Name Dropping

**I think I need to change the Two and a Half Minutes with Tessa series to a new day. I am almost never ready on Tuesdays. This week is no exception. I am traveling again. To NYC just in time for freezing rain and nothing to keep my gear dry. whoops.

For the past two or three days I have tried to squeeze in the fact that I am shooting at the United Nations into as many conversations as I possibly could. "Oh you know, I need to go so I can finish filling out my media accreditation forms to shoot at the UN this week." or "I hope it isn't raining tomorrow when I shoot at the UN." All just injected needlessly into casual conversations so that I could see what it felt like to be going somewhere so official and feel a little important. I mean I am excited about it, I have gotten a kick out of saying "I'm shooting an event at the UN." Living in Orlando, FL I don't get to say things like that very often. So I have shamelessly been abusing it. "You know the UN, promoting social progress, human rights, and the pursuit of world peace." Awesome.

The thing about the shoot is that I have been so busy that I didn't take the time until recently to really look into this job, and when I did, I actually discovered that it is a really touching assignment. I am shooting an event for Redken called Hair Dressers Against AIDS. L'ORÉL has gathered about 500 of their artists to run around NYC to take action and use their voice to spread AIDS and HIV awareness-- they will be making video testimonials and reaching out to people all over the city in an effort to educate and dispel misinformation and myths about AIDS, their messages broadcast in Time Square and in the backs of taxi cab televisions to reach as many people as possible. Directly from the site HAIRDRESSERS AGAINST AIDS IS AN ADVOCACY PROGRAM SPONSORED BY THE L'ORÉL FOUNDATION D'ENTERPRISE AND UNESCO EMPOWERING SALON PROFESSIONALS WORLDWIDE TO USE THEIR UNIQUE RELATIONSHIP TO THEIR CLIENTS AND COMMUNITIES TO BECOME A RESOURCE TO INTERACT, EDUCATE AND HELP PREVENT THE SPREAD OF HIV. TOGETHER, WE CAN BECOME A POWERFUL VOICE - FOR A BEAUTIFUL WORLD WITHOUT AIDS.

So now the pressure is on to try and capture the scope of this event and it feels good to be proud of what I am shooting. I hope I can do it justice. Lately I have just been skipping blogging when I am on the move or overwhelmed, and I decided to try and make more of an effort to share what I am up to lately. I will keep you posted on this as it unfolds. Wish me luck :)

All the Love in the Universe ~ Me

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Do What You Love - episode five: Ashley

**This is the fifth in an ongoing series of posts that I will be featuring here on Monday mornings that I made for the Gap, you can read HERE for more info about how this series came to be, and the finer details of what it's all about. In short: This is a new series that will be featuring women who Do What They Love for a living. Women who are living their lives on their own terms, and finding success.

If you have been reading here for a spell, then you might remember Ashley from the wedding video that I posted HERE back in August. Ashley and her family won me over that day as I saw how completely they all came together full of optimism and humor, as a particularly nasty FL thunderstorm ripped through their wedding venue and tried its best to ruin things with wind and rain. Watching people that can just roll with what life delivers and stay focused on what is important is rare these days-- the bad weather just made them all sweeter and more together. It was so nice to see. I was just starting to put this project together back in August, so when I learned that Ashley was a world famous real deal bona fide NYC Rockette I stored it away and hoped that I would be able to get to NYC to make some pictures and video and tell her story. Turns out that it did work out. I took a trip to the North East to do the next round of "Do What You Love " profiles and my first stop was the big city of New York and I was lucky enough to spend a day running around Broadway and catching Ashley performing at Radio City in the big Christmas show spectacular! It was my first time in the famed historic Music Hall. It is one of those wonderful places that just radiates its history, and you can feel the good vibes and the excitement upon entering the building.

