Wine Country, California

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry for the lack of recent posts on the blog, we just came back from California where we had a road trip vacation combined with a family wedding – can’t beat that! After all the driving and hectic schedule of a wedding it was great to round off the vacation in the Californian wine country. We stayed at an amazing house in Sebastopol with a winery and tasting rooms just a ten minute walk down the most picturesque lane you could imagine. All the photos above are at the house and its grounds, also featuring “King” – the adorable dog of the owner who enjoyed mixing with guests. It was such a perfect setting we couldn’t resist getting our  daughter’s flower-girl dress on once more for a brief evening portrait session.

de Young museum, San Francisco

 

 

 

 

 

 

On our last day in California last week  we had fun taking photographs in and around the de Young art museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate park. The building itself is an interesting design by the same architect who designed China’s Olympic Bird’s Nest stadium, as our architecture-mad son was quick to point out. It is clad in copper with lots of circular designs and perforations, which is echoed in the large display in the main lobby. In time the brown copper walls will turn green with age to blend in fully with the park setting.

 

Big Empty Spaces

 

 With the unseasonably warm weather we’ve been having here in Massachusetts we went to the beach near Newburyport this last weekend and were lucky enough to have it to ourselves. Big empty expanses such as this uncrowded beach are fun to walk on and also to photograph, they can be used to create images with lots of ‘negative space’, which help to tell a story in itself and to emphasize a subject that only makes up a small part of the image. When shooting portraits we don’t often get the chance to compose in this way so this made a refreshing change!

 

Will time stand still?

 

 We constantly look forward. What are we doing at the weekend? How many weeks to Christmas? Is it band tomorrow? My daughter asks me every night when I give her a bedtime kiss, ” Mummy what are we doing tomorrow?”.

If instead we look back, is there some hope that time will stand still, even just for a few minutes.

We took a family walk at the beach this past weekend. I was constantly at the back of my crew trying to catch up. Out of sheer frustration I called out to my son. He stopped and looked back. I saw at that moment that he is  no longer my little boy. I love what he is growing into but feel the loss of what he’s leaving behind.

If we take time to look back will time stand still, even just for a few moments? 

 

 

Birthday Girl

 Two memories rolled into one with these portraits. Last Sunday my girl turned 7.  She also has quite a spectacular snaggle tooth!  The way it’s being pushed out seems to defy all laws of gravity.  I love this age!

 

 

Amsterdam, Cafe Papeneiland

 

 For a change this is not Jane writing the blog post, but her husband Mike who also sometimes wields the camera on shoots and vacation. Our extended family vacation this Summer took us home to the UK to see family ( that’s the reason why the blog has been quiet for the past few weeks.) As a side trip we headed over to Holland for a few days. This was not a photography holiday but with the 35mm lens at hand there was too good a light and location opportunity to ignore the chance to capture some images at the Cafe Papeneiland, one of the oldest ‘brown cafes’ in Amsterdam, it first opened in 1642! This tiny atmospheric pub/cafe was a  perfect place to shelter from a brief rain shower and enjoy the view from a large window overlooking one of the canals. Of course we had to sample the Dutch apple pie they sold there, so good President Clinton took a whole pie with him when he recently visited!

 
Once the rain eased off we were back on Amsterdam’s picturesque streets, keeping a good lookout for the many bicycles constantly whizzing by.
 

The Visitor

We had a visitor in our garden today. The first robin of Spring? Seasonal ducks on the pond? Nope..it was a SNOWMAN. April 1st brought heavy snow to our area today and it was top quality cement snow, best of the season for making a snowman.

Building snowman

putting buttons on snowman

At least the day before the snow there was some sign of Spring in my garden. Nineteen turkeys wandered across the front lawn and a few crocus have managed to avoid being our resident rabbit’s dinner! Now I really am ready for Spring to visit again and stay for longer. 

crocus sprouting

A New Year and New Blogging

Holly berries in snow

snow on plant
Red rose
Christmas cracker

Girl at computer Christmas Eve looking for Santa on NORAD

Christmas carols

We’re changing our blog a little this year. We have decided to do more personal and artistic photography in 2011 and plan to share some of this in our blog. In addition selections from baby, child and family sessions will be shown in themed groupings so they’ll no longer be a continual stream of individual session images.

So I’m kicking off the new year with a few from over Christmas. Having booked studio sessions right up to the day before Christmas Eve I  traded the camera with the fancy lenses for the one on the phone (ashamed to admit this) over the holiday season. However I did pick up my main camera on Christmas Eve. I love the holidays. For us here it’s all about the kids, cooking, and carols. I love deep reds and always deck my table out with gold, red and green on Xmas Eve. The portrait of my daughter was taken whilst she was tracking Santa on the computer. (When Santa gets to Argentina on the NORAD map we know it’s time to get ready for bed!) Our kids also surprised us with a carol concert.  I also included a couple of images from the garden before we were completely buried in the white stuff!