Rachel and Brooks Engagement Session preview

On Monday and Tuesday I had an Engagement Session with Rachel and Brooks down in Carmel. Carmel is officially known as the most dog friendly city in the world, and Rachel and Brooks love their dogs! so it was the perfect little getaway spot for them to go while Brooks is on his one week break from his residency at Stanford. So far, every day of their little vacation had been spent sleeping in, drinking some cocktails, doing a little shopping, and taking the dogs to the beach! ah, Sigh.... :) Anyway, I had a great time joining them for a few hours! I've actually barely even looked at the pictures yet, but here are a few I grabbed real quick. I'll put up a few more in a couple of weeks after I've had time to work on them.











Thanks again guys. I had such a great time with you!

Katie and Jonathan

I just finished working on Katie and Jonathan's wedding from back in March- two of the nicest people I have ever worked with!!- and am about to mail their pictures off to them on the East Coast. Here are some of my faves.

(I LOVED these shoes!)










Katie's parents seeing her for the first time all dressed up- Their expressions are priceless!





This little flower girl provided so much entertainment throughout the ceremony. She started by walking all the way to the 3rd or 4th row from the front and then deciding it would be a good time to distribute her flowers. She squatted down there for a good minute taking the petals out and placing them on the floor one by one with lots of intention until eventually she was coaxed out of the aisle so that the others might walk down it as well . . .


but later on, during the meat of the ceremony, she decided it was her turn to shine once again and proceeded with the petals. This time though, she wanted to clean up her mess and started singing Barney's "clean-up" song.














Every year in San Francisco there is this event called The Brides of March, and hundreds of people get dressed up in old wedding dresses and parade around the city. Well apparently they were just around the corner from the church when they heard there was a real live bride close by. All 200 plus of them stood outside the church while we were in the back taking pictures and chanted "we want the bride". It was amazing. Really, you couldn't have planned for or paid for anything like this- it was amazing! Here they are as they walked out upon the scene


and some of the "brides" and related characters that were chanting for them.










So many more great ones, but I think we'll sum it up there for now. Katie and Jonathan, thank you so much; we loved spending the day with you. It was an honor. And thanks again for being so patient with me getting sick and being so behind!

Dogs on the Farm

As a little follow-up to the last post, while we were there at The Farm Sanctuary, we walked out to our car at one point and passed by this truck of very excited barking dogs. Their owner happened to be walking to her car a few hundred feet back behind us and they could see her coming, and could barely contain themselves. I took some pictures and chatted with her for a bit; it was so pretty out that I asked her if we could just do a little 5 minute shoot right there. So here they are- Megan and the pack!

Hoe Down at The Farm Sanctuary

These last couple of weeks I have somehow gotten myself so far behind with work; then I got crazy sick for like a week, making me so so so far behind, so the last thing in the world I really had time for was to take an entire weekend off, but with some coaxing from my dear Shawn who's so good at knowing what I need, that's what I did anyway.
We went to The Farm Sanctuary up around Chico, and it was perfect. So fun, and relaxing, and healing, and tasty, and informative, and a whole bunch of other stuff. The event was their annual hoe down. This was our first time but I would certainly be happy to make it a tradition. I loved it!



We got there in the afternoon on Saturday and just had a little bit of time to play with the cattle- who are seriously huge, fyi- before some of the speakers started. We listened to a few talks on Animal activism and Vegan eating and then had a fabulous vegan bbq/meal before the hoe down started, which was totally my favorite part. I had no idea how to dance that way but we gave it our darnedest trying to improvise and I had an absolute blast doing it, and SHAWN was a surprisingly good cowboy! He probably wouldn't admit it but I even heard him yell a couple of "yee-haw"s











You could camp there on their property for free, which we thought would be a great idea. But their property also came with free ticks! of which I found one on my neck once we were in our tent. Gross Gross Gross. I of course handled it in the best way possible though, and flung it violently off my hand once I realized what it was. So then we had to go searching for it by flashlight :) Luckily we found it, killed it, and thought all excitement for the night was over. But I think I might have been attacked by the flashlight later that night. Right before we went to bed I asked Shawn if he was worried that the flashlight we'd hung over our heads so we could read would fall on him in the middle of the night. He said no and we went to bed. In the morning the flashlight was in our bed and Shawn said I woke up and said "OUCH!" at one point during the night. I'm not sure how I could not remember a flashlight falling 6 feet and hitting me in the head, but I don't have any bruises or bumps on my face, so I guess all is well.
So then this morning was a yoga class followed by a vegan breakfast cooking demonstration, which was my other favorite part. Here's Shawn with his green smoothie- Bananas, Dates, and a ton of Parsley.



Then we went on a guided tour and got to play with all the pigs, turkeys, goats, chickens, etc- my other favorite part.









And finally, when in Rome, do as the Romans, so here's Shawn and I rolling in the hay!

May Day

Today was May Day and ever since I can remember I have wanted to take part in a May Day Festival. I have no idea where one would be or what all it would involve, but as a little girl my mom ALWAYS read me this book- Tasha Tudor's A Time to Keep, (to which, I might add, my mom's dogs Addie and Hudson can thank for their existence. Miss Tudor loved Corgis and included them in all her drawings, drawings that my mom loved!)
Anyway, in that book, when she gets to May, there is this picture of a bunch of kids- girls in pretty, flowing, country dresses dancing barefoot around what I guess is a May Day pole. It has dozens of ribbons connected to the top and as the children circle the pole the ribbons decorate it. Man I can't even tell you how much I remember wanting to transport myself to that spot. I remember after we'd finish the book I would always go back to that one page and just stare at it. It's so funny- the things we remember- I probably haven't seen that book in 20 years yet that one page of that one book is such a clear picture in my head, and any time I realize it's May 1st, that image fills my head.

The new me

So I keep hearing again and again about how it's all about the blog. As far as portrait and wedding photographers go, if you wanna be in the club, you gotta blog. The blog is the new website. I hear that brides are foregoing looking at photographers' websites altogether and just going straight to the blog, and that they want to see new stuff all the time. But crap- who has time for all that!? Well I guess that's the point of this post- The new me apparently has time for all that- that's what she's telling herself anyway. I'm kinda obsessed with Friday Night Lights right now and Lyla Garrity says if you wanna make a change, "you just do it". So here I go on my first day of being a devout blogger. And you can see I'm dedicated to the cause because I even have new hair to match the new me. What cute bangs!
. . . unfortunately it's still the same old nose though.

Bigger

Shawn is making it so I can post things bigger! Isn't he great? And since we're doing bigger, of course Tatanka demanded being the first big picture.

The Studio- Then and Now-- a film

This is exciting! I took this first video on the day we signed our lease back at the end of August and while I can't believe it has taken us this long to get to where we're at now (we thought we'd be done by mid-October!!) I still feel proud when I go back and look at the first video. I kinda forgot just how much work we did! Whole walls taken down and new ones put up, bathroom closet removed, lead-lined x-ray room demoed, tiny back room made bigger, ugly stone floor fixed- it really is rewarding to see how far we've come.
I just took the second video yesterday. The place is still 3 weeks from being completely done (FEB 21 is our "open" date) so I'll definitely be taking more video and pics at that time, but this will still give you an idea of the progress. At this point, basically we are just waiting for the wall displays, some little odd jobs to be finished up, the workbench, and to finish the decorating.
Ok- here they go:
August 2007

Click here if you can't view the movie.
And January 2008

Click here if you can't view the movie.