Monthly Archives: November 2009

Saturday, November 21, 2009

the venue

my life

I don’t think that I mentioned that my sister got engaged at the end of the summer. Engagements are joyous by their nature, but for our family, for my parents in particular, this has been long anticipated. It is a little complicated by a few factors: my parents live in Atlanta and the wedding will be in the Boston area, the bride & groom prefer outdoor locales and my mother prefers guaranteed good hair weather, my sister is furiously studying to graduate from graduate school in NYC and her fiancee is living here in Boston, and, as it turns out, there is no perfect place to get married.

So, despite these obstacles, the search was on for a place, a very-close-to-perfect place to host the wedding. During the meet my family dinner his folks recommended one spot as a place that seemed to meet the criteria. It took a couple weeks, but a visit to Glen Magna proved to be last venue look needed. The estate has a beautiful old house, adjacent orchards, and some lovely gardens (where the wedding will be) and a million cool nooks–basically making the photographer’s job so much fun. But the most excellent spot on the property is a giant weeping beech tree. Actually five trees that have been grafted together to form one huge natural canopy. It is enchanted. See for yourself.

And while you are at it, can you please cross your fingers for a breezy, sun-filled, 0% humidity day on August 22, 2010? We would all appreciate it.

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Friday, November 6, 2009

Stella’s back!

babies, my life

So, you know that hiatus from blogging I took in October, well part of that time was a trip I took to DC to check on Ms Stella’s progress with, you know, smiling and pooping and all. The excuse for the trip was my parent’s 40th (really!) wedding anniversary, which they happened to be celebrating in DC.

Stella’s mom, as you may recall, is my most long-lived, dear, dear friend (my, we are old, only old people call friends “dear”). She has many virtues, and she loves Stella deeply, but she hates shopping. As a result my 13 pound girl was still wearing her newborn clothes. Many of you will rightly wince at the idea of a 13 pound newborn, and poor Stella, she just wanted to cover her burgeoning belly (I know this because she told me, of course). That left me with the DREAM job of buying little girl clothes for Stella! It is so much fun that I even talked some friends here into helping with the effort. What is better than little baby girl clothing? I went to town (at all the very best discount stores) and even dragged her mom to a mall where we bought a flurry of tiny denim things, a dozen printed onesies, little jumpers, and STRIPED TIGHTS! Then every day I dressed the baby doll in her new clothes and paraded her to her mom and dad, who have since then been keeping Stella (tummy and all) in some high-fashion finery. And, some may say that it is just coincidence, but she has been smiling in every one of the new photos I have gotten. I mean, check out the mod little outfit she is sporting in this photo…

Stella2-5mo-3266

During my time in DC I was able to take Stella to meet my mom, who was instantly in love. She flirted pretty hard with my dad as well. It was a special meeting with the next generation, I mean when my mom initially met Stella’s mom she was 9. Pretty cool.

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Monday, November 2, 2009

blue-eyed baby L

babies, families

Any of you who are raising children know who the real boss in the family is. I mean we all try to pretend to be in control and certainly need to be on top of a million details, but the real boss wears the diapers.

Well, photographing children is not so very different. Parents try hard, always, to help me get their child to smile, to cooperate, to stand still, but if a child decides that today is not their day or that they need a snack NOW (“I don’t care if the light is perfect!”), after a few failed changes in strategy I always tell parents, it is useless to fight them. Truth be told there are times that I let myself get so hungry that I would also like to cry, but, you will happy to know, I resist.

That brings me to typically wonderfully happy Baby L. I mean, look at that face, doesn’t she just ooze pleasant and cooperative? Can you resist kissing it? If you can you are stronger than I am. Even when her face does crumple into a cry she almost seems like she is saying, “why are you making me do this, if you just hold me and cuddle me there would really be no need! Can’t we just be friends?” And last week she was not so much digging the camera. I mean she liked being outside and she got into her outfits without complaint. She was happy to be in whatever arms were available (more like the arms that won the fight to hold her), but the smiles were more elusive. But we adults, we persevere. We can’t just be happy in her company, we need photographic evidence of our love and devotion. Photos of our boss at each irresistible age.

Luckily, we always end up with something good. And Baby L’s shoot was no exception:

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