pascale wowak photoblog

The M-M families

I've been photographing these two families both individually and together since my first year in business.  I've chronicled all their pregnancies and every new member of the family!  The two moms are sisters and their mom (Hi Grandma Cindy!) gifts her daughters with this "joint" shoot every year for Christmas.  Naturally, I am completely biased here, but is there any greater gift a mom/grandma can give?  Think about it, she gives her daughters amazing pictures of them and their families AND she also gets amazing photos of her beloved daughters, their respective family units, all of them together and last but not least, her adored grandchildren!?  Win-win!

With FOUR boys 6 and under, it can be a bit crazy at times but these kids have grown up together and are more like siblings than cousins.  They absolutely adore each other and there is an incredible comfort level and closeness between ALL the members of both families.  That coupled with the fact that I know them so well and they know me and my style/approach so well makes for an impressively smooth shoot, all things considered.  

Shannon and Adam, Jennifer and Mike, and Grandma Cindy of course, ENJOY your sneak peek!

The P. Family

I go WAY back with this family.  I've known them since my days as a police officer and firefighter and long before I even was a mom or had an inkling of becoming a photographer.  They're my peeps.  I LOVE them and I LOVE being around them.  Our shoots are always playful and fun!  Their family dynamic is such that I am in stitches from beginning to end.   Unspeakable acts are committed.  I am sworn to secrecry.  Sorry.  :)

This year we were able to add two adorable babies to the mix!  Kendra had the most gorgeous twins last year, Ally and Kaylee.   The girls are SOOOOO cute!  They didn't really like the camera all that much but luckily they are so cute it doesn't matter! Ha! 

Debbie and Don are the most amazing folks.  Their marriage, to me, represents what a marriage should be and look like.  They just have it figured out.  They rock.  And their (now mostly grown up) combined kids are such well adjusted, awesome kids.  Have I mentioned how much I enjoy being around them???  :)

ENJOY your sneak peek! It's just a small taste of all the goodies we got during all the craziness!  LOVE YOU!

Five delightful kids and their wonderful parents!

I had the distinct pleasure of going down to Carmel last week and meeting a family of SEVEN (!) in order to photograph them in and around their home and grandparent's home (just down the street).  Not only do I love meeting new families, but I particularly enjoy BIG families!  It's so much fun getting to know all the uniquely different personalities and dynamics within the family with five kids.  Ellie (16), Ben (12), Annabel (10), Beatrix (8) and Teddy (6) were absolutely the most polite, well mannered, and easy going kids!   Besides being incredibly photogenic (it would be practically impossible to take a bad picture of these kids), they were so genuinely loving and sweet with each other while still being playful and acting like real siblings do.  It was a pleasant surprise for me to have mom and dad (having never done a shoot with me) completely trust me and leave me to my own devices and inspiration.  They always seemed to know when to "disappear" so the kids would focus on me and not be distracted by them.  I LOVE parents who trust me right away like that.  Thanks Joanna and Ned!

Carmel is, of course, a superbly beautiful area with gorgeous homes and a stunning beach.  Sadly, that particular day was frought with icky, foggy, overcast weather, the kind of light which has no warmth, tone, richness or directionality to it.  Not my favorite but with some handy dandy reflector work and supplemental flash, in addition to finding good little pockets, we were able to completely overcome the bad light situation.  It certainly helped that grandma and grandpa's house had AMAZING areas with texture and rocks and doorways, steps, windows etc... LOVED it!

Ellie and Annabel were PROS with the reflectors and it was wonderful having them as my official assistants, and it took all of me not to speak to Ellie in a sing song voice like I do with my OWN Ellie! Ha! :)

Needless to say, with a family of seven, I just ended up with WAY too many great pictures for me to do a regular sneak peek, and I had to put together a little slideshow of my favorites.   To the S. Family, I hope you and the kids had fun at the shoot.  ENJOY your images!!!

CLICK HERE TO VIEW SLIDESHOW!!!

