Simply adorable

Today's session was so easy and smooth that I'm still not entirely positive something didn't go wrong and I just can't remember what it is.  (Did you follow all those double negatives?)  This little guy is still sleepy.  (I *LOVE* the first two weeks!)  He was sleeping when they came in.  He was sleeping when they undressed him (except to open his eyes long enough to see his parents were still in arms reach - you never know when you'll need a snack! - and go right back to sleep).  He woke up to nurse and went right back to sleep.  One little piddle, nothing else.  The kid was a trooper!  I had a hard time picking my favorites from the session to show you.  Y'all know I'm horrible at narrowing things down and he was simply adorable.  :)  

How to photograph a one year old

One year olds are challenging.  VERY challenging.  They're fascinated by everything, and they are fast!  They are constantly on the move.  And when you hold them still, you get cranky faces.  I don't want cranky faces.  Dangle them from their ankles, however, and you get this:

I totally love this picture!  I've been photographing this boy since before he was born, and every time we get something really fun, but this shot is my absolute favorite of him.

Another trick is to give them something to play with... like, oh, say, a cake (and yes, that's a different baby).   :)

The saddest song I know is by Maurice Sendak

This song makes me cry.  (Which is hard to explain to the preschoolers who are watching the video with you.)  Pierre.  Pierre was a boy who didn't care.  The gist of the story (or the song, as I've only heard it sung by Carly Simon) is that all he could say was, "I don't care".  So things happen, but not with him.  Until they do.   For those of you who haven't read or heard the story, I'll leave the details out.  Let's just say there is a large carnivore involved.  But that's not the sad part.  (although, it SHOULD be.)  The saddest line in the song, and in the world,  really, is when his mother is calling him her darling boy, her pride and joy, and all he says is, "I don't care".   An  d kids say stuff like that all the time and we hope - and assume - they don't mean it (because I clearly do love my mother, despite how many times I shouted otherwise when I was slamming doors as a teenager).  But in the story, Pierre really doesn't care.  And that's always a possibility in life.   We hope, when we have children, that they will love us with all the furiosity with which  we love them.  But there are no guarantees.   There aren't any guarantees with anything.   

I found out this week that another friend is separating from her husband.  And  I'm still shocked.   I thought they were happy.  They looked happy from the outside.   I wonder how my family looks from the outside.  I'm thinking we might not always look so great.  I'm cranky and snapping at my husband for no good reason (how dare he shower long enough to steam the bathroom!)  I'm yelling at my kids to please, FOR THE LAST TIME, get in the car we are running LATE!  And it seems like this happens every day.  And yet...  and yet, these are the people I love the most in the world.  I can't imagine what life would be like without them.  I don't even want to try, because the possibility of a life without any of them makes me cry.   And there are no guarantees that they will be here tomorrow.  Fortunately, the odds are pretty good.   But I want to go give them all a hug.  Right now.  (which might freak my husband out, since he's at work.  Can you imagine?  You're sitting at your desk, and hello!  You're wife is here.  She comes in, gives you a hug, and then leaves.  A drive-by hugging.)  

So yeah, I'm feeling a little moody this  morning.  It's that damned Pierre.  It does it to me every time.

 

A little out of my element

I am a studio photographer.  I love being in the studio.  I love knowing *exactly* what my light is going to look like, and if I stand right here and point it there and do this, that it's going to look like that.  I admit, I'm a little bit of a control freak.  It works for me.  (Which is kind of funny, really, because I also love doing documentary photography.)   

So today, when I did a newborn session at a client's home, with mostly available light, and three dogs, I was a little out of my element.  It's not like I don't know how to do any of it.  But I was away from my comfort zone, so I had my fingers crossed the whole time that they looked like I thought they were going to look.  Want to see how they turned out?  :)

So dusty!

I'm not loving the dust.  I am enjoying the idea of a new office.  But that in-between stage.... well, I'm not loving the dust.   I've started a new blog about the construction stuff.  The link is IHateTheNoise.blogspot.com  

(The name is  explained in the first post, which I wrote today.)

Today I did my first mid-construction session.  I'm not shooting during the week at all anymore, not until the contractors are doing the detail work inside, because today I was shooing the concrete guys out of the driveway and 90 minutes before the shoot, I was keeping my fingers crossed that I'd have electricity in the studio (and I did - yay!)  It's just too much stress for me.  My faint heart can't take it.  It makes me want to take to my bed.   (Okay, that may have been a bit of a stretch, hahaha.)  

I'm not going to talk much more about the construction here, because, well, I just went to the trouble of giving it its own blog.  And this is my photo site.  I want to show off my favorite pictures!  Like these:

  

Wonder Woman found a body in the river?

Let's get past the tragedy that finding the body of anyone entails (because if I think about that part for more than a few seconds, my head wants to explode), and go back to the Wonder Woman part.  Linda Carter is an accomplished, professional woman who has spent the last 29 years NOT being Wonder Woman (yep - since 1979, although technically, I'm sure she did some promo stuff for a while after, but lets not muddy up my point with actual facts).  She was Wonder Woman from 1975-1979 and has had 32 role since then (thank you IMDB!), in addition to doing all sorts of other things (sorry, other than that thing with Robert Altman, I haven't really kept up with her).  But she's still referred to first and foremost as Wonder Woman.    And I'm wondering...do you think she minds?  I mean, really, deep down?  I don't know if I would or not, to be honest.  I think that it's hard when you're stuck with an identity forever.  I know that when I go home to visit, I immediately go back to being that gawky weird girl from high school (and honestly, I don't know if I really WAS that girl, but that is how I felt, so to me, I was that girl).  I know that no matter what persona I try to project, I know that there are a few hundred people who only know me as who I was way back then.  And I'm not that girl anymore, or at least, I don't think I am.  But what if that persona, that person you were 25 years ago, what if she's kinda cool?  I mean, Wonder Woman - really - kinda cool.  Still.  So do you think that she's happy that people think of her as only this cool hot chick with a wicked set of bracelets, or do you think she's constantly saying, "My name is Linda!"

I was just wondering.

So anyway, today, two of my bar-none, absolutely favorite clients came in for their babies six-month sessions.  I swear, next time I'm  going to have them both come at the same time, and then we can all talk for hours.  I am positive they'd love each other.  Here is a quickie from each session: