This child is almost four. This is hard to believe. My last picture of him at this spot he was reaching for the wind chime and couldn’t actually reach it. Now, older and taller, he is closer to the chime and a little further away from being my baby.
Archive for April, 2010
Just My Little Dude
April 28, 2010
The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Photographer’s Child
April 27, 2010
3 Weeks Old and She’s Already Cuter Than You
April 26, 2010Well, she is. If it’s any consolation she’s cuter than I am as well.
I photographed this little beauty on Saturday morning. She was right in the middle of her 3-week growth spurt and made me work for it but time, patience, lots of food, womb sounds and loud shushing resulted in some final sleeping images that are just adorable as well as some great looks of wide eyed wonder.
Pretty New Location
April 25, 2010Isn’t this spot gorgeous? I did a shoot last weekend for a 1-year-old here and need to remember to schedule daffodil sessions next spring. It had rolling hills of daffodils, old stone walls, old stone steps, paths, a pond (with an island that had yet more daffodils) and then some more daffodils.
What’s in Bloom This Week
April 24, 2010
A Day in the Life
April 23, 2010People ask me all the time how I balance the whole “twin mother/business owner” thing. Darned if I know, is my basic reply. Routines help. So does preschool. I decided to record everything I did one day and thus, a day in my life:
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5:30 ish – James crawls into bed for morning cuddles.
6:00 – Alarm goes off. Brian turns it off.
6:45 – I suggest to Brian he get up.
7:00 – I get up. Fiona objects as she hasn’t had cuddles yet so back into bed with her for 5 minutes. James dresses himself. I help Fiona pick out a dress.
Morning routing commences. Make bed, get dressed, brush teeth, do hair, wipe surfaces in bathroom, gather laundry, take laundry to basement, sort, start one load. Empty dish drainer and dishwasher. Medicate cat.
7:30 – kid breakfast, I check messages
7:45 – Brush hair, dress Fiona, get into car
8:10 – preschool drop off
8:30 – go to grocery store to get crab for Her Highness Princess Fiona who loves shellfish and has requested a crab and shrimp dinner.
8:45 – my breakfast.
9:00 – marketing via social networking. Need to write a new blog post about birth photography but no time right now.
9:30 – gather stuff for photo shoot. 1 Holga. 1 EOS3 with 100/2.8 lens plus extra roll of film and 1 5D with a 85/1.8 lens and clear data card. I’d like the 1.2 lens but it is, alas, out of my budget.
9:40 – leave house and go to shoot site
9:50 – Subject’s mother calls – poor kid is taking her driver’s test and despite being scheduled at 8AM has still not had her turn thanks to DVM backlogs. Return home.
10:00 – Turn on timer and spend 15 minutes cleaning/decluttering living room and dining room.
10:15 – Have a cup of tea and fill out and email my exhibitor feedback form from the La Leche League conference
10:30 – Take clean laundry upstairs and dump it on the bed. Laundry generally gets folded and put away during bath time.
Email a potential client about availability. I have using only email to contact clients – it’s far less personal than the phone and as a wise man I know once said to me “It’s about the personal touch” but people with small children often prefer email because it’s easier for them.
11:00 – leave for pick up. I don’t usually have to leave until 11:25 but I need to stop at the post office and mail a package to a friend and I want to stop and get a frozen coffee slushie too.
11:45 – preschool pickup
12:30 – leave the playground after about 5 mini-meltdowns from James (or one long one with some brief hiatuses). I didn’t push him high enough on the swings, he wasn’t ready to leave, he got to the gate before me, he didn’t want to change his wet pants. Food upped his blood sugar and calmed him down.
Lunch in the car. Not the healthiest or sanest way to eat but sometimes practical.
Target run. 2 more mini-meltdowns from James in the parking lot. He was strapped into the cart. One vacuum, cat supplies and sidewalk chalk later we check out.
1:30 – One episode of Bernstein Bears before nap.
