blog - life of chris

February 26th, 2025

New photos and new words for you. The photos are from the fall, a visit to Hawthorne Park with Kate, Owen, Leo and Yoshi. I brought my Mamiya C33 along and accomplished my goal of shooting a roll of film. Our park visit was made memorable by the outdoor debut of Owen's Stomp Rocket and Leo falling on his forehead. Black and white film does a nice job minimizing the severity of fresh bruising.

The second chunk of photos are ones I had completely forgotten about. When my film development was really peaking, I remembered my sister Lauren having had a Fischer Price 35mm kids film camera when she was little. I asked my mom about it and sure enough it was still around, amongst the old toys in the storage room. I put a roll in it, gave it to Owen and he went to town. I was scratching my head for a little while after developing these thinking, why are so many of these out of focus? I thought I was kind of good at this photography thing? Then it dawned on me that Owen took most of them on a toy camera. Good stuff.

My boys continue to shape just about every moment not spent at work. I’m noticing a bit more ease in family life, maybe as a result of Leo reliably sleeping past 6 am. I've leaned into this freshly accumulated energy, attempting an attitude shift, a slight increase in effort towards doing a little more for me. The developed images below, processed in my basement, are a result. Me making another blog post is as well. My attempt at some accountability by suggesting I'll re-join my local gym in my previous post has also paid off. I signed up and I'm (mostly) going regularly.

On a hyper-local scale, things are going just fine. It's a real job to rest my focus and attention on the things in front of me. My hobbies really help with that: photography, lots of reading and cycling. Being on my bike has always been very important for my well-being. This winter has been my most successful period of sustained cold weather biking. The lack of snow this year has certainly made it a lot easier, so have my first pair of studded tires and first cargo e-bike. I could write forever about this bike, it has really changed the way we get around town with children. It even has this cool tent thing that keeps the kids warm and dry. Kate mentioned this winter that getting bundled up and treating the biking experience as a winter sport makes it "kind of fun." Sometimes it's a struggle to get out there but for me nothing beats the feeling of being on a bike as long as you're wearing the right clothing for it.

That’s all for now, thanks for reading. I hope all is well in your world and that you get some enjoyment out of my photos.

January 11th, 2025

Hi folks, time to get this thing going again. It sure has been a while. I’ve been putting some effort into getting back into some hobbies I dropped after having kids. A big one of those hobbies is photography. This website is now a blog I guess, primarily based around photos but I’d like to include a little more writing than last time around. I was pretty fixated on film photography when I originally started this site. I haven’t made the time to get back into that yet but good news: I’ve shot two or three rolls of film and look forward to processing them. Maybe you’ll see some of the keepers soon. Below you’ll see a smattering of photos from 2024, each captioned with a little more detail. Future updates may be more focused on a specific time, event or idea.

It has been fun to look back and realize how much we’ve done, even while navigating the high-highs and low-lows of parenting. With two kids life feels endlessly busy while seemingly doing very little of substance outside of childcare. Take today for example. It is almost 4PM and the day has primarily revolved around keeping tabs on Leo, who is perpetually in motion and ceaselessly finding new ways to upset himself and his brother, Owen. I’ve personally accomplished little more than feeding myself. He’s sleeping now, giving me the chance to disappear for a few moments and put the finishing touches on this post.

The energy I put into lovingly wrangling two small boys used to go into things like playing soccer, developing film, taking long bike rides just for the heck of it, meeting friends and wandering around the East side of Madison with no agenda. Those things didn’t totally cease but now happen on a condensed timeline, or with child(ren) in tow, eyes always on the clock, conscious of nap, meal and bed times. Towards the end of 2024, when Leo started sleeping more regularly, it started to feel like there was more space opening up for me yet I still wasn’t taking time for myself. It has been very useful to reflect on this and notice that I often fabricate reasons not to do the things I want to do, things that make me happy. I’m still figuring out why I do that, and working on not doing that, but the noticing alone has energized me to do things like update this ole website and e-mail you all. If I’m able to continue on this trajectory, maybe I’ll even renew my gym membership.

Anyhow it was a good year for me and my family. We’re all doing as well as I could hope for. I think I’ve captured some of that with my cameras and I’m glad to share it with you. Should this message or these photos resonate with you, or should you just feel like you want to reply and strike up a conversation with me, please take this as an invitation to do so. May you be happy, healthy and safe.

Chris