Fall Foliage, Anyone??

Right about now, in the cold grey-brown bleakness of January, a little warm fall foliage scenery probably sounds pretty good, yes?

Back in October a friend and I spent a weekend in Vermont, and when we weren’t stopping at every maple syrup stand on the side of the road or breaking down under the unfortunate cover of darkness (sigh, true story), we were leaf peeping and taking the pictures to prove it!

Not only did we visit Lake Champlain in Burlington, drive over many a covered bridge, we got to see up close and personal, The Tallest Filing Cabinet in the World. You’re right to feel envy. It was all you’d imagine it to be.

One Must Maintain a Little Bit of Summer…

…even in the winter.

I love the beach all year round, even in the winter. There’s such a sense of serenity to be gotten from walking on the sand, gazing at the open sky, and hearing the waves.

On another note, I’ve been cleaning up my computer since the first of the year and finding old images – some never worked on, some never shared.

These were taken in January 2012 on Plum Beach, a favorite place of mine when I was living in Brooklyn. Katie joined Caleb and I for a little stroll alongside Sheepshead Bay.

 

Best of 2015

Happy New Year to you!

Here I am with my annual Top ____ list. I won’t even call it a Top Ten cuz no matter how hard I try I can never get it down to 10 (though I came close here)!

It was a good year – had more clients who were happy to have their pictures shared on social media and that’s so fun! Here are my favorites from 2015…

Pre-prom pictures of some girls who really thought outside the box for their photoshoot!

My boy – even though he’s getting older, he’s still my best model.

Some personal work with a new model who was a delight to work with.

A *really* new model who was such a doll!

More personal work. I love these shoots where I call the shots (ha ha ha, get it?? the PHOTOGRAPHER calls the SHOTS? I crack myself up) and can be as creative as I want…aka There Is No Wrong.

Oh my gosh, these two showed such joy on their wedding day. It was my honor to be there to capture it.

I started to enjoy landscape photography this year, especially sunsets. This was taken at Lake Champlain in Vermont.

At their 70th Anniversary party, the grand- and great-grandchildren all wanted to be part of a fun portrait with their grandparents.

This day. This foliage. This mother and son. I can’t even. *I* want this on a giant canvas on my wall!

This family was *the* most fun to photograph! We were doing a “holiday/family portrait/engagement/save the date” multi-purpose shoot!

Okay. Come on. COME ON.

These boys. Those *dimples*!!!

And that wraps up 2015. On with the new year!

A Day in the Life: Mikey

“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’ve enjoyed following the growing popularity of documentary style photography. I so admire a good storyteller and this type of photography really tells a story. More than just a portrait, the photographer shadows their subject silently, not intruding on the reality, but just documenting it. In years to come, a person, couple, family or child can look back and see not just what they looked like…but what their *life* was like.

So I decided to take the plunge and experiment with it. Last fall I photographed Mikey and his mom for a couple hours one sunny Sunday afternoon – their day to be unscheduled and just enjoy one another’s company. I remember on this day in particular Mom was especially proud of Mikey because he had just started eating a new type of food. I got there just as Mom was preparing lunch and Mikey played by himself in the basement….and I knew a walk to a nearby playground was ahead.

They were such a sweet family to spend time with and I have a new-found love in this type of photography. It’s like getting to be a fly on the wall, which is pretty much my favorite thing anyway, so…expect to see more like this soon.

Move Over, Cara Delevingne

I frequently do styled shoots with models – *adult* models. Last week I had the opportunity to photograph the sweetest little girl, and man, can she Bring It! She was such a trooper, traipsing through the flowery meadow (aka tall weeds!), twirling, running thither and yon picking flowers, all the while with a smile (accidental rhyme, sorry).

I mean, come on…can you even???? She’s a super model at five years old!

remember last summer….

It’s almost summer *again,* and I’m just finishing up working on some images I took last September with the beautiful Rachel. We were going for modern take on a lush rich Victorian era look, shooting in tropical gardens late in the day when the sun is low and golden.

Don’t you love the way the light is shining through her hair here?

Coming Out of Hibernation

I feel like I’m just starting to peek out from the winter slash pain cave that has been my life since the fall…nothing serious, just distracting and inconvenient enough to make normal activities seem like Too Much Effort. I’ve not edited personal shoots going back all the way to last summer (gah) and have a lot to catch up on and share here! So I’m starting non-chronologically so I can just START!!!

This past weekend (Mother’s Day to be exact, which is not so fun when my baby is a million miles away), a friend and I made the trek to Staten Island. Normally, SI is just a route to *other* places, not a final destination, and all I ever see is the “along the roadside” view, so I was a little apprehensive…but I was *so* pleasantly surprised by our whole day.

