So, I recently just stopped blogging (again). I know exactly what happened, and so today I’m hoping that by just putting this little ditty together for you, I will get over that hump and get back into blogging regularly (again). Recently I had the opportunity to do a session in my studio with a woman who is 101 years old. She was willing to sit nude for me for an hour and tell me stories while I photographed her. The experience had such an impact on me, I haven’t been able to really talk about it here or show any of the work here on my blog… yet.

Soon. I hope.

I think for me, blogging is such a practice of self expression and the willingness to put everything out there for the world to read just hasn’t been there for me since my session with the 101 year old. I know some of the pieces are strong, and I plan to exhibit more of them. (You can see one of them on display in the members’ show up right now at Orr Street Studios)

On Monday I met again with my mentor, Gloria Baker Feinstein) in Kansas City. This time I wasn’t nearly as scared and we got straight to work looking at images. I learned a lot and I’d like to just share three of the best pieces from the day.

And then there are the days that maybe don’t go so great. (If you’re confused by this sentence, you’ll need to read my last post) Sometimes babies (and young children) can be unpredictable.  We do our best to schedule sessions at the child’s very best time of day… and then they go and change their schedule on us!  I have found that 3 months might be the hardest age to predict.  One very cool thing about being a fairly small operation is, if something goes awry I am always happy to try again until we get it right!  I think it’s only happened a handful of times that I have been unsatisfied enough with a session that we schedule a do-over.

It just happens that Forrest’s 3 month shoot was one of those times. Truly my only directive (I just finished watching WALL.E with my kids) was to get a shot of him smiling. “He’s such a smiley guy” mom kept telling me over the phone.

Well mom, I think we got it! I hope you’ll agree it was worth the wait!

Can’t get enough of those rolls.

Sometimes everything just works out. A session will just fall together in a way that I couldn’t have planned. I still surprise myself by how much FUN we can have in the studio. I don’t think any of us was expecting to have such a great time… I don’t know why we expected it to be such a chore, but all of us keep saying what an amazingly FUN time we had - so it makes me wonder what exactly were we expecting? I’ve had the pleasure of photographing the Muno boys a few times before; but always out on their farm. Their parents own and operate Goatsbeard Farm. If you haven’t had the pleasure of eating their amazing goat’s milk cheeses you are missing out. (They can ship cheese to those of you who are outside of the mid-missouri area) Anyway, I digress. (easy to do when I’m thinking about their cheese!)

The boys and mom came over last Friday afternoon. Peter (eight) had been told he could go to the comic book store around the corner when we were finished. Perhaps that’s why everything went so well! This is a great example of my short studio session and how effective it can be. I had a hard time narrowing it down to a few choices, but here they are:

My family has a special journal we keep. It’s a beautiful little book hand crafted and stitched paper with a piece of leather that wraps around it to keep it shut. It’s our, “I’ve never seen anything like that before in all my life” journal. Linda and I are constantly amazed at the cool things we see when we’re paying attention. We often comment, “wow, I’m x number of years old and I’ve never seen anything like that. Boys! you are only x number of years old and you get to see it today!” It kept happening and we began to wonder if maybe we had seen some of this stuff but just didn’t remember. So we started to write about it. One thing I remember vividly hurrying to write down was when we saw a cardinal get hit by a car. (I know, it’s really terrible) But, it’s not something you see everyday. I think they must be smarter or faster than other birds. Or something. Anyway, it must have been hit by the car that was about 50 ft in front of us. Just before our eyes, there was this amazing explosion of red feathers. As I’m writing this, I know I’m not doing the moment justice. It was beautiful. It was really something to see. It was like a firework of red feathers. Truly, never was the death of something living quite so beautiful.

So this morning, I was feeling a little down. I’d recently lost a long term client to someone charging a ridiculously low sum. I was sad on many levels. When I work with a family from pregnancy through the birthdays every year… it is just plain a bummer knowing I won’t see them again. Anyway, on with the story! I looked out our front door and into our garden and was stopped in my tracks. There was the most beautiful complete orb spider web attached to our crabapple tree. The morning was heavy with dew and it was cool outside creating the breathtaking affect of steam coming off of everything that was alive. The tree appeared to be breathing. I don’t know if I’ve done the scene justice, but I’ve given it my best shot. Enjoy!

I have never been more proud to be a photographer as I was last Sunday.  I was honored to be a part of Hold That Hug a drop in family photo/play-date at the park in honor of Sarah E.M. Becking Six local photographers (and about a dozen other supporters!) donated time and energy to create this amazing event.  To see All of the AMAZING photos (and photos by Sarah that are for sale) go to www.becking.zenfolio.com  A slideshow of the event should be up soon at the Hold that Hug blog.

I think this photo of Ashley Turner and Kim Wade is a great example of what the day was like. (Thanks to Abbie Brown for taking pictures of the whole event for us!)

As I’m re-reading this…I’m just seeing that this doesn’t really express what I want it to. The day was so big, the event so big and so important. I met some amazing people who told me their personal stories and reasons for being there. It was so much bigger than me. It was so much bigger than what I can say here. Isaac (my 4 year old) called it a miracle…and in a way, it really was. I photographed a family with a teenage son who had never had a family picture made, I photographed a family who had lost their dad just 2 months ago, I photographed two little boys with their sticks that “gave them power”. Kim Wade took my family picture (look under hold that hug, silverbox photographers: kim wade–we’re the first one in her folder) and we LOVE it…you know, photographers are pretty hard to photograph.

I know, I know…it almost seems cliche to have a family portrait session at Shelter Gardens…but there’s a reason all those photographers are there jockeying for position nearly every evening.  Sometimes everything just falls into place - perfect light, perfect white dresses, plenty of bug spray, and Voila!  A really fun and magical photo session.  I’ve known these girls since the youngest was 5 weeks old.  One great thing about being a children’s photographer is getting to see the children grow up!     After we finished up at Shelter Garden, we hopped in our cars and drove to the small sprayground at FlatBranch park.  WOW!  The light was fantastic and the girls had a BLAST playing in the water.  I now want to end all photo sessions this way!  (Thanks to silverbox photographers for the great idea!)     

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