portrait commission

senior portrait commission {erika and sarah}

Fun with siblings....

One of the sweetest young women I've ever met...she and her mother share a great relationship.

I learned a lot about gardening from this guy. He is passionate about nature and about planting seeds and watching them grow.


I've never met a child who LOVED grass stains so much! This little guy insisted I photograph his grass stains!

I always enjoy working with each child separately, finding what is unique to him or her.

Lakehouse Family Reunion

Molly, the beautiful dog! (an e-session and a wedding)

I know Molly is eager to see her photos...

I thought she might also enjoy seeing a sneak preview of the photographs from her parents' beautiful wedding day.

It must be football season...

I guess it's as good a place to start as any. I've liked the idea of a blog or online journal for a long time...but that beginning thing is a problem for me. Putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard--very, very daunting. It's WAY easier to construct ideas in my head.

What I love about blogs for a photographer is it allows viewers to get a sense of the flow of a photographer's work. A website features key images that represent an artist's style, but it doesn't really give a sense of the fluidity of that style or a sense of where the artist has been and where she's going and that windy road process in between.

So here I am on a Sunday afternoon, beginning my blog. First entry. And some of the best advice I've ever gotten is to start where you are (thank you, Pema Chodron). Where I am this Sunday is in front of the computer editing mounds of images. I open a batch, write actions and then let photoshop carry out my orders. While I wait, I wander into the buzz of my home, and I see the evolving structure of my youngest son's architectural constructions. Every football season, he creates a stadium out of cardboard blocks in our sun room. He uses it to keep track of every football game and either the time of the game or the continually changing scores in the game. It's a very scientific process--he uses the newspaper, online schedules and articles and the television to create spreadsheets and graphs. He prints out logos for every team and has a ziploc bag with handwritten numbers that he uses to change the scores. For him, it is serious, scientific business. One time I wrote on one of his spreadsheets by accident and my normally even-tempered son went to pieces.

first he reads the paper...

then, he writes out the stats...

he cuts out the team logos...

and numbers to keep the score current...

every weekend, he refines his structure....





What fascinates me is how each of us seems born with certain specific interests and talents. Even as a two year old, my son's teachers and relatives would comment on his engineer-like temperament. I LOVE discovering these nuances in children and documenting them on film. It seems when a person is engaged in an activity that taps into these inborn talents, there is an incredible sense of light and energy and peace in the air. It feels like such a gift to be able to witness these moments. MY inborn passion is to see with my camera what makes each person or relationship unique and how that uniqueness contributes to beauty in our world.

How's that for a beginning?