Quinn, Reilly and Tyler

This family was my SECOND ever "real" clients when I officially launched my business 6+ years ago.  I *instantly* fell in love with them and hoped beyond hope that they would love their pictures enough to hire me again (even though I truly had a lot yet to learn about photography).  Fortunately, there was enough "heart and soul" in my image creating process to make up for my lack of technical expertise and they did hire me again.  Phew!  In fact, I've been able to photograph them a few times a year every year since that first wonderful shoot.  I've been able to chronicle and document every major milestone for their now THREE kids (!) and it's been the biggest honor for me to be able to do that.  I am VERY bonded to those kidlets and simply adore mom and dad.  I consider myself very blessed that they found me.  :)

Little Tyler has gone through a really rough year medically speaking and so it was just so fabulous to see her bust out some of her famously HUGE smiles.  They are truly contagious.  You can't look at that girl smile and not be grinning ear to ear yourself.   She still has a long recovery ahead of her but she just keeps getting better each time I see her and it warms my heart to witness the undeniably strong and powerful love there is in this family, across every family member.  And it also extends beyond their tightly unit family unit, so much so that the grandparents have been huge sources of emotional support throughout the stress of the past year.  It just so happened that Bryan's parents were in town when we did this shoot (they had been visiting for several weeks all the way from South Carolina!) so we were able to include them in the shoot as well!  It was a pleasure meeting them and I hope they love the images we captured despite all the chaos! Ha! :)

Bryan and Tara, you know how dear your family is to me.  Thanks for letting me play the small role I get to play in the journaling of your family's memories!

ENJOY!

 

Easton and the grown ups who love him!

I met and photographed little Easton two years ago when he was just a newborn so you can imagine how wonderful it was to see him again and behold how much he had grown over the past two years!  This little boy is surrounded by a whole lotta love!  As with the newborn session, grandma and papi were a part of it, except this time they were also in the pictures!  Such a delight being able to shoot the whole family and watch how Easton brings so much joy to his parents and grandparents alike.  

As we all know, 2 can be a somewhat challenging age to photograph.  They have their own agendas and very strong little wills to boot.   We had to work around some very typical and age appropriate 2 year old tendencies!  Thing is, I'm just as obstinate as your average 2 yr old so I wasn't about to give up on getting a REAL smile from him and bringing out his joyful, effervescent little personality, which we clearly were able to do thanks to some wonderful teamwork!

The weather started out very iffy that morning but suddenly cleared up as the session began and we ended up with the most stunningly beautiful sunset and gorgeous lighting!  A true photographer's delight!

Thank you D. Family for letting me capture these memories!  Such a pleasure seeing you all again!  ENJOY!!!

Kenzi & Evie

This is my 5th shoot with Kenzi in the span of a year (if you count the pregnancy shoot!) and it's been such a delight watching her grow and being able to document it for her parents.  They change SO much even in just a few short months, it's absolutely amazing.  That first year is just one of so much growth and development.  It's fantastic to be able to chronicle all those changes and "firsts" for Kenzi.   We had scheduled this shoot to coincide with mom Elisa's twin sister Erica, and her daughter Evelyn, being in town so we could get some great shots of the cousins together.  Naturally, Elisa and her twin are very close.  So, it's pretty cool that their daughters are so close in age (only 5 months apart) as they grow up with a similar bond as well.   

The weather was a bummer though.  We had intermittent rain the whole day and rescheduling was not an option.  So we had to come up with an indoor location.  We decided on the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  Luckily for us it was mid week during "slow" season so the place was not its usual packed self, but even then, it was still very busy.  In retrospect, that location was probably not the best for this age range but despite the challenges it (and the weather, and the crowds, and the light) presented to us, we absolutely made it work and still ended up with fantastic images! YIPPPEEEEE! As a side note, that Kenzi girl can EAT!  She is a *machine*! (a girl after my own heart, I must say)

Erica and Evie, it was an absolute pleasure meeting you both!  Thank you for powering through such a long session! You were rockstars!  Elisa and Peter, thank you for allowing me the privilege of capturing this first year of Kenzi's life.  I can't wait to continue to watch her grow and change over the years, she is a doll! :)

I decided to put together a little slideshow for you this time. ENJOY!

