Aperture 1.4 {focused blur}

Creed Atticus

So before I post I wanted to talk about a few things.  First, remember how I stated that I had noticed some of my photographs being used illegally in other places.  Well, that is still going on.  So not cool, in my book. I really didn't want to have to water mark my photographs but honestly I'm not going to let this continue.  So let the water marking begin.  I'm sorry that I had to do it.

  Also, you have probably noticed that for a photographer I really don't post my work here that often. That is because for the most part all the pictures I take besides family candid's are being used for other things, magazines, articles, and mostly for teaching.  When I teach a class I usually have between 60-80 images.  It's a lot to keep under wraps but I do try to make sure that my classes are "fresh and new".  However, today is going to be an exception.  So if you are taking my CKU class you might not want to look.  I don't get the chance to shoot many five day old baby's so these will be used in my new portraiture class but I HAD to share them because they are of my sweet baby nephew and he is so adorable.  And I know that my whole family will want to see them.

Stephanie is so talented, she received her masters in Literacy with an emphasis in Children's Literature.  She has a Blog all about it and she was a part of the committee of judges for a new children's book award this year so books are a big part of her life and she already has a children's library with thousands of children's books.  I thought this first photo was very appropriate for her and baby Creeds future life.  And P.S. I thought it was pretty brilliant of me to pick out the book titled "Actual Size" for the top of the stack.

I wanted to get a photo of Stephanie with Creed.  The first few weeks of Motherhood are such a hard growing time.  At least they were for me.  But Steph, I know that you and Creed were meant for each other and you are going to be the best Mom.  Just try to make it through the next few weeks of sleeplessness and everything will look much better!

I love how this photograph of Larry and Creed's feet turned out!

And I have to say this is my favorite photo of all.  So sweet, calm and peaceful.

 

And the winner is!

First let me say thanks to everyone who posted.  Mark was quite excited to be my Vanna and he wrote out names and did a drawing. 

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Kim P you are the winner! Email me your address and I will get it out to you this week! I will also post the song list here for anyone who is interested when I finish it.

My first RAK

I've decided that in honor of our go out and do something fun week, ( don't you love how I just dragged everyone into this with me with one phrase? Now you have to do it!)  I would give out an inspirational rak.  I've never given anything out here.  I don't know why...actually I do know why.  I am terrible at mailing things, but once I've made a commitment I am good to go and I am committing to this. 

  It's not scrapbooking supplies but it is meant to inspire great happy scrapbooking or photography taking or painting or cooking or whatever you choose to do while listening to your BRAND NEW SPRING FLING MIXED C.D. by Candice. ( the capitalization was meant to be read like a game show announcer, did it work?)  Nice, huh?   See aside from enjoying all the new green and sun shine I tend to change a few of my music choices each spring. Out with the warm cozy comfy winter music and in with the peppy, bouncy happy stuff.

  This was really inspired by Paolo.  He is a friend of Ali's that I meant in Japan. He is a world traveler, fellow artist and an all around great chap! He sent me a c.d. a few weeks ago which was really fun.  It's nice to get new music choices and expand your horizon and all that.  And I was so grateful for it I thought that it would be fun to do it for someone else!

  So comment below if you are interested and I will draw a name in a few days.  Maybe after the weekend, I have some very important photography business in the next few days.  My sister just had her baby!  And I am driving up to photograph him. So, so excited about it!  He is adorable!

Oh, and a warning on the music.  As I said before, I have very eclectic taste.  So you never know what you are going to get with a c.d. from me!  It could be anything from Jazz to George Michael to Ingrid Michealson.

Get out and do some thing new and fun!

 

I'm feeling this sudden itch...

