26Dec
the biggest babycategories: family, inspiration
I have three sons. Chaz is twenty. Alexander is four and Teddy is one. I have created a true American family. I don't have a unique perspective on parenthood, but it's at least unusual.
This I know: your babies are going to amaze you. I think Chaz was five when he shot me with his first you're-not-as-smart-as-I-thought-you-were glance. I can tell that Alexander's been thinking it — Teddy still thinks I'm God, and God I love him for it.
I recently named Chaz Editor-in-Chief of the HTPYB website. He was an obvious choice. He's been an editor at the Brown Daily Herald at Brown University for two years. Chaz can really write and think, but boy can he find typos and grammar bottlenecks, and boy do I need someone who can find them. Being Editor-in-Chief of this website does not hold the cachet of an editorship of a big American university newpaper, but, believe me, the money is through the roof!
Anyway, I love this picture of Chaz and me. Every time I look at it (which is often — it's about six inches from the refrigerator door handle), I feel the pride I felt at George and Mary's wedding. Please take a close look at my eyes. That's what my eyes do when I getting ready to pop a gasket from pride.
And I certainly hope there's some version of the following in your future: Your baby is six foot two. He exudes confidence. You know he knows how to make you look smarter than you are in front of lots of people you wish to impress.
People with babies say "one is my favorite age" and then the kid is four and they say "gee, four might be my favorite age" and you get the idea. Well, it just may not get any better than twenty.
So if you find any misspellings or verb tense tangles on the website, I don't want to hear about it.
Chaz's email address is chaz@kelsh.com.
If anything sneaks through the cracks, I blame Chaz. Hey, I'm still his father.
Heartfelt thanks to Kevin Monko for one of my all-time favorite photos.
PS Eleven minutes after I sent Chaz the above copy for editing, he responded with this:
Dad,
All set. What a flattering entry. Thanks.
Also:
"Cache" is a hidden store of items, or a portion of computer memory used to store items for quick retrieval. "Cachet" is prestige or the state of being admired.
Love, Chaz
That's my boy.
20Jul
Mastery of Simplicitycategories: inspiration, photography
Although I've taken a few hundred piano lessons in my life, I can't play the piano. I didn't practice — funny how that works. But that doesn't mean I didn't learn anything.
My most accomplished teacher always stressed that, even when playing a lowly scale, play it with heart. Make people feel it. He said that no great pianist would ever scoff at a simple scale played as art. One hand — eight notes up and back — can change the way you feel about music. It can change the way you listen, not to mention your relationship with your fingers.
Shooting a simple close-up portrait of your baby in some beautiful light is a visual exercise that can change the way you feel about photography. It can change the way you look at other people's photographs and the way you approach more complicated subjects in the future — all of them need to played with heart.
My goal is to get new parents (and any other new baby lovers with cameras) to an elegant and satisfying mountaintop quickly. The simple headshot in some gorgeous light (with no flash) is the way to go. The motto for www.howtophotographyourbaby.com could very well be, "Wow, you are a good photographer."
And believe me, no great photographer would ever scoff at a technically unsophisticated but exquisite portrait.
Do it with heart and make people feel it.
This is my son, Teddy, on his first birthday last January. We had just returned from a late-afternoon walk and I happened to park his stroller in a nice patch of sunlight bouncing off the snow in the driveway into the dark garage. We were getting ready to go in the house for dinner. I hung up my coat and turned around. This is what I found.
I will let my eyes —and my heart — speak for me.
16Jul
the language of lovecategories: family, inspiration, photography
The superior method for learning a foreign language is actually simple, obvious, and ironically, the most enjoyable — fall in love with someone who speaks the language. Linguists have observed that it cuts years off the process.
It's why the simplest, most obvious, and ironically most enjoyable time to learn photography is at the birth of a baby. A wedding would probably be a close second if anyone photographed their own, but it's rare.
If you're one of those countless self-proclaimed bad photographers you can ride the wave of wanting to document that beautiful child's life all the way to photographic accomplishment. You can take the satisfaction of having created beauty in the face of diversity to your grave — and I mean that in the most upbeat, congratulatory way.
This website is for people with less than perfect cameras and an angel in the crib. There are two things you need to do at this crazy, stressed-out time in your life to make your point-and-shoot sing:
1. Keep your photographic method simple.
2. Love your baby.
I will do what I can to help with the photographic method. I am assuming you will have no problem with #2.
15Jul
I guess you couldn't stop yourself, huh? / ask nickcategories: f-stop, photography, shutter, the ask nick show
I guess I couldn't. My wife just shook her head when she saw the first two episodes of THE ASK NICK SHOW.
It was supposed to be an exercise in scholarship. I simply wanted to explain basic photography concepts in a way that would be helpful to amateur photographers. But I guess the fact that I'm the proud recipient of the Ben Franklin Junior High School's Best Comedy Performance by a Male got the best of me. (Fargo Public School System, 1968, Little Merry Sunshine. Role: Corporal "Billy" Jester.)
I'm still convinced that any amateur who wants to understand this stuff without wasting too many brain cells will still learn something.
It's true, dear. I absolutely could not stop myself. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to.
Here are the links for the first two episodes:
12Jul
Naked Babiescategories: family, inspiration
Anna Quindlen is a famous Pulitzer Prize–winning author. For several years, she wrote a column for The New York Times called Public and Private. One day she would write about world affairs and the next day she would write about what the other mothers in her baby group were talking about. Anyone who read Anna’s column knew Anna loved babies.
I had a set of baby photographs and needed a writer. Four women in my life independently suggested that Anna Quindlen was perfect. I knew somebody who knew somebody and I got her home telephone number. I cold-called her. It went something like this:
“Anna, my name is Nick Kelsh. We’ve never met. We have mutual friends.” (To quote Huckleberry Finn, “That was a stretcher.”) “I have a set of photographs,” I said.
Please understand that Anna is a lovely person. She did try to give me the heave-ho, however.
“I’m sure they’re perfectly wonderful photographs. I couldn’t possibly take on another project,” she said.
I came back with, “Could you just look at the pictures?”
I heard a sigh and just to get rid of me she said, “Sure, I’ll look at the pictures.”
We were on the phone for all of 45 seconds. I never even got around to telling her they were pictures of babies. I FedEx’d her ten prints and the next day she sent me one of my all-time favorite emails. It went something like this: (Actually, it was much better written than this. She is, after all, Anna Quindlen.)
“Why didn’t you tell me they were pictures of babies? Of course I have to do this project. When do we start?”
Right from the start, she totally got what this was all about. Close-ups of angelic bodies through the eyes of a parent. Anna and I both knew that when you have a baby of your own it’s like seeing a human being for the first time.
In the end we did two books together — Naked Babies and Siblings. We were on Oprah! and The Today Show a couple of times each.
This is one of the original photographs I sent Anna. It pretty much sums up the feeling for the whole project — an attempt to take a new look at timeless perfection.