CLICK HERE TO VIEW SLIDESHOW

 

The M & M families

These are two more families that I have been watching grow over the past 5 years.  Every pregnancy, every newborn, every new sibling...  These milestones are so precious and it warms my heart that these two families value my work so much.  The two sisters here hire me for the big milestones and then every December for Christmas their mom, grandma Cindy, gifts her daughters with this combined shoot.  I can honestly think of no greater gift!  This is a very tight knit family and the little cousins are growing up more like brothers than cousins.  It's really cool to see grown sisters so incredibly close not only to each other, but also to their mom, and to their nephews.   It's obvious that family is the most important thing in their lives.  And I get to document these memories and this journey through parenthood for them!

Our shoot was rescheduled due to the rain but it worked out for the best because the day we did finally do it was an absolutely stunning day.  The light could not have been more gorgeous (even though it was playing peekaboo between the clouds!) and the boys had fun romping in the mud and being boys.    As you can see, Jen is just a couple weeks away from her #2 being born, which will bring the tally of grandkids to FOUR boys under 5 for grandma to enjoy!  Woohooo!  Let the games begin! :)

I love watching the boys' unique personalities shine through even more with every passing year.  AJ is definitely coming into his own as the oldest.  He is super responsible, mature, and always looking out for the younger two and making sure everyone is following the rules.  He was incredibly polite and sweet as could be.   Easton (his little brother) is the total comedian.  He had me laughing so hard my sides were aching.  He was striking poses like you wouldn't believe, not to mention impersonating superman and, get this, Spanish Buzz.  I think I was practically in tears I was laughing so hard at his perfect rendition of his "Ole!"  He is quite the character.  And Chase, who is about to become a big brother, is a gentle, sensitive soul.  His fun little spirit was able to really shine through when he had some alone time with me.  His smile is knock-your-socks-off charming.  Watch out, ladies!  I can't wait to see what #4 is like!

Here's just a few favorites from our awesome shoot.  I had a ridiculous amount of "keepers"!

The 3 cousins!

Alex's Bar Mitzvah

Some families you just immediately connect and bond with and cannot wait until your next shoot with them.  This is one of those families for me.  I met them last year just around this time and had an incredible shoot with them.  It was like we'd known each other for years.   When the mom, Allison, asked if I could photograph Alex's huge Bar Mitzvah/Rite of Passage celebration, I was beyond honored to do so.  And when I say celebration, I mean CELEBRATION!  These folks know how to throw a party, let's just put it that way!  :)

I got there early and snuck away with Alex, Ethan and Olivia while mom and dad were busy with the coordinator and final touches.  I only had a few minutes with them but it was great to connect with the kids again alone before the masses of friends and family arrived.   We then did a whole series of "formals" with every conceivable family combination before heading in for the cocktails and appetizers.   We then did a few more sets of group shots before heading in for the festivities.

Alex is one of those truly delightful teenagers that you actually ENJOY spending time with.  He is funny, smart and interesting.  At the end of the night he came up to me to thank me for being there and taking pictures of his special day.  How many kids do that!?  Truth be told, the entire family is delightful!  The three siblings have such a tender and sweet relationship with each other.  I saw Alex holding his little sister's hand, out of the blue, just because.  They are the sweetest family.  There is an abundance of love here that permeates from every member of the family towards each other.  It's incredibly touching to behold.  They are happy and blessed and grateful for each other.  