Ashley met me for a couple hours before her afternoon performance and gave me the low down on her life pursuit of making it to NYC and becoming a dancer at the big show. Ashley is that special kind of rare that stayed deeply in love with her first childhood day dreams of a fantasy job. She wanted to become a dancer when she grew up, and that stayed with her throughout her life and became a driving force to achieve what she wanted. Beyond just hard work and persistence, it was obvious that a great support system was beneath it all. To have parents that believe your dream is as possible as you do gives that magic legs and great things can happen. Her Mom & Dad had just visited, they were there for opening night of the show, and I imagined how awesome it must be for them to watch their little girl all grown up on that stage doing exactly what she said she was going to do, in front of thousands of people on the biggest stage in the world. Of course part of the path to get to where she wanted was in doing things she didn't necessarily want to do. Shitty jobs, and late hours, and taking gigs for almost no pay that lead to the hope of better opportunities. It's romantic to say "I just followed my gut" but most of the time in doing so it isn't a direct path to what you want, Ashley talked with me about having that ability to keep your eye on the end goal and to not let all of the paying dues cash you out and leave you mentally broke. After Ashley left college with her performing arts degree she was working in dance circles that could potentially have trapped her into living a lifestyle just collecting paychecks, but not really getting her to what she wanted. She wanted to be on a big New York City stage in a show, and doing what she loved. So she packed up her life and moved to NYC to give it a go. She was leading the life of endless auditions and scrapping by in the service industry at night. The famous starving NY artist story while she was running down a dream.

As perfect of an ending it is to see Ashley doing what she set out to do, in the place she wanted to end up in... it is an even sweeter story to hear her speak about her husband Ryan and their new life together. For years while she danced around the country on tours and split her time in NY on auditions and shows, she managed a long distance relationship with him. A mix of longing and support was key for them. Ryan knew when to say: "I miss you so much I wish you were here", and when to say: "Don't you dare give up!" After this current run of the Christmas show at Radio City is over, Ashley is moving back to Florida from New York-- and in anticipation of her arrival and move, her husband secretly built her a DANCE STUDIO. As a surprise, he turned part of some commercial property he owned into a dance studio for his wife, so that she had a place not only to keep dancing in, but a place to teach others in. He knew that for her to have real balance in her life, that she needed an outlet to do what she loved, and so he made her a place to dance. So while Ashley has the ability to keep auditioning for new shows and to land herself back on Broadway, she also has a home and roots she stays connected to. Knowing that people believe in your dreams doesn't make them come true, but it sure helps to keep you going.

Please enjoy the video below...

**Pictured Above: Long & Lean Jeans (black wash) by: Gap



For more videos and stills and loads of denim inspiration please take a look HERE. it's a really great collection of images and looks.

**All of the clothes seen in the still images and video were provided by the Gap for this series, you can check out the entire 1969 collection HERE

The Music was provided as always by the band: Rabbit! - Song: Fall Into Love - This song is available for purchase on their album Connect the Dots which you can grab HERE.

If you missed the first posts in the series, please take a look HERE

All the Love in the Universe ~ Me

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Two and a Half Minutes with Tessa - episode seven

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I figured since we were doing these as weekly episodes we might as well have a Thanksgiving special...

To celebrate the "feast" aspect of Thanksgiving, I thought it would be interesting/hilarious to present Tessa with her own pile of food and see what she did with it all. This was the first time she was given a piece of corn like this. So she pretty much worked on gnawing the corn off the cob for a good 30 minutes until we had to take it away so she would eat other things. She never touched the hen, and while watching this, it looks like she actually shutters with disgust when she touches the flap of chicken skin hanging off the breast.

