Well our vacation went wonderfully and we had a blast in sunny and bright Florida visiting with my brother and his family.  We of course did all the touristy things (Ocean!  Disney!  SeaWorld!  Titanic: The Experience! – hey my father-in-law loved it).  I also got the chance to meet up with my good friend Laura while we were down there and help her out with some head shots for her Mary Kay Business (and note…that after sun stuff they make is amazing I would learn a couple days later when I got one heck of a sunburn!).  I can’t get over how gorgeous Laura is.

I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to snap a couple shots of her precocious and very talented daughter J while I was there.  I swear this girl has more poses than Tyra Banks.  We just let her have fun and pose and do exactly what she wanted – which is my favorite way to photograph children to get those genuine looks, smiles and emotions!  Just a few below (though I swear I ended up with more shots of J than Laura!):

And of course we had to get little M in on the action – poor thing was just not feeling stellar that day.  Hopefully we’ll get a few more of her in a couple months!

 

April’s round of the NH Photographer Blog Circle is here at last!  Previously we focused on “What Love Looks Like” and our favorite recipes.  This month we are celebrating nature and Earth Day!

Since we’ve moved up here, I have truly appreciated the calm and tranquility of our surroundings.  I love the mountain view as I look out my windows every morning or play in the early evening with my son.

 

Now that it’s Spring I look forward to exploring the area and seeing all the riches Nature holds for us.  I thought I’d share one of my favorite nature poems since Earth Day is such a fitting occasion.

Lines Written in Early Spring
by William Wordsworth (1798)

I heard a thousand blended notes,

While in a grove I sate reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran;

And much it grieved my heart to think

What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,

The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;

And ’tis my faith that every flower

Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,

Their thoughts I cannot measure:–

But the least motion which they made

It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,

To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,

If such be Nature’s holy plan,

Have I not reason to lament

What man has made of man?  

Now head down to Manchester photographer, Erika Follansbee’s blog to see what she found in nature this month!!!

It’s that time again – time for our monthly blog circle party.  A few of New Hampshire awesomest portrait photographers have formed a monthly circle where we pick a theme and interpret it in our photographs.  Last month was What Love Looks Like and this month we are focusing on a Favorite Recipe.  You may have followed a link here from Erika Follansbee Photography (and how yummy does her dish look?  I see myself making that soon!) or you might be a regular reader.  Welcome, no matter how you got here and I hope you find something tasty to look at!!!

One of my favorite hobbies is to cook and create new dishes.  Narrowing it down to my favorite wasn’t going to happen since I have so many.  I chose salmon because it’s one of my favorite protiens and because it’s so quick to cook, tasty and heart healthy.  I also really like bell peppers, while unfortunately my husband does not, so for the past 7 years I’ve had very limited access to them.  He’s away on a business trip though, so I decided to make the most of it and pepper it up!  Here is Salmon en Papillote (Salmon in Paper) – a fantastic and healthy way to cook fish or even chicken.

Let’s start out with our main star and supporting cast (really you can choose any veggies you’d like):She’s a thing of beauty…and did you know the Omega 3’s in salmon can speed up your metabolism, lower bad cholesterol(LDL), raise good cholesterol (HDL), help improve memory and help fight against macular degeneration?  And as a photographer I do NOT want macular degeneration!So we’re going to slice up our veggies and get out a sheet of parchment paper.  Put your salmon in the middle of the sheet, sprinkle with a little sea salt, black pepper and your favorite seasonings (I’m on a smoked Spanish paprika kick at the moment…ask me about my Maple Glazed Salmon – that paprika is a superstar!).  Then toss your veggies in (is that a euphemism?) and drizzle with a teaspoon of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice.  It’s your meal add none or a quart – whatever floats your boat.  Fold your parchment paper in half and then begin folding the edges over each other to seal (I usually fold the last edge over a few times).  Then stick those packets on a cookie sheet in an oven that’s been preheated to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.  Let this cook for about 15 to 20 minutes (depending on the thickness of your fish – and chicken will probably take a tad longer).In the meantime I started sautéing some garlic and shallots in a pan with 2 teaspoons of olive oil.  Once they were soft (NOT brown – garlic can get bitter if it browns too much), I added a package of baby spinach and gave it a couple tosses.  Then I turned off the heat and covered the pan and let it just hang out while the fish cooked.Then like magic you have a rainbow on your plate!I cooked up some brown rice to go along as a starch.  So here I have 6oz of salmon, 2/3 a cup of brown rice and lots and lots of veggies.  It was soooo tasty, and if you’re on Weight Watchers like me – 13 points for this filling meal!