The event was held at Seascape Resort in Aptos (a location I LOVE shooting at) and everything went incredibly smoothly thanks to their amazing coordinator and staff.   Allison had even gotten a photo booth set up which the kids (and even many adults!) had a blast with.   They had also gotten the world renowned (and mind blowingly good) DJ called J-Boogie to emcee the whole night.  I've heard quite a few DJ's in my time and let me tell you, he was OFF THE HOOK incredible.   Which worked out quite well since these folks are all about dancing!  My kind of people.  Seriously, the agenda was as follows: cocktails - dancing - hopah - dancing - ceremonial cutting of the bread - dancing - speeches - dancing - slideshow - dancing - dinner - MORE DANCING!!!   Way too much fun for me to even begin to explain.  When my "shift" was over I was told to put my camera gear away and get my rear on the dance floor so that's exactly what I did!   Such a pleasure to share in the celebration of this young man's Rite of Passage.

I let Alex pick the song he wanted to accompany his slideshow and he made a wonderful choice as this happens to be one of my (and my son's) favorite songs right now.  In fact, I probably would have picked it myself if he hadn't!

To the R. Family, THANK YOU for letting me be a part of this very special day!

ENJOY!

 

CLICK HERE TO VIEW SLIDESHOW

The L-O Family

When Tiffany asked me if the original sibling shoot could morph into an extended family shoot I was more than happy to oblige.  I adore Tiffany and her immediate family so I couldn't imagine the rest of the gang being any less delightful.  And they were beyond my expectations.  Everyone was so gracious, helpful and sweet!  Fortunately, we had Ava and Bella there to shake things up a bit otherwise we would have just coasted through the whole thing and where's the fun in that!? HA!  

It was a very dark, dreary, super foggy day and I admittedly detest shooting in that light.  There is just very little you can do to make that kind of light look good or work for you.  The reflector is virtually useless and there is no backlight to play with... it's just BLAH.  Fortunately, the L-O family is anything but BLAH so they infused the shoot with life and color which helped offset the yucky lighting conditions.  I ended up having to use my flash on more than half of the images and in retrospect, I wish I had used it on all of them.

Regardless, we still rocked it out and it was a blast hanging out with this ridiculously photogenic (Dimples! Freckles! Perfect smiles! Gorgeous hair! Stylish clothes!...) family.  It was a pleasure meeting your extended family Tiffany and I look forward to seeing your little 4-some in January!  :)

Here is Ava.  Mom *always* has THE BEST outfits for her girls!

Kennolyn 2010

Some of you may remember my two commercial shoots I did last year for Kennolyn where I got to scale up their elaborate (and HIGH! and CHALLENGING!) ropes course all in the name of getting the shot, not to mention the opportunity of a lifetime to fly between the redwood trees down their super long zipline....  If not, you can read about it HERE.

Well, it's that time of year again and this year I got to spend some time on the Resident Camp side of Kennolyn rather than the Day Camp (which I documented last year).  

The Resident Camp is just further proof that Kennolyn is hands down the most amazing, well run, well staffed, fun, exciting and incredible place for a kid to go during Summer Break.  It just makes me want to sign myself up and try to pose as a teen in order to participate in all their activities and do the "camp" thing, which I was never able to do as a child.  I look at these kids, with huge smiles on their faces, giggling and laughing, running from one activity to the next, with nothing but pure joy on their faces and it's the most contagious feeling ever.  I want in! :)

The Resident Camp is structured much the same as the Day camp during the day where the day is divided in sessions and the kids rotate through a variety of activities of their choosing until about 4:30pm.  At that time they then go into a large hall and each small group is responsible for chopping all the vegetables for their meal, which are placed in ziploc bags.  They then retrieve other goodies from the camp kitchen and hike out to their campground location where they will grill their meal and have a cookout together under the stars, surrounded by redwood trees with the sound of the ocean making its way through the night.  A little slice of Heaven if you ask me.

The biggest perk of this particular photo session for me this time was getting to climb all the way up on their huge trapeze set up, take a ton of pictures of the kids doing acrobatics in the air and then having the opportunity to fly through the air myself (albeit with none of the lightness and grace as these young girls)!  I absolutely loved it!  

My next session there in a couple weeks, we will be focusing on the Ropes Course at the Resident Camp and I can't wait to see what's in store! :)

Here are just a handful of fun shots I got amongst the MANY images I took.  A small sampling of activities the kids can take is as follows: animal care, archery, baskbetball, crafts, drama, fencing, fun science, outdoor cooking, silk painting, stained glass, wheel pottery, ropes course, trapeze, swimming, board diving, carpentry, chess, ping pong, and much more! 

