Scowlery

I asked them to look in different directions; they chose these. The picture was heavily cropt, manipulated, noised, and desaturated to get to this.

Half the crowd had already left when we got everyone else together for the Big Scowl. This was around nine o'clock last night, Boxing Day after five or more hours of good times mainly celebrating the recent wedding of the two in the middle. The newish bride is scowling at her father who is scowling back at her, and the newish groom is behind her, a quick study to the Art of Scowl. I think, with two dozen scowls and near-scowls, this was a record for us.

Being single-handed at the time (recently out from an operation on my left hand), I was not much use to my wife who was running in to a restaurant to pick up our Indian take-away supper. So I waited in the car and saw an opportunity for a scowlery.

After I took this picture Ger, at the far end of the table, suggested it might have been a scowlery. I agreed.

When I went out to the clothesline this morning, I had a feeling someone was watching me.

We spent an hour last night watching the sunset across the bay from my bern&sternlaw's deck. And then we did a scowlery. I thought the sunset and the scowlery might look good together, so I clapped 'em to each other. It does look like the poster for a cheap crime comedy film of 45 or 50 years ago.

My brother, his wife and their daughter were visiting and they picked up my sister along the way. So we had a nice visit on the back deck. And of course pictures were taken. My wife offered to take some pictures with me in them, but I had accidentally slipped the shutter speed to 1/4000. Duhh. So this picture was badly under-exposed. Converting it to b&w almost made it right. It was a good scowlery and that can make up for lots of technical faults.

After a farewell Sternlaw-Bernlaw&Spice Supper (the hosts are travelling to the Southern hemisphere in a few days), one of hosts suggested a family photograph. It quickly evolved into a traditional scowlery and then one suggested the Googly-Eyed version. It was a winner.

My sister and her son visited so we had a scowlery. The camera sat on a small cardboard box and it leaned a little more than I expected, thus the turnery. [I posted this picture last night and afterwards was told about a major flaw in my processing: my sister's face was blasted by light from another lamp, and this was exaggerated by my processing. I had not noticed. Duhh. So I've removed that picture and replaced it with this one -- exactly the same picture, but with different processing. I think my sister would approve.]

These two have known each other since they were little because their parents were friends. Their parents were friends of mine, too, so I've known each of them most of that time. Or known of them. You know how kids disappear from the view of non-family friends. But now they are old enough to hang out with their parents' friends from time to time.

After supper last night: bernlaws, sternlaws, siblings, and spice, together for a family scowlery.

It was almost midnight last night and I had come by to pick up my wife from an evening with "the girls." That's their term, girls, not mine, and they know what they are saying. I have known almost all of these women for over fifty years. The one exception I have known well over forty. They know what I'm like and they asked for a picture. Of course: I had a camera in my pocket. I asked for a scowlery but I was only partly successful in getting it. Nice picture of old friends in any case.