i stole their color.....

i stole their color after they stole my heart

~

armed with just my creative lenses, we walked to the sunflower field. the sun was starting to give up, having burned all day, and was falling to the ground. first i used my wide angle lens. i reached into the field, letting it shoot whatever it wanted, never looking through the viewfinder. my lens-baby was up next and honestly, with a field of flowers and nothing large to focus on, she became bored.

granted, we created a few shots together, but she would have rather been at an amusement park.

so, the wide angle went back on and this time i took control and really concentrated on what i wanted to capture. we had a blast. honestly, i rarely use this lens, but during the golden hour in the wild land of sunflowers, she was my best friend.

*

you can steal my quiet anytime.....

all i know after a weekend of mostly doing nothing and a little bit of everything, is that it will end tonight with laughing. you see, the kids are coming for dinner, with friends. that means instead of just the two of us, which i've gotten so used to, there will be six of us. 

~

it will be a bit crowded around our little table for four and everyone will be fighting over everything i cooked...not...and this is where the laughing begins....which in my world, means everything is perfect.

unfortunately our  daughter's fiancé can't join us and you know what that means.

yep, he's the one we get to talk about.

*

because it would....

happy weekend everyone

*

{this is an old photo of mine, with a quote i just recently found}

loving what you do.....

i think the lily pads are beautiful this way. usually they're resting their weary heads on top of the water, doing what the pond tells them to do, but with our drought, they've literally stood up for themselves, while waiting for relief with the rest of us.

~

i recently finished susannah conway's book, "this i know" and loved it. it can be found in the "death and grieving" section of some bookstores, 

which just seems wrong to me. i think it's so much more than that. if i owned a bookstore, her book would be found in the "living, loving, love yourself, do what you love, eat what you love, photography" section, 

on a vintage wallpaper wrapped shelf all by itself.

yep, i really liked it that much.

especially the part when she talked about how she thought she had to be paid for her photography in order to call herself a photographer and discovered that that was a bunch of crap.

*

some people say i talk too much....

i drive a bit fast. not furiously, but cautiously and quick. if you drive a prius, thank you for trying to make our air quality better, but i hope and pray that while i'm practicing my patience {that's been called "little" more than once} i don't get stuck behind you in traffic or have to wait for you to pull out of your parking spot.

~

i have a green thumb. yep, it's true. i can grow beautiful plants and keep them living for a really long time, as long as they're in my house or on my screened in porch. what's my trick? water.

~

target's been a madhouse lately with all the kids getting ready to go back to school and it's driving me a bit batty. every time i want to run in for just a few things, the store is crawling with overly excited kids and bedraggled parents with faces that scream, "i'd rather stick these new pencils in my eye then continue shopping with these kids of mine"....but the new school supplies, especially the journals and folders {folklore by liz diller} make me giddy and turn me into a 10 year old. 

i bought all three designs in both the folders and the journals. i couldn't help myself.

now maybe i can teach myself to journal.

~

i was in michael's today looking for candles and all of a sudden their halloween and fall decorations jumped out and assaulted me. seriously, they did. now granted it's been hot here and autumn sounds really good right about now, but it's still summer and i don't want to see anything pumpkin related in july. oh and DSW has winter boots out on display. gross.

~

our son is pursuing a career in sound engineering and like a mad man, he has practically turned his condo into a sound studio with its own isolation room. the best part of all of this....he's really good at what he does. he recently found a girl with a beautiful voice and because i'm such a proud mom, you can hear what they produced, just this afternoon, right here.

when i can teach....

i saw her sitting off in the distance, in the sand, completely content. 

after taking our own family photos and laughing at the little boy near her who was wickedly throwing a frisbee in the direction of unsuspecting beach walkers, i set off to find her parents.

i found her mother and complimented her on how sweet and still her daughter was. she said she's always like that. especially in the sand. she told me how she'll sit for hours, just sifting through the sand over and over again, completely unaware of how she's eating and breathing the granules. i asked her if  i could photograph her, and she said yes. she then said, i dressed her cute tonight in hopes of getting some nice photos myself, but the light's all wrong. i choked on my gum and then told her that actually the light at that moment was perfect. that's it's called the beginning of the golden hour and while you're in florida the golden hour is actually a few hours long. she asked if i was a photographer and because i still have difficulty calling myself that, i said, yep, that's what i do.

i then i showed her. i pointed out to her how the light was falling. where it was coming from. the best place to stand. how the light made her daughter's red hair shine. then she started taking photos herself and was giddy. she had a wonderful nikon camera and if i had had more time, i would have shown her more. i would have explained aperture and moved her settings off of auto, but i was with my family and we were ready to move on.

these are the things i love to teach. i am so far from ever knowing everything about photography and i continue to learn something new everyday, but the things i do know, i want you to know. i think that's human nature. that we want to teach and to share with others the things we know. 

especially when we love doing what we know.

i would have loved to have taught this mom about "catch light" but that would have been for another day. another time. instead, i let this sweet little pumpkin look right at us, as she finally raised her head and realized we were even there. it produced squinty {the sun is blinding me} eyes, but i didn't care. it let me capture the sand caked on her face and dancing in her scalp.

this is why i find strangers fascinating. just look at what i got to shoot, what i got to teach, the interaction i had, because i went up to a woman and asked, "is that your daughter?"

