Mere minutes ago I was giving Caleb hugs and kisses before bed. We have some of our best conversations at bedtime.

The other night he was a little wild so I told him we better meditate. We sat on his bed cross legged, our thumb and middle fingers together in the shape of “o” and chanting, “Ohmmmm, ohmmm.” After a minute Skyler joined in but she was saying, “ohmmm mama mia.” Caleb put his hands in to a “T” and said, “Time out. Skyler knock it off.”

Tonight, as I was going in for a big smooch, Caleb asked, “Mom why do married people sleep together? Is it because they have nightmares?”

Oh kids say the cutest things.

I said, “No it’s because parents love each other.”

“Well what if they don’t love each other?”

“They wouldn’t be married if they didn’t love each other.”

“But what if they didn’t like each other but got married anyway?”

“You shouldn’t get married if you don’t like each other.”

“Ok oh. So they just take off their rings then?”

I decided to change the subject. “Do you think me and dad love each other?”

“Yeah,” he said with slight attitude like “duh.”

“Do you think we love you?”

He giggled, “Yep!”

Lee and I have a great marriage. We spend time together. We laugh together. It’s almost perfect.

Except for one thing.

There is this nagging issue that we just can’t get past. A hurdle we just can’t get over. A hill we just can’t climb.

And that is…

Which side of the garage is the front and which side is the back.

And now, not only is Lee totally wrong. But he’s dragged Keaton in to this whole mess.

Last night Keaton told me he parked his bike in front of the garage. But he really meant the back of the garage.

Let me explain. With a visual.

Our house (like most people’s houses) faces the street. Then (again, like most houses) we have a backyard. On the other side of our backyard is our garage which faces the alley out back.

Lee says the front of the garage is the side facing the street (or backyard as the case may be) and the back is the side facing the alley. I know what you’re thinking. Clearly he is wrong.

I say the front of the garage is the side with the big moving door in which you open to drive your car in to the garage (or the side facing the alley). The back is the side that is attached to the backyard; hence the word “back.”

What do you think? Me. Give me your honest opinion. Me. Who’s right? Me.

Thursday night we ended up back in the darkroom to learn how to make proof sheets and enlargements. When you make enlargements you don’t need to be in complete darkness like you do when developing your film. So there was no inappropriate touching or scary ghost stories this time.

Instead we got to work in the glow of a sulfur light. This gives off a yellowish glow. [In a side note of interesting facts you may not know (or give two squats of shit about)...many street lights use sulfur lights. Other street lights use magnesium lights. If you look down on your city at night you may see some neighborhoods glowing yellow (sulfur) and others glowing blue (magnesium).] This sulfur lamp made everything in the room look like a sepia photograph. I spent the whole two hours thinking I was in old movie.

Our first assignment was to take photos of shadows. Our second assignment was to take portraits with side light from a window; first by a window with direct sunlight and then by a window with indirect sunlight. I think my shadow pictures turned out pretty well, but my portraits sucked. For one, I’m using a 50mm lens so I had to be pretty close to my subject to get just her head and shoulders. And that causes some distortion. Second, I screwed up the film trying to get it out of the camera (clearly I’m completely inept at this whole film concept) so I had to redo the entire roll (again). So the second time I was ticked off at myself and not on my game. When we moved to the indirect light I completely forgot to change my aperture.

As much as I have enjoyed learning how to develop my own film and make my own enlargements, the biggest lesson I’ve learned from Photo 1 is digital photography was the best invention known to man. (Ok, maybe not the best…there is the telephone and air conditioning and sliced bread, but digital photography is right up there.)

With digital photography I can take a photo, download it to my computer, edit it with Photoshop and print it in about 30 minutes. And it costs me nothing (well, other than the initial cost for the camera and Photoshop and the paper).

With film photography I have to buy film. I have to remember to put the film in correctly. I have to remember to take the film out properly. If I forget to set the aperture at the correct setting I don’t have a view screen on my camera to point that out to me. Instead I have to wait until I’ve wasted half a role of film and developed it. I have to pull the film out in the dark. Then I have to get just the right recipe for developer (depending on the kind of film I’m using) and at just the right temperature. I have to remember to agitate for 30 seconds and then for 5 seconds every 30 seconds. I have to remember to tap the tank so I don’t get air bubbles. I have to remember my stop bath and my fixer and my hypo cleaning agent plus my wash. Then I have to wait for my negatives to dry.

And then I still don’t have a photograph, because I have yet to print. It’s a whole other long drawn out process to print one flippin’ picture. It’s wearing me out just writing about it.

Here is a photo I took with my digital camera on Friday night.

Five minutes ago I decided I was going to add this photo to my blog. So I transferred it to my computer. Opened it in Photoshop. Made some color corrections. Sharpened it. Cropped it. And here we are five minutes later admiring my slammin’ photography skillz.

See digital photography good. Film photography bad.

I’m going to be on TV. Well not me, exactly. But my name will be in the credits. On the Big Ten Network. Who woulda thunk? Me on the Big Ten Network.

Ok, ok. What the heck am I talking about?

Well the University of Iowa has created a program about this summer’s flood here in Iowa; called Iowa Magazine: Flood of 2008. And they have included one or two of my photos of the aftermath.

Of course the program isn’t all about me (but wouldn’t it be cool if it was?). Instead it’s all about how Iowans came together during the worst flood this part of the nation has ever seen. It premieres in HD on the Big Ten Network this Thursday, September 25th at 3:30pm. So get set, get ready and start your Tivo.