A few weeks ago I was contacted by O’s mother to do some pictures of her oldest daughter who would soon be leaving for school.  I had done a newborn session for someone the family knew and they were interested in having me come out for photos as well.  I met them at the beautiful East Sandwich beach out on Cape Cod – truly stunning location.  I would love to shoot there much more often (road trip, anyone?)  Rocks, dunes, sand the softest you have ever felt and of course the water.  And then I got to add into all of the the absolutely gorgeous O.  She had already graduated from high school a few weeks prior, but mom and dad wanted some photos to give to grandparents and family.

In a day and age where teenagers seem to be growing up so quickly and 18 year olds look more like 25 or older, it was so refreshing to see such a natural beauty who somehow exuded youthfulness and quiet elegance at the same time.  I had such a great time shooting her session – I mean how could I not??  Fabulous location, great light, a willing, stunning participant and a fun family.  Enjoy, O and family and best of luck at school – you’re going to do great!!

Some of you may remember the adorable little cutie that I did a session for in November of last year – chubby cheeks in the striped Gap sweater dress with the red wall behind her.  Well, she is back!!  Nine months older, the adorable little M. is running all over the place and has grown in to the perfect little toddler.  This time for their session, mom and dad chose to do it at the family business – Wright’s Dairy Farm.  If you are local, you know this business – fabulous baked goods and, as I found out myself, to die for chocolate milk 😉  This was my first time mixing animals that weren’t dogs in with a session.  Instead, I got to take pictures with cows.  Big, giant, mooing, pregnant cows.  And M. loved every second of it (so did I!!!).  We saw big cows and baby cows, we climbed in and jumped off of hay, we fed cows, we ate corn off of the stalk, we danced, we sang songs, everything a photographer little girl could want and let me tell you  – it was fun!  It was so great to see how she had grown up and it was SO neat to see her interacting with what daddy does every day.  Definitely a little out of the norm for me and I am absolutely thrilled with what we got!

P.S. And as a public service announcement – if you do visit the dairy farm, please *don’t* feed the cows or play on / sit on / climb the haystacks.  There are a few things you can get away with when you’re with the owners 😉

This is just a note to let everyone know that I will be out of the office until late Monday afternoon.  While I will have access to emails and voicemails I do not plan on returning messages until I return so that I can concentrate on my sessions (and get a little relaxation in)   🙂  Thanks and have a great weekend!

This past weekend I met up with the first of my “Fresh Bellies” from my casting call last week.  K. is 36 weeks pregnant (37 now I guess!) and is just absolutely GORGEOUS.  We got some beautiful sunset shots at Roger Williams Park which was just what I wanted.  I loved them SO much that I will probably head there again for my next one, too.  🙂  Enjoy!

Something a little different today.  We have a spider living basically right outside of our front door.  It has spun it’s scary beautiful web between the end of our mailbox and our brick.  It’s a popular spot – we had one there last year as well.  I have been looking at it for a few days now and rather than kill it like I really REALLY want to do (I am not a spider fan in the slightest), I decided to attempt to conquer my fears and get some cool photos of it instead.  I have this macro lens that I use for my newborns, so why not on something different?  I had used it to capture a baby bee a few days prior and got a really nice shot…so I set off to get the spider.  This involved me getting about six inches away from the spider.  Looking back, I must have been really focused on “getting the shot.”  Because I don’t know that I would get that close again.  And thank goodness the thing didn’t move because you would have heard me shriek wherever you are living.

Let me tell you, macro shots are a lot more difficult than I thought they would be.  (I am going to drift into photographer speak here for a minute so bear with me)  The depth of field is just SO so shallow shooting that close that to get the entire spider in focus I found was almost impossible.  Especially when the wind would blow the web.  Even the slightest little breeze would throw everything off.  I finally ended up shooting at f/16 for the last shot and even then I still didn’t get the entire thing perfectly focused.  Ah well.   I am still pretty pleased.  And I could have gotten closer and gotten even more detail but yeahhhhh.  Wasn’t happening.  So enjoy something different for a minute…starting with the baby bee to not freak people out right away.