~

i hope this weekend you're surrounded by strangers,  in a good and maybe sandy way

*

i heard it fall....

it rained. it finally rained, and

i don't ever remember appreciating it like this before. 

we actually woke up early just to watch it.

it's that time of year again. hello seniors.

this beautiful girl was so much fun to work with. due to the heat and a time constraint {she had to get her braces back on} i did this shoot in two parts. with the temps staying in the nineties, i asked my favorite antique shop if we could shoot inside and they said, "of course." so we played around and had the best time. luck was on my side when we found a "one" and a "three" in a pile of old metal numbers.

shooting outside is my absolute favorite place to be...but you already knew that. natural light is a gift and when you combine that with a slight breeze, well hello beautiful.

 senior photos on a disc...wrapped and ready to be picked up.

have any of you updated the firmware on your camera before? i've not ever done it, but just found out how important it is to do. after reading the instructions though, which seemed greek to me and a bit scary {which can happen when i see the words "download" and "file"} i found out that my local camera shop will do this for me. {thank god} i just felt the need to put this information out there since this was all new news to me and i love to keep everyone in the loop. 

thrills....

well, here they are. my current trespassing photos. i hope you're not disappointed,

because we've been here before. a few years ago. when it didn't feel like trespassing.

but now there are more "no trespassing" signs and groundskeepers who smile and laugh when you ask,

"are we trespassing?"

the one we ran into told us it's next to impossible to keep the "photographers" away. especially the wedding photographers. we talked to him for a bit while he told us stories about the building, including the cost it would take to repair it or the amount needed to tear it down.

and, how it was discussed last year, about turning the whole place into an artist's studio.

then he told us to have fun.

it's a dangerous place for the all the "graffiti" kids to hang out, but i think we need to take a minute to applaud them for all their artwork. it's truly amazing. now granted, i'm not one who goes around promoting the defacing of beautiful buildings, but in this case, honestly, i'd love a front row seat to watch them in action.

through the crumbled and caved in roofs, trees grow. 

if you look closely at the photos you'll see them.

i wish i could convey to you just how badly i want to get inside this building. can you even imagine the indoor jungle that grows behind these brick walls, or the animals and birds that call this place home? to be totally honest though, i have to tell you that raccoon poop totally grosses me out.

i had to include one of the many "no trespassing" signs. i mean i know you believe me when i tell you they're there, but it's always nice to show you just how much of a rebel i am. well, me and my hubby. did you know he was never a rule breaker until he met me?....snort.

happy monday everyone

~

ps...if you've been watching the news/weather channel, you probably noticed that once again mother nature is playing ugly. sheesh, she's been relentless this summer. but if this means a warm winter without very much snow, then i'm all for these one hundred agree heat advisory days.

you is special....

in my last post, i asked for a little help, and not surprising at all, you delivered. if you were here, we would have sat on this bench together while i told you just how special you are to me.

then i would have grabbed your hand and taken you trespassing with me. the place i mentioned a few posts back 

{where we got caught trespassing} is right behind these benches and it's amazing.

i promise next week to share those photos with you.

so again, thank you. all of you. for squealing with me and for me.

now i just have to wait patiently to see if this project gets approved.

i hope you have the best weekend. i really do.

*

ps. "you is special" is from "the help"....if you haven't seen it, i hope you do.

leaping squeals....

 sometimes beautiful things come into our lives out of nowhere. we can't always understand them, but we have to trust in them. i know you want to question everything, but sometimes 

it pays to just have a little faith.

~anonymous~

~

today, i not only have a little faith, but i'm wrapping myself up in it. yesterday i received an email regarding the possibility of a dream photography assignment, in a dream location, from an advertising agency.

maybe you heard the squeal that leapt out of me when i read it, no ?

so my fingers are crossed, along with my toes and any other body parts that want to join in, while i wait to hear back from them. feel free to cross your fingers, too. i'll take all the help i can get.

oh and prayers...they're really good, too.

*

i'm not sure how much more i can take....

i love the sun's heat and the warmth it provides, but enough already.

granted, i'll be eating those words this winter when it starts to snow and my complaints about winter spew out of me, but right now, i'm tired of sweating.

last week was long and jagged and an emotional roller coaster.

this week, i think i'm back on solid ground.

to all of you who left a comment, called me or sent me a private email regarding sophie's death,

thank you. your love, sympathy and kindness walked right into my heart and will stay with me forever.

losing sophie was so much harder then we ever imagined, as she truly was our baby.

~

our vet told me that i would know when it was time to say good-bye. that i would see it in her eyes.

and he was right. i did. but making the decision that "today is the day" about brought us to our knees.

for any of you who have been through this, you know exactly what i mean.

{this photo was taken right after she was diagnosed with kidney failure}

~

{found on tumblr}

*

{just a little side note. we have always loved our vet, his office and the girls that work for him and they truly made "the end" as perfect as they possibly could for all of us.  if you have pets, but only feel luke warm towards the vet you go to, switch now. make sure you love your vet as much as you love your own doctor. believe me, it's important. especially in the very end}