freebies

for those of you with ipods and the holiday spirit, apple has a gift for you! a free album of christmas music. i must say, some of these artists are great! check it out.

a photographer friend has terrific free christmas textures available on her blog today. joy is a fabulous photographer and i love what she does with toning. if you don't know who she is, you need to check her out. (plus she's featuring molly for her model on the textures) go grab you some christmas fun!! :)



i used her texture to make my christmas cards last year. :)

the triplets

i wanted to share a few of the shots of the adorable triplets. we (and their parents) spent a lot of time together last sunday. they were very shy at first but got into the swing things as the afternoon progressed. they are fraternal triplets, each their own separate little person.

throw salt over your left shoulder

this is an out take from shooting yesterday - that's the wonderful thing about photography and photoshop. you can take your mistakes and transform them into something else - something magical and etheral. would that we had a giant photoshop program to fix all of our out takes in our life, right? *smile*

nothing special to say tonight really - just a lot of whimsical thoughts. today i watched the rain fall over the overgrown chinaberry trees and thought about the book (soon to be a movie)where the wild things are. the rain created this misty effect and as the temperature changed, the windows began to steam over - creating a dreamy world. were monsters watching me watching them? i only saw the black and white stray dashing in between the bushes - no monsters today.

so, i leave you with a quote by alice hoffman: "there's a few things i've learned in life: always throw salt over your left shoulder, keep rosemary by your garden gate, plant lavender for good luck, and fall in love whenever you can."

today, the things i've learned are: always keep treats around when you have dogs - the joy you give them will be returned one hundred fold, box fans are a comforting sound, good friends are the best present to yourself and fresh flowers always make me smile. (and i always throw salt over both shoulders because i can never remember which one is the correct shoulder)

p.s. - today i read the most beautiful blog by one of my most favorite infrequent writers (wonderings and wanderings). she follows her heart wherever it leads her and i fulfill my yearnings for travel through her adventures (plus i love her photography). today's blog is about serendipity (one of my favorite subjects).

experimential

i've planned parts of this shot for some months now - i found a wonderful little re-sale shop where i happened upon previously loved prom dresses for $12 and wanted to stretch my comfort zone a bit. when the models fell through in atlanta i put feelers out for girls willing to be a bit silly. one of my friend's daughters was happy to take a chance and brought along her friend.

the girls and i had a great time today - i gave them some general instructions and told them to roll with it. they knew better than me what angles worked for their body and had some great ideas with poses. they were so naturally sunny and happy that i had to remind them sometimes not to smile. we played with luggage, balloons, cut up prom dresses - all while a parade of cars rolled pass (of course i would pick the one day that traffic was being routed through the park due to an accident).

and after we were through, what better treat than ice cream, right? gotta love models that will work for ice cream. i've wanted to work more with people and have searched for models to expand my portfolio. i think now i have enough to start working on senior portraits and casual family sessions. i learn something different to do each time i do a session. i need to continue to work on directing the poses and lighting issues that i seem to continue to have. we put the reflector to use today but often i forget in the excitement moving props and locations.

there are some more of the shots without editorial comment really. i tried a variety of processing as i have been waivering between styles again. lately when i've been applying textures i haven't feel as comfortable as i once was - i'm not sure if that means i'm moving away from them or the photography is just not melding with my choices. *shrugs* funny how i can move through cycles - color, no color, soft color....textures, no textures....soft then crisp. anyway.

boldly go

*giggle*