I’ve got lots more yummy recipes to share, and once my personal blog is up and running I’ll stick them up there.  Do you have a favorite recipe?  Feel free to share with me in the comments – I LOVE to cook new things!  Let your eyes and taste buds carry you on to Stephanie Johnson’s epicurean adventure over at Concord’s Princeton House Photography.

Ingredients

2 6oz Salmon Portions

1 red bell pepper sliced

1 orange bell pepper sliced

10 halved cherry tomatoes

1 scallion chopped

2 cloves of garlic sliced

2 tsp olive oil

2 Tbsp lemon juice (or to taste)

2 lemon twists for garnish

sea salt to taste

black pepper to taste

seasonings to taste

Bag/Box of fresh Baby Spinach

1 scallion chopped

2 cloves garlic minced

2 tsp olive oil

squeeze of lemon juice

I had the opportunity a couple weeks back to travel down to Durham, NC and attend a workshop hosted by Tamara Lackey.  In case you are just being introduced to her, Tamara is a renown photographer most often associated with her outstanding family and children’s photography.  Not only does she have a fantastic ability to connect and interact with her clients, but she has an outstanding head for business.  And since both of those areas are something I’ve been really itching to focus on this year, I knew her Portrait Photographer Workshop was the ticket.  Also my fantastic friend Lara Koppmann suggested it would be a great get together for us, and really who can argue with a couple warm days in North Carolina focusing on bettering your skills all while enjoying catered breakfast and lunch and then bonding with some fellow photographers?  What I’m saying is that there really isn’t much that could be better besides relaxing with my family on a beach.

We had a yummy opening dinner and then the next morning it was right to business.   We got into all the nitty gritty technical stuff, and then had a great image critique.  After another delicious lunch it was on to our shooting clinic.  We had some adorable models throughout the course of the afternoon as you can see in the photos.  We started out with studio lighting (which I was very happy to learn because it means I can soon open the doors to my in-home studio!) and then moved on to location shooting.

Studio lighting clinic…and this girl was a trooper.  She was so excited to model for us and said she wants to be a professional model someday!

On location clinic…these boys were so adorable, especially the older one.  And you gotta give it up for the Toy Story boots…

This picture is “technically” wrong – but I just love love LOVE the feeling in it!

Tamara connects with her models and clients so well.  And this awesome guy connected with my lens…inconspicuous I am not, clearly.

We made this little girl, Jamie, run around in circles for what seems like hours.  This is my pal Lara giving her a peek at what she got.  Jamie seemed to really enjoy hamming it up for the camera and didn’t mind endlessly running around for us!

This is the idea of what you want from all that running in circles…

 

Day two was a breakthrough for me.  The biggest thing I came to realize at the workshop was that I’ve been, and always have, looked at images the wrong way.  I’ve grown up in the disposable camera and digital camera generation.  That’s not to say I’m inexperienced with film – I’m not – it’s how I learned in high school actually and a lot of the time I find myself pining for the darkroom like my 3 year old pines for a cookie.  But with technology advances comes greater access to all sorts of things (in this case countless images), and perhaps a diminished value to what we once held dear.  I realized at Tamara’s workshop that I wasn’t valuing the actual art I was creating – I was seeing it as a file on a disk – purely a non-tangible good.  When I stopped and thought about it though, something rang out in my head.  I always want my clients to LOVE their images.  But what I really want is these images to hang on their walls for generations.  To be the portraits of these and future generations, the way that painted portraits used to be.  I want them to be handed down years and years and years in the future as an artistic record of the subject, the relationship the time and the emotion.  I want your grandchildren’s grandchildren to have these images on their hallway walls to point out to their children when they are telling the stories of your family history.

It’s because of this that I will be soon changing my offerings.  I will still have the disc of your images with a limited print release available, but it will no longer be built in to your session.  My pricing will soon be changing accordingly.

So I have to give a huge thank you to Tamara for indirectly flipping a switch in my head, her crew (especially Sarah) for all they did for us during the workshop, my friend Lara for pushing me to go, and the group of 14 super talented photographers that were kind and very good about bouncing ideas off each other.  I do have to throw out one last thanks to my amazing support team at home: my best friend forever to infinity and beyond Amber who watched my munchkin while I was away, and my unconditionally loving son and husband who saw that this was something I had to do.  Even if it means he had to do more than his normal share of diapers.  I love you.

 

Here’s a quick video of the workshop that Tamara’s production associate Kate put together for us!