pascale wowak photoblog

Rama

When I was contacted by Marci to photograph her, her husband and her 6 month old Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy, I could not possibly have been more excited.  I may have squealed.  Internally, of course.  So as to not scare her.  That being said, it's a well known fact, as a fellow owner of a Rhodesian Ridgeback, that I am quite fanatical about them.  In a bad, bad way.   Those dogs just have a way of bonding with their owners in a sort of magical way.  My boyfriend likes to tease me that there must be some kind of super secret Rhodesian Ridgeback Owner Cult of some sort because anytime I am out and about with my Kooper and run into any other current or former owner of a ridgeback, it is sort of like we do actually belong to a super secret group.  There's an unspoken language of "Oh My God, Aren't They The Best Dogs On The Planet?!?!?!"    So, needless to say, I couldn't have been more excited for this shoot.  Marci and Jeff's Ridgeback, Rama, reminded me so much of my Koop.  Very playful, sweet disposition, loverboy, friendly and eager to please.  A wonderful RR boy with a fantastic personality.  Oh yeah, Marci & Jeff were quite delightful too! LOL! :)

We enjoyed a wonderful beach romp and finished it off with one of the prettiest sunsets I have seen in a while.  Just absolutely gorgeous weather, light and subjects.  I was in Photographer Hog Heaven.   A fabulous and very enjoyeable shoot.  I'm really looking forward to getting Rama and Koop together for a doggie playdate! 

Marci & Jeff, thank you for a fun evening!  Rama is a really awesome pup!  ENJOY YOUR SNEAK PEEK!  

Adam & Matthew & their big blue eyes.

This beloved family drives all the way down from Napa just to see me.  It makes me feel like a million bucks because I can't personally can't stand any road trip over an hour with my two kids sooooo yeah. :)

When Julianne and I were planning this shoot, she was debating about whether or not to bring their new addition to the family, a Great Dane mix rescue pup.  Naturally, my canine loving self practically insisted she bring Rex.  And I'm so glad they did.  He's a great dog and I have a MAJOR affinity for the relationship between a dog and its "little people" so I was smitten from the get go. 

Adam and Matthew are two of the most rambunctious boys I have ever met.  From the minute their feet touched the ground after leaping out of their car, they didn't stop scaling, jumping, climbing, leaping, and tackling.  They are ALL BOY.  It was kinda like herding cats trying to get them to focus on me but I know these boys well enough by now that I know exactly what works and doesn't work and was able to dig into my repertoire of potty jokes to capture their attention.  Hey, I never said a shoot with me would be a  dignified affair.  I only promise that you'll love the images. :)

And, I'm hoping Julianne and Marchus love these.  I think it's our best set yet.  Even with the black eye and knocked out tooth on Adam.  LOL!  And this is just a couple weeks after getting a cast removed.  And sustaining a myriad of injuries leading up to the shoot.  Julianne knew better than to reschedule based on the knocked out tooth and black eye.  She knows with her boys that the injury at hand is likely LESS than what COULD POTENTIALLY be awaiting down the road if we tried to reschedule! LOL!!!  Those boys are nonstop!  My heart skipped a beat several times thinking I was about to witness some incident that was going to result in a trip to the ER.  Julianne is the perfect mom for them because she doesn't even bat an eye all the while I'm about to pass out from holding my breath and turning blue because I stopped breathing as they jumped off a boulder 10 feet off the ground.  I think having a super duper cautious and overly safety conscious boy has made me forget what NORMAL boys do! hahahahaha!

In the end, we got amazing shots and everyone had fun! Wooohooo!  And so glad Rex was a part of it!

Julianne & Marchus, thank you so much for making the long trek every year to see me.  I love your family!!!!

ENJOY your sneak peek!!!

