Needed: Rubber Chicken

I was hired by a neighbor to take an extended family photo for her 86th birthday. There were around 30 people, 10 of whom were under the age of 15. I had watched how the light would be at that time of day, scouted out a location, thought about how to arrange that many people together. I even brought my tripod so that I could have the camera set up and then go make adjustments to the grouping.

What I did not think about was unhappy children. There was a baby and a toddler that pretty much cried the whole time. It was hard to keep the other kid's attention. This is why photographers have rubber chickens, I realized. I have the technical skills, now I need the shtick. It wouldn't have been that hard to bring some small stickers, and maybe that would have helped the toddler. Oh well. Hopefully next time I do something like this I will remember to take some stickers and a puppet or small toy to grab attention.

Wall Art

Some of my very favorite people :)

Time Travel

I've recently finished a few entries that I had started but not posted. They post according to the date that I started, so I thought I'd draw your attention to them. You can read about:

My adventures with chickens

A walk in the park

A good book

Here is also a photo from a series of self portraits that I am currently working on:



The series is about what my hair looks like when I wake up.

Check back soon at my photo blog to see more (hopefully I will start posting there...)

Some of the best portraits...

just happen.

These photos weren't taken with great lighting, or in a great location, or with any direction or styling on my part. We were just spending time together, and I happened to have my camera and got a shot. Even people who weren't there when they were taken somehow see a bit of the personality, love, and connection between the subjects (and the photographer.)

This first one was taken 2 years ago, when these two were newly engaged. They've now been married over a year.



This is much more recent, taken in June. J. and N. were engaged then, and K. is N.'s daughter. J. and N. just got married last Friday.



as J. said, "This is my life now." I'm glad that they are all a part of my life, too.

I *heart* film

Got some film back from the lab recently that I shot with my holga camera. It's a toy camera that both amateurs and professionals embrace, as it can create fun effects like vignettes, light leaks, and double exposures. It's also very lightweight and easy to carry around. But to get to the point, shooting with film is fun--I love the suspense of waiting to get the picture back and see what's there. You can have happy accidents, like this,



where two different exposure overlap with a beautiful effect.

It was a lot of fun photographing J & N. K wasn't being so cooperative, but I had fun photographing her on the trampoline.









Can your digital camera do that?

Baby Steps

I don't know why I didn't think of this before. I've been "working" on my new photo website for over a year now. Maybe even two years.

I think that the main thing that's been holding me up is my perfectionism--I want to do a thorough job, go through all my files and find the best photos. Decide what the best number for each category is. I've probably sorted through the same wedding photos 5 or 6 times now, making sure that I have a good sample from each wedding, well balanced and as even as possible. I finally weeded it down to 75 photos--25 each from 3 of my favorite weddings.

I also am busy with so many other things that I haven't been devoting much time to the website project. Recently, though, I've started working on it again.

Tonight I was talking to the friend who's doing the website design, and she suggested that I start by picking 5 photos for each category. I quickly went through the photos I've been collecting, and although it was tough to only pick 5, having that limit was helpful. I picked 5 from each category & formatted them in about 40 minutes.

I can't wait to get them up and have a functioning site!

Everyday is Halloween at our house

That's what my dad used to tell his 7th grade students, anyway. At the photo studio where I work, we do a costume contest every year at Halloween where we photograph kids and adults from the neighborhood in costume, for free. This is the 3rd year that we've done it. We started just after I started working there. My job is to sit outside and get people's names, a description of their costume (so that we can figure out the names of the winners) and their contact info. It's fun to see everyone's costumes, but by the end of the night I'm usually exhausted and a little grouchy from dealing with the line.

Here's my costume from this year:


I'm a jellyfish, if you can't tell. (My boss's guess was a rainbow rain. Probably since last year's costume was more conceptual.) I did tell one parent that asked what I was that I was feeling more like the victim of a jellyfish.

Last year's:


Most who ventured a guess said I was a dryer. My title was "the place where all the missing socks go." My headband and collar are socks as well.

Our first year:


I'm supposed to be a sunflower. I made the headband myself. The blue sweater is the sky, the green shirt the leaves and stem. Unfortunately, the wire I put in the leaves wasn't that strong, so they flopped down. One little boy exclaimed, "Look! She's a banana peel!"