Thais Emma Tucker

In my last post, I told you that working on my photography was one of my goals while in France. Last week (while on the wonderful world of Facebook) I saw that a woman I taught with at Palmetto had posted a link to a photographer who took pictures of her newborn. The photographer was Michelle DiMaio. Michelle's husband was a student in my mom's department at Clemson, so I knew of her and her work (which is amazing!). Michelle had posted pictures of Kristie's beautiful baby boy on her blog. Immediately, I was inspired by Michelle's photographs. And then I started thinking....Bene just had a baby...
I emailed Michelle and asked if she had any tips for me when photographing a newborn. Michelle immediately emailed me back a list of helpful hints. Now all I had to do was convince Bene to let me use her child as my guinea pig. Bene was more than willing to help me out, so today I spent several hours at chez Tucker. I was really happy with how the photographs turned out, especially considering this was my first time every photographing children- let alone a newborn! I learned a lot during our little "photo shoot" (including: Make sure you put some sort of plastic between the prop blanket and the pillows you are borrowing from the parents to prop the baby up on, so that when the diaper is off and the baby has an accident-which she did-it won't soak through into the pillow! Sorry Bene!!!!).
Enjoy the pictures, but if you want to check out the real thing, check out Michelle's website (http://www.michelledimaiophotography.com/). Please look at mine first, though, so that you aren't comparing mine to hers! AND, if you are expecting a baby, and you live anywhere near Clemson, RUN (don't walk) to the phone and call Michelle to do your newborn photos!

Photography Fun

One of my goals while we are living in France is to work on my photography. The problem is that so far, the weather has been cold and/or rainy (not exactly weather that makes me want to grab my camera and walk around for hours on end). Today I felt the urge (even though, again there were gray skies and cold weather). I didn't stay out for long, but here are some of my favorites from my walk. Because the weather is so dreary looking, I chose to make all of these black and white. My hope is that instead of dreary looking, they become artistic. You can be the judge.

Super Bowl XLlll

I don't know how we would survive here in France without our Slingbox and TiVo! Since the Super Bowl was playing about 1:00 am here, we recorded it with the TiVo. Monday, we invited some friends over to watch the game. Everyone was instructed not to look up the score beforehand. We also invited Bertrand, Claire, Mark, and Silke to enjoy this great American pastime. Our apartment is rather small, but we were all able to fit into our living room to watch the game. In all, there were 16 of us. Bertrand spent a good bit of time trying to recruit Preston to play rugby. The highlight of my night was when the guys decided to demonstrate a 'scrum' for Preston. For those of you unfamiliar with rugby (as most Americans are), the scrum involves the men locking themselves together as tightly as possible. In order for the second line to "lock-in", it is necessary for them to put their arms through the legs of the first line and grab on, at the...um, groin, area. (You might remember in my blog about how happy I am that Matthew is not a player in the scrum!) In the pictures, please notice Preston's face as Bertrand "locks-in". It is priceless!

Matthew's First Rugby Game

Sunday, Matthew played in his first rugby game. This has been a long-time coming. Each week it seemed there was another piece of paperwork that Matthew was asked to fill out, or another document he had to turn in, before he could play. He even had to write and get permission from the American Association of Rugby to play on a non-American team.
We drove about 45 minutes to get to the rugby field (past the Louis Vuitton factory!). When we left Clermont, there were blue skies and lots of sunshine. By the time we reached the rugby field, it was freezing and starting to sprinkle.
I have heard how rough rugby can be, and after the very first play, one of our players had his head cut by an opponent's cleat. One of the wives is the "trainer" and ran over to clean off the blood with a sponge and a bucket of water. Then she covered the cut with vasoline and by the next play he was back out on the field. Each time it started bleeding again, she would just put more vaseline on it. (Oh, and anytime anybody else got cut, the wound was cleaned with the same sponge and the same bucket of water! Yuck!!!)
I was glad to see that Matthew was out of the scrum. Bertrand, on the other hand, seemed to always be in the middle of the scrum and at the bottom of the pile! Towards the end of the game, the captain asked Matthew if he wanted to try out the scrum.
Although our team lost, the one touchdown (I don't know if that is the right term for a score in rugby...) was in large part thanks to Matthew, Bertrand, and Ricky (a fellow Michelin employee). Unfortunately, Claire and I missed it because we were still in the car trying to warm up! :)
I am happy to report that although very sore, Matthew survived his first rugby match with only a few scratches caused by the ground.
Here are some pictures. Matthew is #12 and Betrand is #6.

Laser Tag

Saturday night we joined some friends to play Laser Tag. A computer randomly divided us into two teams. For the first round, I played on a team with Mark and Silke. Matthew, Bertrand, Claire, and Johan were on the Red Team. After getting on our gear (and posing for a quick photo) we headed into the room.
Although my ankle is much better, I still cannot run (well at least, it is not a fast, or graceful, run). So my strategy was to find a corner where I could protect the laser plate on my back and shoot people as they ran past. The strategy did not work so great because there was a catwalk that ran around the top of the room, and Matthew stood at the top in the corner like a sniper. He shot me 13 times!!! After the game was over, we headed to the lobby to get our scores. Silke came in last with a -100 score! Her score was not helped by the fact that she shot both Mark and me...and we were on her team! I came in second to last (no thanks to my husband shooting me 13 times!). Matthew came in second and Johan came in first.
The computer shuffled the teams, and the second time I was on a team with Johan, Matthew, and Mark. I thought for sure I would be on the winning team this time! However, this was not the case. I did succeed in shooting more people during the second game, and getting shot fewer times.
After Laser Tag, we headed to an Irish pub, called Kerry's, for dinner. The place was packed, even though it was almost 10:00pm. The place had a great atmosphere and really good food. While we were eating the guys kept watching the fair that was across the street. After dinner they decided to walk over to try out a ride they had seen. The ride looked like one of those balance scales. As the ride started the buckets on each side would start spinning, and the whole contraption would rotate. As it gained speed, the buckets started spinning sideways, and eventually flipped completely upside down. Claire and I decided to stay securely on the ground, but the rest of the group decided to try it out. Needless to say, there was quite a bit of dizziness and stumbling as they got off the ride!