Megan & Luna

When my good friend Megan asked if I'd take a few shots for her new venture I was absolutely thrilled and honored to be able to do this for her.  Megan and I met last year at a gathering of Rhodesian Ridgebacks and their owners.  We instantly hit it off.  Let's be clear, Megan is all kinds of awesome sauce.  She's a GG (gorgeous geek) with a wicked sense of humor, the mind of a rocket scientist and the natural good looks of a model.  And if that isn't enough to want to hate her, she just had a baby a few months ago and is already back in her skinny jeans.  COMMENCE HATE.  Bwahahahaha.  I wish I could hate her but instead I just LURVES her and her family sooooooo much.  Her sweet husband Jack has very kindly taken to geeking out with my son over Star Wars and Legos and Books.  Gavin thinks Jack is the "coolest guy on the face of the planet" and pretty much idolizes him.  And between Jack and Megan they produced the cutest baby known to mankind with the most fabulous name to go along with her extremely high cute factor: Eowyn.  All this AFTER already owning the most stunning specimen of a female Rhodesian Ridgeback.  Yeah, I'm admittedly pretty gaga over all them.   Megan and I have grown close and I really can't express how much I enjoy her company.  I feel like we're long lost twins and derive great pleasure in knowing that my warped sense of humor is not wasted on her....  :)

Megan wanted this shoot with her pup Luna for a very specific purpose.  Megan has already built one of the top 70 websites in the WORLD (it's called Squidoo) and, despite just having had a baby, in her very limited "free" time she's hard at work on a new project for those of us lucky enough to have dogs in our lives.  When the site is up and running, I will be sure to let you all know!  I'm quite possibly more excited about it than she is.  For reals.

Megan and I wanted to really have fun with this shoot and do something a little different for a CEO of a new dog-centric company.  On my end, I really wanted to infuse Megan's effervescent spirit, her easy confidence, her boundless energy and her passion for dogs (and specifically her endless love for Luna), into the images that I created.  I hope I was able to achieve that lofty goal!

Megan, Jack, Eowyn & Luna: I love you guys!!!

Ashley & Bryce

This was my first time photographing this beautiful family but it was so naturally easy from start to finish that it felt as though I'd known them forever!  It helped that I already knew Amy from her attending one of my workshops and had already briefly met her kids.  Speaking of which, her kiddos were absolutely adorable and totally cooperative not to mention that even dad was really "into" the session which is always a treat for the photographer!  Even their super duper sweet lab Chloe was able to participate!  I think Amy got her Mother's Day/Birthday gift combo in spades! :)

Amy & Shaun, thank you for hanging out with me on that absolutely gorgeous day!  I hope you love your sneak peek!  ENJOY! 

 

Alex, Ethan & Olivia

Oh how I love me some Alex, Ethan and Olivia!  Truly no words for how awesome this family is.  I so look forward to our time together!  Then, you include their new 8 month old French Bulldog puppy Xavier into the mix and I was in total heaven!  But wait, there's more!  Try adding their newly purchased historic home in Palo Alto!?  DREAMY!!!  The house was just about to undergo a total, massive renovation so it was in complete disarray and "haunted house" empty which meant we couldn't do much inside (yet) but the porch and doorways were insanely awesome.  I cannot WAIT to come back when the house is completely remodeled.  It's going to be breath-taking....

It should also be noted that due to conflicting schedules and the busyness of life with three active kids, this particular shoot was crammed in in-between picking up the kids from school and rushing them out to their afterschool activities so needless to say we had a whole lot of shooting to do in a VERY short amount of time.   Quite honestly, with any trio of kids other than these three, it probably could not have happened.  And certainly not with these results!  But with Alex, Ethan and Olivia it was a breeze!  