We started out heading for the Alice Austen House, which turned out to be such a hidden treasure. Alice Austen (1866 – 1952) was one of America’s earliest and most prolific female photographers, known best for documentary work. She was also a landscape designer, cyclist, master tennis player, and the first woman on Staten Island to own a car.  She never married but spent fifty years with Gertrude Tate.  She was a rebel who created a charming home for herself at “Clear Comfort,” a Gothic Victorian cottage, atop a hill looking over the water towards downtown Manhattan.

The house was recently restored and is decorated with intimate garden areas and refreshing breezes off the water on a warm day. It was such a nice way to spend the morning, sitting on the rustic twig bench enjoying the views, meandering around the gardens, touring the house and looking at Austen’s work and words. She made such detailed notes of how she photographed things!

Hope you enjoy the little glimpse of Alice Austen House and maybe it will inspire you to visit someday. Our afternoon was just as delightful…but that’s for another post!

My Top Ten Images of 2014 (and by Ten I mean Twenty-Two)

Since December, I’ve been trying to winnow down all the pictures I took in 2014 to my top ten. Fail. I couldn’t do it. I started out trying to select pictures that would appeal to future clients. But…every single one of these images has an emotion tied to it…or some technical breakthrough (leading to an emotion). And emotion wins out every time, don’t you think? I think the *best* pictures are the ones that make you feel something, remember something, inspire something…make you go AHHH or OOOH or “I remember that day! That was a great day!”

So – these are the pictures from last year that most make me go ahhh and oooh and make me remember wonderful moments – be they happy or sentimental or proud. Some are client photos, some are friends, some are animals of friends, some are personal work or beautiful sensets…and many are…my wonderful boy Caleb the Australian Shepherd (sorry, but come on, how handsome is he??). There are cell phone pictures and fancy camera pictures – what I shoot with has no bearing on the emotion behind the image. So…seeing as it’s already February and I’ve been wanting to do this blog post since New Year’s Day (!!!), please enjoy My Top 10 22 images of 2014.

Thanksgiving

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

I used to love Thanksgiving for the food, the day off from work, the gathering of family and friends. Now I’m grateful to Thanksgiving because it’s a reminder of what we should be grateful for every day – simple things like life, nature, home, good people and animals, love. These simple things can be easy to forget, so I’m glad for the reminder.

These are some things I’m grateful for…

My baby, who has turned into an amazing, smart, sweet, funny, beautiful young woman.

All my “kids.”

Family.

Good friends.

Wonderful people at work.

A “long lost” cousin with whom I’ve been recently reunited

Living in an amazing place with city…

beaches…

.

and country.

And many other things – good bosses at work, a way to express myself creatively. freedom, time…

So many things to be grateful for. Thanks, Thanksgiving, for the reminder.

Hugs to you all.

the best laid plans, blah blah blah: the ramblings of a long island photographer

 So, sometimes I have these visions, you know? They can be sort of elaborate. And it can take a long time, lots of effort, and SUPER amounts of LUCK to get everyone and everything in the right place at the right time. Models, makeup artists, lighting, is the sun out today? Are the leaves already changing color? Is someone gonna kick us out for tying a swing to a tree branch?? Ha. How do we even GET a swing tied to a tree branch?? And sometimes *I’M* “the fail.” Forgot to bring batteries for the wireless triggers for the off-camera flash. Forgot to bring a thing to fan the model’s hair with. Didn’t bring enough flowers. Underestimated the amount of time it would take to lug equipment deep into the woods, hang the swing, attach the flowers, get the lighting set up, yadda yadda yadda…and on this day, despite my beautiful  vision, we just ran out of time…and more importantly, LIGHT. And for all the effort and involvement of wonderful people – a darling model, a helpful Dad who climbed the tree to hang the swing, a patient and helpful friend and assistant…I got very few usable pictures because we just plain ran out of time and light. And that’s on me. Ugh.

I did this shoot almost a month ago and I was so frustrated with and disappointed in myself that I couldn’t even look at the pictures. I’d had a vision. But I finally realized I need to not look at these images as mistakes, but rather as “learning experiences.” Next time we’ll start start earlier. Next time I’ll keep the (damn) vision simpler so we can actually execute it ourselves. Next time I’ll be happy with what I DO get rather than disappointed with what I DON’T.  The pictures aren’t as I envisioned, but I still think they’re lovely. And I got some good post-processing practice (say THAT three times fast!) out of them…

 

 

And this next one was *really* a happy accident for me. I love the work of  Julia Margaret Cameron, a British photographer from the 1800’s. I’ve always wanted to do a Cameron-esque shoot, something like this – and without even meaning to, I think I sort of captured her style with this image, so I went with that and processed it in a vintage style…and I’m really quite pleased with it!

So, vision be damned! Ha. I will continue to celebrate the happy accidents 🙂 (and, uh, plan better next time!).