1:45 – Nap. James and Fiona both need changing, both have had accidents, both are put into pull ups for nap. Fiona asks if she can pee in her pull up. I tell her yes, but I would prefer it if she uses the potty. She tells me she would prefer to use her pull up but then, unprompted, uses the toilet anyway. I read the current edition of High Five to each to each of them.
2:10 – My lunch.
Eat. Eat more. Put together my bridal bulk email from the past 3 weeks or so and schedule it. Chat on IRC to photography friends. Cackle like hens.
2:45 – Fiona is up. Go out in yard and take pictures of her and all the flowers currently in our garden. I bribe her to cooperate.
3:30 – James is up. He agrees to have a picture taken so I have a matched set of one of each child. We play in front and back yard, and briefly with neighbor children, until Brian comes home. Well, mostly they play and I sit and make sure they don’t run into the street.
5:30 – Brian comes home. I make dinner and sit.
6:10 – dinner
6:35 – I leave to go get my hair colored, leaving Brian with a dirty kitchen, half cleared table and pile of clean laundry on the bed.
7:00 – The power at my friend’s is out. Getting my hair colored may be problematic if she can’t see it. Sit down and sigh. Try to muster energy to return to the car and drive home.
7:10 – The power is back! She colors my hair. It is darkish brown now, on it’s journey from red/blond to dark dark dark brown.
9:10 – I get home to find sleeping children, laundry folded, dishes done and Brian on the verge of medicating the cat and mopping the kitchen floor. I kiss the sleeping children and start moving old files off my laptop so I have room tomorrow to proof the newborn images that are next in the queue.
9:30 – get the photos from today off the camera.
10:00 – go to bed.
April is National Poetry Month
April 16, 2010And so, to celebrate, a poem. Not (you will be relieved to note) by me. For all that I love poetry I am forced to concede my lack of skill at word-smithing the little buggers together. I end up with clunky, misshapen things, sticking out a bit too much on the left perhaps, and a smidgen top-heavy with significant structural weaknesses. It isn’t pretty. So I shall leave poem-ing to the poets and simply share one during this month set aside to remember poetry. Also, pecans. And frogs. And many other random things.
From a Photograph
by George OppenHer arms around me—child—
Around my head, hugging with her whole arms,
Whole arms as if I were a loved and native rock,
The apple in her hand—her apple and her father, and my nose pressed
Hugely to the collar of her winter coat. There is the photographIt is the child who is the branch
We fall from, where would be bramble,
Brush, bramble in the young Winter
With its blowing snow she must have thought
Was ours to give to her.
Mini Session Marathon Sneak Peeks
April 13, 2010Last Saturday I held a series of mini sessions in what I confess is my favorite location, Westmoor Park. All the participants enjoyed (or, at least I hope they enjoyed) a 30-45 minute session with some shots in the barn and some in the fields.
I love barn light. Really really love it.
There were a variety of victims. Errr… subjects. Families, 3-year-old twins, 1-year-old twins, children with more fashion sense than I can ever hope to have, older kids, younger kids and special needs kids. It was a wild ride of photography and, for many people, playing in the park afterward. There are chickens to see, a free roaming rooster to ogle, a very friendly horse (and, no, my hair is NOT a snack despite what he seemed to think) much open space to run in, barn cats that like even young, active children. Westmoor Park is such a hidden treasure, tucked away in West Hartford, and I always like to be able to introduce more people to it.
Each mini-session guaranteed 5-10 images (though I’ve finished proofing one and thanks to my lack of self discipline there are 18 final pictures from which to choose) and the $100 fee is wholly applied to the initial order which, of course, makes the actual session free. I am thinking about doing one more set of this style of mini-sessions for the holidays. But, enough of my prattle. Here are some pictures…
Twins on Tuesday
April 6, 2010My goal was a smiling, static picture of both children smiling at the camera to send to their grandmother. You know the shot, those boring big grins of your basic school picture. Instead I have a roll of delightful pictures that are filled with personality, laughter, funny looks, interaction and just about everything except smiling children holding still. I’ve found I’m happier, and get much more charming pictures, when I let go of the need to control the shot and just photograph the relationship.
