the answer is neither. The skiing is just getting going and the fact that we don’t have snow in the Champlain valley means that the mountain biking is still pretty good. I headed to Saxon Hill instead with the intent of riding around and taking some photographs. It turns out, I wasn’t the only one with biking on the brain; there were between 10 and 15 cars parked at the end of Thompson Drive when I turned the corner.

The trails are dry, though the leaves sometimes obscure the less traveled routes.

Evidently, it's cold enough for snow. Someone should tell mother nature that we've had enough rain.

Proof: it's not just Texas and Kansas that get snow!

Self-portrait action photography presents a bit of a challenge without a wireless remote.

The more traditional portraits:

Earlier in the week, I photographed Erika at the Mills Riverside Park in Underhill, VT.  When we arrived there were a dozen school busses and a high school cross country meet going on.  This meant we couldn’t shoot in the places I was most familiar with, but I think that worked in our favor.  We scouted out a few locations and made some great photos!

Our neighbor at the beach house:

I have a mountain of photographs to sort through, but most of those have taken a back burner to my day job and to a few paid gigs that I still need to finish my post processing on.  For family & friends looking for them, you’ll have to wait a few more days!

While I was down there, I had the pleasure of taking some photographs of my cousin, Anna.  She’s getting ready for her Bat Mitzvah in January and her parents requested some portraits for a slideshow.  We had a great time walking around a beach town taking some great photos:

Just before vacation, I spent a morning with my sister and her fiance, taking some engagement photos.  They’re getting married in just about a month!  How time flies…

And when I returned home, my sister in law was playing hockey so we went to watch.  Of course, I couldn’t leave my camera behind so I took a stab at hockey photography.  It’s different than many sports and is a challenge to shoot!  Part of the problem is that I don’t know the sport as well as I could so it’s hard to predict where the good shot will be. (That could be compounded by the fact that this is a pickup league and sometimes plays just don’t develop.)  I had a great time, however, and it looks like I’ll be at another game on Sunday.

Lastly, I had heard about a contest that Scott Kelby was running so I dug this photo out of my archives and submitted it.  The winner gets to shoot an NCAA football game with Scott and Mike Olivella!

And if you’re wondering about copyright issues (after all, these aren’t my photos), the photos are being used by me for my own, private, noncommercial use. I’m not selling these things and not charging admission to my apartment, so I think I’m in the clear.

Uhh… I post my photos on Flickr.  I post them in a format that can not be printed at a useful size to prevent just this type of activity.  My photos are copyrighted; it’s illegal to print them without my permission unless you’re doing so under the fair-use doctrine (generally criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.) It’s pretty clear that Ms. Zjawinski’s use does not fall under fair use. I can’t believe the New York Times editors & lawyers let this run; it’s irresponsible.

Please – if you’re on Flickr and you see a photo you would like to print, check out the copyright status on it.  If it’s All Rights Reserved – contact the photographer about obtaining a print.  If it’s Creative Commons, double-check which Creative Commons license they’re using to make sure you are allowed to print it.