My kids will be attending a week in August at the Day Camp and they are beyond excited.  They still talk about their week last summer and it was, by far, the highlight of their entire summer!  

Here is an overview of the Resident Camp grounds/facility:

 

The M. & M. Families

A quick little "record check" revealed that this was my 12th shoot with this family.  TWELVE SHOOTS!?  Wow.  That's my record so far with any given family and I gotta say we're like a well oiled machine at this point.  You'd think doing a shoot with four adults and three kids under 4 would be total pandemonium but it was smooth sailing from start to finish.  We all work very well together and we all know each other by now well enough to see the hiccups coming and take alternate routes and adapt our gameplan when necessary.  It's just totally seamless at this point which is pretty remarkable with this large of a group.  I've had the distinct honor of being able document every milestone, every pregnancy, every newborn, and every stage for them.  I just love this family through and through.

Shannon, Adam, AJ & Easton, and Jennifer, Mike & Chase, it was an absolute pleasure, as always and I am no longer surprised by the ridiculous amount of amazing shots we get every time.  Grandma Cindy, thank you for making this possible every year for us all.  I know your daughters so appreciate this gift tremendously.

Here is a TINY fraction of all the incredible images we got that beautiful afternoon.

The three cousins.  AJ (in the middle) is a total ham.

 

The P. Family

This family is very special to me.  We worked together ages ago and I miss Debbie in particular for helping those long nights go by faster! :)

Anytime you get six people in a shoot it's a ton of work but with these guys it was just easy peasy lemon squeasy.   We cycled through every conceivable combination of groups and arrangements and everyone was so sweet and cooperative!  SUCH a difference dealing with young adults versus, oh, you know, TODDLERS! :)

Debbie, Don, Eric, Kendra, Chase & Austin (my "favorite"... that was just for you Austin)... thank you for a delightful time hanging out at the beach enjoying the lovely weather, scenery and catch up time.  Miss you guys.

ENJOY your images!!

 

  

Retirement is suiting Don quite well, handsome fella. :)

 

 

And Debbie is a total hottie.  She looks better every year I see her and I'm totally jealous.  

 

 

I could have taken pictures of Kendra all day long, so photogenic.  Gorgeous.

 

 

Eric was totally under the weather with a bad flu bug (and yet still so unbelievably cordial and friendly, such a great guy) so we all joked about not getting too close to him and treated him like he had the plague.  Just kidding!  At one point Kendra was able to say, through gritted teeth yet maintaining a perfect smile throughout: "if I get sick from being this close to you I'll kill you."  Ah, sibling love!

 

 

Chase was so sweet this time.  I even got a hug and a kiss instead of dagger eyes.  Ha! Chase just LOVES having his picture taken.  Right, Chase? :)

 

 

And Austin, my "favorite".  He tries to come home with me every time.  And the adults try to get me to take him home with me every time.  It's pretty funny!  It's all in good fun though!

 

 

  

 

What a group of handsome men!
 

I have a RIDICULOUS amount of amazing shots of Kendra.  WOW, just WOW.

  

 

 

 

Her dad's not too shabby either.

  

 

My sweet Debbie, I miss you chicka.  Such piercing blue eyes.

 

 

Oh if you ONLY knew what we were talking about here....

  

 

 

 

 

         

LOVE YOU GUYS!