I just wish Allison and I could have had more time to chat about our mutual boot fetish! HA! :)  Alas, I also had to go get my own kids!  Needless to say, the shoot was fantastic despite the time constraints and we rocked it out in record time.  These three never cease to amaze me with their witty, funny, playful, genuine and all around incredible selves.  Xacier just added a whole new element of fun too!  That dog is HILARIOUS.  First, he reminds me of Yoda.  Second of all, he PURS.  Yes, he PURS!  Third, he follows Allison around just like Kooper follows me.  That total adoration boy puppy dogs have with their human moms.  SO CUTE!  His facial expressions were to die for.  I was laughing so hard I blew a few shots with camera shake because of the faces he was making.  Incredibly expressive!

Allison and Dan, enjoy your sneak peek.  Your kids rock!  P.S. I can't wait to see the new house when it's all done!  I'm inviting myself over.  Just so you know.  :)

Tahoe

For my birthday last week, I had the wonderful opportunity and privilege to use a friend's beautiful cabin in Tahoe.  I had already pre-scheduled 5 consecutive days off on my calendar so I packed up the kids and dog and headed up for a mini-escape to the gorgeous land of Lake Tahoe.  

I only brought my point and shoot camera and my Iphone.  I know.  I KNOW!  What kind of photographer goes to Lake Tahoe and bring a P&S!?  Probably the same moron who goes to Paris and also brings a P&S.  That would be me, folks.  Wile E. Coyote over here..... But, unlike Paris, I didn't regret it this time.  I hardly even busted out the P&S except for a fun kayaking trip with the kids.  The rest was a small handful of Iphone shots.  I decided to just ENJOY my kids, ENJOY my time. And relax.  I was way overdue for some "sit and do nothing" relaxing.   Which, of course, I didn't really get since I had two crazy kids and a rambunctious puppy with me but I did get some downtime in the evenings to just chill and read which was just absolutely LOVELY.  We also were able to enjoy sauntering post-dinner walks around the neighborhood and game-time on the deck.  Fabulous.

The one big bummer of the trip was my poor pup coming down with some crazy, funky, rare disorder late one evening after all the vet hospitals were closed and no one within a 2 hr drive was open for emergencies....  It was VERY scary and my sensitive kids were freaking out.... Kooper's left eye was sinking into his skull and seemingly rotating into the back of his head.  The whole left side of his face went droopy (he looked like a stroke victim) and his third eyelid covered his entire eyeball.  Let's just say it was AWFUL to look at.   I was frantically taking pictures with my iphone to text them to a dear friend who is an emergency veterinarian.  She was WONDERFUL and dropped everything to help me out and calm me down and walk me through it.  I am forever indebted to her.   I ended up being at the local emergency vet hospital the next morning (on my birthday no less!) bright and early as soon as they opened.   Turns out he has a case of Horner's Syndrome.  My birthday plans to send him to the local doggie daycare so the kids and I could hang out at the club's pool and beach (no dogs allowed) were obviously thwarted and we weren't able to leave Kooper's side or go anywhere because we were so worried about him and I couldn't fathom leaving his side.  I even ended up having canned soup I had brought as my bday dinner and no cake in sight....  Kinda sucky.   :(

Having said that, the next morning Kooper woke up looking (and feeling) ten times better and since it's not contagious he was able to go to the doggie daycare (Truckee-Tahoe Kennels, HIGHLY recommend them, the owner is AMAZING and the staff is awesome!) so I declared it a RE-DO BIRTHDAY DAY!  And we pretended it was my birthday and we did beach, pool, dinner out, cake etc...  And it ended up being a fantastic day so all was well in the world again!

We enjoyed another half day in Tahoe before hitting the long road home (6+ hr drive).  The kids were pretty awesome travelers overall and I came back feeling fairly refreshed and so glad we had taken the time to actually get away and enjoy a much needed change of scenery.  

Here's just a few snapshots.  REMEMBER, POINT AND SHOOT CAMERA AND NO EDITING!!!

Taken with my Canon S95.

