Jonah's 3yr-old pictures

So I had been dragging my feet on taking new pictures of Jonah for the wall,since I loved his two-year-old prints so much. But then I bought him some new clothes and I was pretty excited about that. When we took these, it was spur of the moment and not very planned. Ideally, we should have gone out at least half an hour earlier, and pre-planned our locations based on how the light fell there..you know, like real photographers do?
Instead, we were running around from spot to spot as I saw them, trying to get a few nice pictures before the sun went down! I'm glad I did too, because the rest of the week after I took these were overcast or really windy, and it wouldn't have worked at all!

So, the first place we stopped was this cool rusty door; I was just thinking how the orange might look cool with the new shirt. I wasn't thinking about how it was in the direct path of the setting sun, and the light was waay to bright there for taking pictures at this hour. We shot a few that weren't that great, then ran on to the next spot.

This blue building is where I took some of Elora's five year pictures. Again the light was a little bright against the shiny wall, so I was messing around with different effects in photoshop on the wall to see if it looked good.

can't decide if I like the full color or the faded one of him looking right

One funny thing about this spot was how the sun was shining in Jonah's eyes. One was in direct sun, while the other was shaded by his nose, resulting in two different eye colors!

We ran on to our mail box shelter next. Here the light seemed really pretty, and I was sad that he never really smiled naturally at the camera. He was either too posing, or looking away most of the time.

Bottom left is my pick here.

 I drew his attention to an ant on the wall so he'd be facing my direction. After observing it for a minute, he took the rock in his hand and smashed it! Boys. Later he had to throw the rock in the "pond" before we moved on.

I love the two on the left, and I might regret which one I've now printed big!

The sun was setting quickly, so we ran up by the rodeo and powwow grounds, which are the highest point in the area and would hopefully still be swathed in sunlight. These we took by a post on the way, and I think they're some of my favorites.

I love the top left one!

This spot is by the white rodeo fence. It would have been ideal as well, but again, he was so wiggly and silly, and he just wouldn't look at me when he was standing in the right spots! He also kept moving slightly when I was snapping the picture, so the sun was on his face too many times.

I'd love the top left if his hands weren't in the way.

We went and sat in the grass right when the sun was touching the horizon. At this point, he was talking away like crazy (which Jonah does a lot) and it was hard to get him to focus on looking at me.  This could have looked nicer, but I guess they're really similar to the ones of Elora last year, so it's okay if I don't use them. (It's not like I have tons of options for locations around here)

We did try the red posts at the pow wow circle, but the sunlight was just getting too low.

What a sweet boy.

 I had to choose my big pictures before I did this post; now that I don't trust my mail man to deliver them without destroying them...I had to pick them up when we last went to the city. Now that I'm looking at all of these, I wonder if I should have spent more time deciding! Which one or two would you pick to hang?