To be creative. I think it's spring, everything new and blooming and starting over.  I never thought I was a spring kind of girl but this year with the sunshine and warmth I want to join the earth and create something new. I miss taking pictures for fun.  For the pure pleasure of seeing what you can capture through your lens.  Of going for a drive with a close friend and willing model and just driving until you find something cool for a background.  And then shooting until you can't take anymore pictures because your out of film.  ( Yes, I said film.  I think my holga needs to come out.  Or, shocker my Bronica.  Which has been put away for a while now and I miss that big bad boy of a camera.) I miss my openness to new things and crazy ideas that I explain but no one "gets" until they see it.  I've got a few of those mulling around in my mind and I haven't been able to talk anyone into them yet. Oh, don't worry, I will, sometimes it just takes a while for people to see my brilliance. :)

  Maybe it's the fact that I am working on a project and realizing that the more skilled I get the more formulaic I get.  I don't want my shots to all look the same.  I'm so tired of technically thinking about images and worrying about the perfection of the light/pose/settings.  I just want to play.  To make fabulous mistakes that turn out wonderfully. Or don't.  Who care's? It's a learning process but it's supposed to be fun right?  I don't want to lose that.  So today I am challenging everyone to add a little play time to their life this week.  Go out, somewhere you have never been and create something new.  Join earth in it's new beginning this spring!  Let me know how it turns out.  Or don't.  But just go out and have fun!  I'm going to try to.....after I finish my work of course. 

Stage names and all that jazz...

So with Marks soon to be graduation we have been discussing what name he want's to have.  When you become a full equity member you get to decide what stage name you want to use.  We'll probably just go with his real name but it was and is fun to think about being able to change your name to anything. 

   Anyway, we like his first name but we were talking about trying to find a good romantic lead last name and I of course was like you should name yourself Mark Darcy. Because I like to call Mark "my MR. Darcy".  Which he actually liked the sound of.  About now you are probably all screaming at the computer saying don't embarrass yourselves!  That's the name of the Colin Firth character in Bridget Jones' Diary.  Which I of course didn't know until tonight when I caught it on TV  so alas my dream of being married to a true Mr. Darcy is over and we must go on a search for a new last name.  I still think it needs to have a fun literary meaning attached.  And most likely British since Mark is quite obviously descended from there.  Any good ideas?  My newest choice is Mark Nickleby. You know like Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens.  Yes?  No? 

On a side note, I received pretty much the worst haircut I have ever had while I was in Utah last November. I went to a new stylist and it was a very big mistake.  Really, really bad. But I thought, no biggie, it'll grow out.  Right?  wrong.  My hair seems to be growing at a ridiculously slow rate.  And so instead of growing it out again to my former length I think I am going to have to cut it first.  So here is my question all you people out there.  What do you think of this hair cut?  How do you feel about the bangs?  I haven't had bangs like that since like the second grade but I'm really loving her hair in these pictures.  Very "Chicago"  20's artsy feeling.  Again, Good?  Bad?    

  Oh yeah, the picture is from Anthropologie.  Love their clothes.  But at this moment in life it's more about admiring things than buying them. lol.

A Spring reflection.

I didn't start out today thinking that it was going to be good. I woke up grumpy and emotional with cramps to boot.  But the day was so beautiful I knew I needed to get Cole out to play.  So we went to the zoo. I thought to myself if we just went for an hour or so then I wouldn't feel so bad when I was working in the afternoon but my thoughts soon changed after we got there. I met up with a few friends and their little ones. And I watched as one of the Mom's chased her two year old around.  He'd disappear in seconds and she'd find him just in the nick of time climbing over a fence trying to get to which ever animal he wanted to see.  He wanted in and out of the stroller, and wove in and out of the crowds. I could see her frustration mounting and she left the zoo early to get him home to his nap.  And all that time Cole stood by me and listened when I called him or asked him to go somewhere.  He was an ideal zoo companion and it was then that I realized that some how we made it through this past year without me ending up in a mental institution and without Cole being hurt or maimed in some way. How that happened I just don't know, but it did.

