Let It Snow!

For years now I have been photographing a local family for their holiday card and to document the life of their young daughter. So this year during our planning e-mails I shot back the idea that perhaps we venture out of the living room and den to more diverse environs. It was great when she was an infant, I just got to hang out with her, stay pretty much in one place. Now she is quite the cute little chatterbox, interested in everything and flashing moments of great photographic possibilities at every turn. I felt like the living room was too played out for me, too confining.

Alas, when I woke that morning to wet, rainy skies I thought, oh well, the living room it is.

Far from truth. I arrived at midday to a wonderful autumn snow storm fresh with big huge, wet flakes and a coating of billowy white snow. At every turn the backdrop seemed to beckon and once we got the indoor shot in the can we ventured outdoors to play. I'm not sure if I cherished the time outdoors making snow angels and mini snowmen or the photos I was able to capture.

One thing is for sure: Kids photograph best when they are being kids. So for all you parents who feel pressure to pose them and instruct them, really just let them go be themselves in all their inquisitiveness and follow with a camera, being quick on the draw. They'll produce more beautiful faces and tender moments than you could ever contrive in a dozen sittings.

Let it snow!!











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Cupcakes and Mermaids

Local stylist Beth Chrisner and I collaborated this fall for a daylong shoot with three local models to create some dynamic work in and around the Annapolis, MD area. It is always a pleasure to work with motivated creatives!

Maternity Photo Session

What a wonderful experience it was to capture one of Deb's last days of pregnancy and I am so grateful to her Ethan and the outstanding Liam for coming over to the studio to spend some time with us. Perhaps even more rewarding was letting that little man take the camera and shoot his own photos. Forget showing a kid what he looks like on the camera's LCD to get him back to sane behavior, just give him the camera!









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Family Portraiture at its Best

This shoot last week in DC was so much fun, capturing not only great images but for me the innocence of youth and the fresh joy of his parents. Thanks all for a great time!












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Saving the Earth one ecoBowl at a Time

Shooting the fall lineup last week of nature- and spirit-friendly ecoBowls in Kennebunkport at Presence of Nature was good old fashioned fun and hard work. Sagel and Kelly treated me right and I was so happy to contribute to the marketing for a new business that is certainly destined for great success.

This peaceful shop above the hustle of this lovely port-slash-tourist town plays gentle music as guests browse half a dozen styles of beeswax bowls in a variety of color and then make plans to decorate it according to the soul's delight. Floating candles, pinecones with cool rounded pebbles or potpourri and other dried flowers. Even a cool selection of small green rootless plants called tilandsias are available to choose from. Kids love to create and adults find great interest as well.

These bowls are fantastic reminders of nature in any setting and judging by the interest in the few hours I was there, Presence of Nature is a big hit. See presenceofnature.com and look for photos from iwphoto.com soon enough!

Thanks Sagel and Kelly.

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From Mud to Milestones

It's been just more than a year since the Cedar River rose to the 500-year flood stage and devastated the town of Cedar Rapids, IA. Those who were able to catch the story on the evening news noted a striking familiarity to the scenes we saw after levees along the Mississippi broke and flooded southern Louisiana. Except in Iowa it wasn't covered 24/7. And Louisiana was never forgotten.

I was in Cedar Rapids for the second time this year, this time to photograph Zins Restaurant owners Amy Wyss and Lee Belfield. They, their investors and generous Iowans helped them overcome the odds. With private funds they relaunched their unique upscale tapas restuarant in this working class city with its iconic Quaker Oats factory smack dab in the middle of town burning out the smells maple and brown sugary goodness all night long.

Here more than a year later, residents recite the first edition of local lore. Like the night the hospital needed evacuating and so many hundreds of volunteers showed up in the wee hours of the morning that many more had to be turned away. And their eyes well up telling it. I too get goosebumps listening to others describe the level of support in similar numbers the town poured out to sandbag a water well in danger, to save untold millions in lost business not to mention an astronomical health threat.

What community has ever come together and raise thousands of dollars for a restaurant, a private enterprise, like this one did? I've never heard. And despite still many boarded up homes and businesses and an uncanny quietness about some suburbs, there's talk that's positive, and there's hope that is more than just talk. It's alive.

As I chatted with Amy while enjoying the best Cuban flan I've ever had, I watched Lee walk around the room on what was just any old Thursday night greeting regular guests by their first name and thanking them for their patronage. Just then he showed me it was about good food but it was also about community. That this is not just a place where people came together to dine fantastic, upscale food in a predominantly middle class town, but a place to celebrate their community, and friends and neighbors. Their home. A community that wasn't bitter about lack of federal aid, or forgotten promises. But a community that looked inward to solve its its own problems with a greatness that befits the hearts of its residents.

One thing is consistent, they all speak in hushed tones when honoring those who suffered incredible loss while at the same time acknowledging the amazing fortunes of a community drawn into cohesion from the receding waters of the Cedar River.

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At 13,796 Feet

Hiking Mauna Kea on Hawaii's Big Island was an otherworldly experience. Landscapes that looked like martianscapes, the occasional plant growth that seemed from the same planet. And then the emergence of giant orbs of interplanetary observance over the crest of the summit hills. And when the sun sets the Universe lights are switched on for a rare perspective on where the Earth fits in.

I captured some of those sights here in classic color and the seemingly apropos infra red.

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