 

Cameron & Chloe

I just love photographing this family.  For starters, they're all gorgeous, which makes it easy, and they're really laid-back and chill, which makes it pleasant, and the kids are full of spunk, which makes it fun.  I just always know it's going to be fun and that as a group we will just all roll with the punches so to speak.    This was of particular importance for this specific shoot because despite an only 1-% chance of rain and sunny skies when I left the house for the shoot....yup, right in the middle of our shoot, when we were in an open field, a solid mile into our hike, it started to rain.  At first, it was just a light drizzle, which quickly turned to a sprinkle and then, rain.  So, here we are with two cold, wet kids.  And two cold, wet dogs.  And three cold, wet adults.  And yet, despite all the weather-induced adversity, we still had an absolutely lovely, fun shoot!  How is that even possible!?   The biggest surprise for me, having photographed this family for years at a variety of locations, was seeing how INCREDIBLE their house was and being in awe of mom's amazing decorating skills.  Each interior wall was a different color and yet they all blended in seamlessly, beautifully and with perfect integration of the wall art and ousted photographs.   The architecture, layout and decor of the house was a photographer's dream and I'm pretty much going to have to beg them to let me do the shoot at their house next year when we have sunlight so I can take full advantage of it!  :)

We were also incredibly fortunate that I had grabbed some fabulous indoor shots at the house before we took off for our hike (or, in my case, my hobble, since I'm still dealing with my knee injury) and that when we returned, even though it was dark and dreary outside, I was able to boost my ISO to 1600 and move some furniture around and use what was left of the window light to grab some more fun shots at the very end.

We also brought their two dogs on our hike which, as a big dog lover, was wonderful for me.  Hunter is 11 yrs old and sweet as can be, allowing 5 month old puppy Skylar to romp all over and use him as a constant chew toy.    The light outdoors was far from ideal and yet I still really enjoyed shooting in the forest, as there is just something magical about those redwood trees.  When we got to the field, I used some OCF to counter act the dreariness.  You'd never know it was sprinkling on us when we took those images!   

On the speedy-gonzalez trek back to the house, little Chloe insisted on carrying some of my equipment for a short period of time.  I assure you that I do not commonly employ child labor.  But she sure did look cute being my little 2 yr old assistant! 

I love watching the dynamic between Chloe and her older brother Cameron because it reminds me so much of the dynamic between my two.  The quiet, patient, introspective, philosopher-ish big brother and the crazy, lively, independent, willful, spirited baby sister.  They balance off each other really well!

Jennifer & Stephen, thank you as always for a superb time together.  I always look forward to our shoots!  ENJOY your images!

Mark & Alex The Great

OK, so his name is not really Alex The Great.  That's just the name I gave him because he was so dignified and royal in his demeanor at all times.  Even when we were propping him on rocks and logs and other nonsensical locations.  He always maintained his dignity.  It just seemed to fit.  Mark is Alex's owner (slave, same difference, whatever) and I can completely relate to Mark's unending love and loyalty to his pup.  I feel exactly the same way about my Koop.   In fact, I'm probably on the more cuckoo end of things seeing as I cook all his meals, from scratch.  Yes.  I know he's a dog.   So, yeah.  I'm a big time dog lover.  And I especially love photographing dogs.  And this shoot gave me the impetus needed to get out there with Koop and try to get pictures of my huge massive lovebug of a dog. :)

Now, onto Mark and Alex.  Mark had previously attended one of my beginner Photography workshops and we totally hit it off.  He loves photography and he loves dogs.  What's not to love!?   When he heard about the mini sessions I was offering he signed he and Alex up for a slot.  I was thrilled!   Alex is definitely Mark's loyal companion and has been for the past 10+ years.   You'd absolutely never guess that Alex was that "old" because he was full of energy and spunk.  He even went bonkers on the beach.  For about 5 mn.  And then he was DONE.  But, we had plenty of time and opportunities to get some great shots of both of them.

Mark, I really enjoyed hanging out with you and Alex The Great.  I hope you love this sneak peek!  ENJOY!