   Last year I was the Mom with the child that all the other parents shook their head at.  I was running, yelling, leaving early. I remember specifically a visit to the park last year in Athens when he just would not stay on the playground he wanted to be in the street or playing in the very quick stream or running off into the woods and I think I had to return him to the play ground over 20 times before I left my group of friends early in tears that I had a child who never listened and only wanted what he wasn't suppose to have. I couldn't understand what I was doing wrong.  Grant was always a really obedient little boy, cautious, and communicative. Cole wasn't using any words, he was fearless and never listened to anything I had to say.  How could they be so different when I was doing the same things? I took him to the doctors to be tested for speech and they sent me to a speech therapist where it was determined that one- his hearing was fine and two- he could speak, he just didn't want to.  Nice.  And so for the last year he has lived in silence or he has mumbled his own little language and no one could understand him.  And then suddenly he started to change and grow up.  Last weekend my sisters kept commenting on how much he was saying and how well they could understand everything.  And he was!  And he is!  And I think that really, that has been a big part of the problem all along.  Now that he is communicating what he want's and listening to what I have to say things have been going so, so well.

   And so today, I found myself in tears again standing in a moment I thought would never come.  I went out with my baby and found myself standing next to a little boy.  One that I really enjoyed being with.  One that I was having a great time with.  And when all the other Mom's left I asked Cole what he would like to do and he told me that he would like to see the Gorillas.  And so we did, just he and I holding hands and strolling through the animals. We spent over an hour watching the Gorillas and Cole told me all about why he liked them. "They are black and they eat carrots and carrots are good for you."  When I asked him if he was ready to go he said yes, and there was no tantrum.  No kicking or screaming.  Just a simple yes.  And on the way out of the zoo when he saw the merry-go-round and looked up at me and asked if he could please ride it I said yes and we had a great time on the lion spinning around and around laughing.  He even asked me to carry him through the parking lot.  And that is a big deal for someone as independent as he is.

  Today was one of the best days I think that I could have had.  We made it through two and three.  Somehow we made it.  And we are both okay.  Sometimes I live in such fear that I am somehow ruining my boy's with my inept parenting skills but today was a sign that we are doing okay.  Teaching each other and challenging each other for sure but....we are making it!

Back to frivolity

So back to the pictures I was going to post.  My sister and I went to some cool antique shops the last day she was here.  I didn't buy anything but there were some really cool pieces.

How can you not love this orange over night bag from the 60's?  It's very Doris Day.  I love it.

A "bad idea" book.  My sister and I laughed over that.  I think it's something everyone needs.  You know, get out all those bad ideas before you actually go through with them. I guess I was having a thing for orange that day.

I swear at some point I'll stop talking about my weekend trip in Columbus with my sisters but....  my sister got a ton of balloons from the shower and Cole was in love.

Some have asked where the stores in Columbus were my sister told me they were in a section of town called old Powell. We went to "the collection" and to "bloomsbury"

We also went to this place called Jeni's icecream.

http://www.jenisicecreams.com/index.html

It's the most amazing icecream shop I have ever been to.  They have these crazy flavors that are so good. I had Orange Flower( which tasted exactly like what you would imagine real orange flowers would) Wildberry with Lavender and Pear Riesling.  They were all so amazing.  My sister had Strawberry Rose Petal and Cassis.  They change the flavors all the time and they are always crazy and fun.

  Okay well, I think I'm done with the weekend recap.  I love having sisters and I wish we were all closer to each other.

My Day

I was going to write something completely frivolous and fun today.  I have some pictures from an antique mall that my sister and I went to before she left, but as I was writing about it to post I heard sirens getting closer and closer until I saw fire trucks stopping in front of our house.  Mark and I ran out with Cole in arms to find that a home across the street and a few doors down was on fire.  You could just see the flames starting to rise from around the corners of the roof.  I went into get my camera, I thought maybe I could get a decent picture of the house before it started to burn incase they didn't have one for insurance purposes.  But then the photographer in me took over and I got a few more.  I learned once again why I am not in photojournalism. I took a lot of journalism classes in college and I worked on the college paper for a while.  My teacher told me I had to much empathy and got to involved in the stories to tell it without a point of view.  He was right.  I don't think that I could handle taking pictures of news stories everyday.  It would be so hard to see the pain of the people involved and intrude on that moment.