Pamela & Family

I met Pamela almost 15 years ago (OMG, has it really been that long!?) when she was dating a coworker of mine (Mark) and we totally hit it off.  Pamela is a fiercely independent, wicked smart, take charge woman.  Yup, my kind of gal.  She is the President of a very large company and totally runs the show there.  It seems every week she is somewhere new across the globe.  I'm totally jealous of all the world traveling she does but I'm sure she'd rather be home more often seeing as she is always off somewhere doing "President of the company" related duties.  I love that Pamela is such a driven and go-getter career woman.  That girl can move mountains.  I should also give a shout out to her hubby, my friend Mark, because it takes an equally strong and secure man to not be intimidated by us strong willed, "force of nature" type gals and I love that Mark was drawn to Pamela and her passionate drive in life.  They make a great team.  I miss being around them more frequently.  I do not, however, miss the 104 degrees summer heat up in WC though.  It was so HOT the day of our shoot....and I was wearing black slacks.  I'm just BRILLIANT.  We made it through unscathed though.  :)

The purpose of this shoot was actually pretty multi faceted.  We needed to get business head shots of Pamela, her dad and her brother Paul.  We also got a group family shot of Pamela and Mark with her parents and her two brothers.  Some shots of her parents alone together (their first in several decades!).  Some of the three adult siblings together.  Some of Pamela and Mark and their "babies" (two very sweet doggies).  Oh and a special request for shots of the huge CUSTOM HAND BUILT gazebo that her dad designed and built, piece by piece, all alone.  The pictures don't do justice to the scale and intricate design details in that gazebo and adjoining structure.  The entire property is astounding, including a guest house he also built entirely by himself, but the gazebo is definitely the central piece that stands out amongst the beauty of the grounds.   They asked that I use the gazebo as the main backdrop for all the images and I can't blame them for wanting it to "frame" all the shots.  It's truly spectacular.  Truth is, you just can't find that kind of craftsmanship anymore.  Pamela's dad had me in stitches, he is quite the character and we went tete a tete and had a good time with it.  I know these images are more formal than my usual fare but that's par for the course when you aren't chasing toddlers around and performing all kinds of antics to get their attention, although Koa and Miko (the dogs) certainly did give us a run for our money!  Also, these images were intended for corporate/company use (family business) so I had to keep that in mind during the shoot and not get all edgy/artsy with them either.

A few professional head shots first.  What I love most about photographing women is being able to show them just how stunning they are, especially women who feel they don't usually photograph well.  Nothing brings me more joy than taking a gorgeous portrait of them and having them go:  "WOW.  That's me!?" I hope Pamela feels that way about these :)

Plus some more casual headshots with a natural background:

hello, sexy.

Pam set everything up, from the coordinated outfits changes, to the backdrops she liked, you name it, she had everything pre-arranged for me.  She made it as easy on me as a person possibly could!

Pamela and Mark.  I had Mark do most of my reflector work (although here I had the OCF with a huge softbox and pocket wizards set up) and spent the whole shoot calling him my "slave boy" and cracking my imaginary whip at him.  Of course, I can get away with that kind of behavior based on our long history of working in the trenches together.... Having said that, I'm not sure how much he was still missing having me around all the time by the end of the shoot... tee heee heeee.  Love ya Markster. :)

Here he is with Pamela and their adorable dogs.  Above shot: no ear missing, just an adorable trait of having one ear up and one ear down. So cute!

Group shots w/ OCF:

Took advantage of the light diffusing a bit behind a cloud to grab some natural light shots:

throw in a little lovin' and the real smiles come out. :)

The siblings together.  I am TOTALLY going to want a shot of Gavin and Ellie together when they are adults.  It's a shame people stop taking pictures of siblings alone together when they "grow up."

Headshots of Rob. (I got 6 great ones for ya Rob)

Pamela thought we'd have an easier time "corralling" the dogs if they were sitting on this butterfly chair and holding on to them.  The first few shots had me in stitches because Pamela and Mark both looked like they were giving the dogs choke holds and I'm like, um, no. No looking like you are choking out your dogs.  Can we contain them differently?! hahahahahaha  This worked out much better (hand on the collar) noted for future reference. :)

The piece de resistance!

Pamela and her babies. :)

Then the light suddenly got SUH-WEEET and I grabbed a few more headshots of Pamela really quick.  VAVAVAVAVOOOOM.

