awwww give us a kiss

Todays HSMS is Kiss!
'AKA: Pucker up, swap spit, snog, tonsil tickling (tee hee).
A show of affection by means of mouth to mouth contact. Go on, give us a kiss!'

Well Alex was asleep most of the evening so there went my easy option. I wanted to get Alex blowing a kiss to the camera, and I really didn't want to kiss the cat, so I had to wait for Graham to come home. We had fun with this :) It was hard to get a kiss shot where we weren't laughing though.
We set up the tripod and used the self timer with the flash bounced off the ceiling.
This was my version, I planned on the lamp giving us some back light,

and this was his. Hehehe does that make it a MVHV?
He was dipping me and I was not feeling very secure.
I like the way he framed us with my painting.
Note mine is the one in focus :P

Today Alex and I went out with my parents. We took him to see the fountains at the Olympic park and then we went to Ikea. He didn't want to get too close to the fountains but he loved Ikea. He runs 'round the whole store 'reading' the labels, testing all the chairs, opening and shutting all the cupboards, pushing the buttons on the dummy TVs and turning off the staff computers! It was a big day out for him and hence he has been asleep all evening until now. He just woke up for dinner and will be back in bed soon.
I took the camera hoping to get some shots of Alex having fun with the water. As usual it's a hard choice when going out with Alex. Do I take all the camera gear and get stuck carrying around bits I probably wont use or do I travel light and end up missing the perfect shot because I didn't have the right gear with me?
I opted to travel light. One camera, one lens and one spare battery. Then I ended up wishing I had the 10mm lens with me, a tripod, a ND filter and my infrared filter. These locations would make for some stunning portraits for anyone who wanted something a little funky and colourful. I might have to go back there with a willing model.
As for todays effort, well my camera has a problem. Actually I've kinda known it does for a few weeks now but as I mostly shoot manual I've been able to work around it. It's exposure is way off! If I use auto exposure it way overexposes with the occasion way underexposure. On manual it still behaves strangely but I can work around it most of the time. Problem is for chasing a toddler around between sun and shade I don't have time to adjust manually and can't reshoot the shot when I adjust the settings. So today I wanted to use P mode for shooting Alex but it just wouldn't work. For example on P it would use 1/125 and completely blow the shot, where as for the same shot on manual I'd have to use 1/1250 to get the correct exposure.
So I know my camera will have to go off for repair but I don't want to be without it for any length of time :(
The old 10D is still working but it's so slow, I prefer to use the 20D. Actually I'd like to get the 40D I've been hanging out for and send the 10 and 20 both off for a service.
I'll wait and see if I can persuade Graham that the 40D would make a good anniversary pressy before I do anything about the 20D. Never know what a few weeks hinting will get me.
Though some wood for the new deck would be a more sensible gift for us to buy each other, especially for our 5th anniversary.
Anyway here's some photos from today, the ones that did work.

That's my Dad taking photos with his much more reliable Fuji.

This was as close as Alex would get to the water.

Does anyone else think it looks like they are practicing their dance moves here?


This is the walk over the old brick pits. It's huge and Alex did the whole walk!