The firemen eventually got the fire in control and out before it moved onto the other houses. There was no one inside so at least no one was hurt. They were amazing.  I admire their hard work so much. I looked out the window later to find them cleaning out the house dumping loads of burned household items outside and bring out only a few boxes that contained something worth saving. It made me so sad and it has made me think about how fast things can change in our lives.  You leave for work with your home intact and return to ashes. I know it's cliche to say it's important to live in the moment, but I needed the reminder.  I am always worrying about something in the future, but the truth is, eventually something, sometime is going to go wrong and today I am realizing I should just enjoy all the sweet moments in between.

An ironic statement

Okay, so normally when you say I spent my Saturday morning getting an oil change you don't say it with excitement but I do.  At least I have since I discovered the shop around the corner from my sisters house in Columbus.  Now I get my oil changed whenever I go up to visit.

At first glance it is just a gas station. And the waiting room is a chair in between the ice cream machine and the coffee maker.  But the magic lies within the people there.  The Saturday morning crowd the owner likes to call it.  A group of little old men that come every Saturday to talk about cars and women and the good old days. They aren't exclusive or leery of being overheard.  They often turn to me in my chair in the corner ( the only chair in the place and they refuse to take it on account of the lady in the room) and ask me what I think?  What the world is coming to?  And I smile and reply back.  In that gas station I get referred to as Sweet Heart, and Love and Young Lady and instead of it being sexist it is endearing.  For the half of an hour I am there I feel like I have stepped back into time.  I landed somewhere between the 40's and 50's which my Mother has often told me she thought that I belonged.   

  The owner is so honest.  I trust him.  And that is hard to find in an auto repair place.  I took my car into our dealership because the power steering was making a funny noise and they told me that it would cost over 200 dollars to fix it.  I took it into this gas station and the owner told me it was the power steering fluid.  5 dollars later and everything was fixed again no more noise.  Nice huh? I'm so grateful for that little shop and the few minutes I get to feel like an oldfashioned lady ever few months.

   

This weekend

So, I haven't written for a few days and that's because I had a secret.  It was my sisters Stephanie’s baby shower this weekend.  And my other sister, the baby girl of the family, Marissa flew in from

Nevada

so that we could drive to

Columbus

and surprise her. But it was hard to write about my day without writing about how my sister was with me and that would have spoiled the surprise thus the no blogging.

  We are here now and Stephanie was very surprised!  The shower was really fun.  She has great friends. And she is one of those people that looks glowy and cute while pregnant.  Then we went shopping together this afternoon and I was so inspired by some of the stores.  I totally forgot my camera and was so mad but my sister had her little camera so I got a few things.  The pictures aren't great but here they are flash and all.

We went to this store called The collection.  They had some great ideas.  First, I loved these two walls.  I think that someday when we are settled somewhere I want to paint a big huge pattern on the walls like these:

I also love the way that another store had painted the ceiling dark and left the walls white with this border all the way around.  They painted it in a hallway and I thought it was a great way to make a walk through space interesting. I don’t really think I’d go with something as heavy as black though

.

I also loved this big empty frame just leaning against the wall.

I also found a bunch of fun storage idea’s for scrapbooking stuff.

I thought that this was such a fun way of storing ribbon.  I think that I might have to install this in my studio someday…if I ever have one.  They hung a strong ribbon from the ceiling and strung the ribbon on bobbins. It’s the pink ribbon on the right in the photo.

At a store called

Bloomsbury

I found a few more great storage ideas.

I think using shutters to hang projects on while they are in process, or notes or pictures is a really great idea. My sister has already done this is her office with a set of vintage green shutters and I love them.

I don’t really like this picture or the project exactly but I like the idea of it.  They got some old iron work which is pretty easy to find around and used it to hang mini albums on.  I think it would be a great idea to mount something like this on your wall and hang your albums.  It would be a great way to display them all and stay organized.

Also I loved these old painted lockers. They would be great for storage

Anyway, just a few fun ideas.  I was good and really didn’t buy anything.  I mean as it is if we move to

New York

to a tiny apartment next year we will already have to let some things go. I did buy a few small items though and I’ll have to post them on another day.  Typepad doesn’t seem to be getting along with this computer so I’m rigging this blog post up in Microsoft word.  Which is why you won’t be able to make the pictures any larger.  Sorry about that!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!