AJ, Easton and Chase + group shoot

This set of families and I go WAY back as well.  The first family (Shannon, Adam, AJ and Easton) I've been photographing since their firstborn was just a few days old and have continued shooting through the years covering a second pregnancy and newborn and so on!  Shannon then offered her sister, Jennifer, a gift certificate for a shoot when her sister got pregnant with little Chase and then I started photographing their family as well.  Grandma Cindy has been graciously gifting her girls these "combined" sessions for two years now and although it's not something I do anymore (sorry folks!), I will continue to do it for them as it's become a bit of a tradition for us all!  In addition to doing this combined family shoot, we also did, at the same time, a separate engagement shoot for Mike and Jennifer who are making it "official".  So between the individual family shoots, individual kids, group combined shots, cousins shots and the engagement shoot this was a LONG shoot with LOTS of images and this is going to be a LONG post with LOTS of images.  In fact, I could only post a tiny fraction of the total amount of images (just too many) and devoted 3/4 of these posted shots to the group shoot and 1/4 to the engagement shoot.   It sounds a bit insane to do so much in one sitting (and that's why I don't do it anymore) but these two families have it "down pat" as to what to expect from me and how I do things and what they need to do to make this even possible so it works for us, we've got a system in place!  ENJOY YOUR IMAGES!!

how can you not swoon over the donald trump coiffe this little dude has?!

this next shot is exactly as I envisioned it and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it.  You can't see their expressions on this small format but it's absolutely PERFECT in every way... me happy :)

wow, you can even see the size of that rock on this tiny picture!

Family Reunion

I have known some members of this family for a while now.  I have posted images of the twins (Emma and claire) many a time.  It's no secret how much I love photographing twins and these two in particular make my job so easy it feels like I'm cheating somehow.  And it goes without saying that the teenagers were a breeze.  I am so used to babies, toddlers and preschoolers that I forget how incredibly easy it is to photograph any child over the age of 8!  Basically, this large family reunion shoot went off without a hitch.  Seamless.  Everyone was there to honor the matriarch of the family, grandma Maureen.  We even managed every possible configuration you could imagine and that was no small undertaking!  Thanks everyone for being so awesome and making everything go so smoothly, it was a piece of cake!!

Also, I am making great progress on a wedding I shot last weekend and which I am hoping to post this coming weekend.  A TON of images... I may take the extra time and do a slideshow if I can remember how to use the software I purchased last year that allows me to do that! :)  Great stuff so stay tuned!

Maureen, you have a pretty amazing family.  You know I'm partial to your "favorite" daughter though....  JUST KIDDING GUYS!!! :)

 

 

Emma and Sophie

I spent all day creating a super duper custom slideshow of the images from this shoot only to run into one roadblock after another trying to get it to display properly on my blog. I am so frustrated right now!! ARGH!!

So, we're back to the old fashioned way of doing things here.... Posted images, one by one.  I really hope to get the slideshow to work SOON at which point I'll remove these individual images and just post the slideshow.  I think the transition to my new website along with the fact that I am not computer savvy enough to successfully navigate these types of new web internet based functions without some help is contributing to my issue with getting it to display properly here.  It works great on my comuter, I just can't seem to get it to sync well with my blog right now.  I will keep working on it!  The fact that it's a Sunday and I can't get a response from either Typepad or my web server is certainly not helping! :)

Anyway, on to the GOOD stuff!  Tina is a very dear friend of mine.  We've known each other five years now and really "grew up" together in this amazing (and at times flustering) journey that is Motherhood.  Tina is one of those really incredible "thinkers" and I can run any scenario/question/subject matter by her and will always get a very well thought out, intelligent and balanced response from her.  She is one the best sounding board I know!  I love ya Tina!

This was an extended family shoot with her family as well as her brother in law and mother in law.  I LOVE her mother in law and if I could find a way to get this woman to adopt me, I'd jump on it!  They don't come any better than this incredible woman.   It was a delight hanging out with all of you.  I had some serious "esssplaining" to do when I got home and my little ones found out I went to Emma's house WITHOUT them! Haha! :)