Cole and I were up till the early AM trying to figure out what these holidays are supposed to mean for us, and why they are so important to carry out and participate in. Even if you are disgusted by the notion of our fictional American history being played out as a big holiday where we pretend pilgrims and indians were good buddies, and you make the choice to ignore that side of this holiday, the idea of a day of thanks where families come together and feast on food a plenty to show their love and fondness should be an easy thing to accomplish on its own-- but somehow it becomes more complicated every year. While I am building my own family and creating our own traditions, I am torn between making us an island, and trying to please everyone. Going into today it was all brave island talk, and we were happy. By 2 AM I am sick with guilt and trying to figure out how to see everyone today. It shouldn't be like this. It should be one great big gigantic table and open invitations to your entire tree on both sides, and whoever shows up has the feast and the laughs, and all of the differences and hang ups are shelved for a meal. So I guess I am going to have to figure out how to make this great big gigantic table.

Feast your little hearts out today people...

All the Love in the Universe ~ Me

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Thankenstein

I know you are expecting a Two And a Half Minutes with Tessa to be here today, BUT I just got back into town after shooting for the past week in NYC, and then all around Baltimore, I even made a run into New Jersey! So... I am just wore out and am not able to touch a camera again for at least 24 hours. Don't worry I have a very special Thanksgiving episode of Two and a Half Minutes with Tessa all planned out, so I fully intend to make up for this outrage.

To ramp up for Thursday, I am trying to switch my gears and get myself into the season. Maybe kick things off with a trip to the grocery store for a turkey? Then I could start with my lazing around downing copious amounts of egg nog until I am swollen and waddle, saying "thanks" to everyone for stuff that I am thankful for. Making HUGE decisions like: Is this the year that we give into the neighborhood Christmas pressure and light our house up with strings of holiday light? We also wanted to make sure that we went and saw Harry Potter 20 or 30 times :) We chose to stay in town for Thanksgiving after all, the main reason for standing our ground here at the home is that we made an exciting family decision this past week when I was away...

This year we are going to try and start a new tradition. Cole and I are taking the children to New York City to see the enormous Christmas tree, ice skating, and to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular staring the Rockettes! I am so excited for this trip and to see what the kids think of it all. We will also be on the hunt for some great toys and books for the kids in the city-- continuing our no loud electronic toy ban for the holiday. I'm crossing fingers for snow. Sorry New Yorkers, this Florida tourist wants just a little bit of snow for the kids. I will make it up to you with good vibes of sunshine and warmth in February. This trip is something I thought about when I was younger, taking my family to NYC for Christmas is just one of those weird things that I planned for when I would think about the future and imagine myself married with a family of my own.

So here are a few random polaroid shots I took while I was running around the city last week and some quick video that I fired off while traveling around. I was bummed I missed the fall colors at their prime, but still got a little taste of it. The train into Baltimore from NYC at sunset was a nice ride. I think I would take the train everywhere if I had the time.

Happy Holidays everyone :) I know this can be a really terrible week for some people, and I have the deepest sympathy for people that get over run with sorrow, or regret, or guilt during this week. All I can say is to keep your sights set on the good things and know that it will all be over soon. I have spent many a holiday holding back the tears and faking smiles because I was dwelling on the bad things secretly on the inside. I am making the choice this year to just stay locked in on the loves in my life and really appreciate how lucky we have all been this year. I am going to embrace the season and take this week to take a deep breath and just have fun with everyone without the burden of work or blogging. I plan on eating so much that i turn into the new holiday monster Thankenstein! The overgrown stumbling man that can only moan, barely walk, and must lay very still and watch football and ask for more gravy.

Good luck everyone.

All the Love in the Universe ~ Me

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Traveling

taken on the Polaroid 600SE w/ Polaroid 664 (ISO100) pack film 127mm f4.7 1/60

When she looks back at her picture life I want her to see that she went places, that she stayed in motor hotels in beach towns, rode in planes on our laps -- that she saw things bigger than backyards. Swam in oceans. I want her to get it into her head early that the world is humongous and something that she deserves to see...

All the Love in the Universe ~ Me

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Two and a Half Minutes with Tessa- episode six

We were out for breakfast the other morning, so we opted to film this weeks Two and a Half Minutes at dinner time. I was sure to feed her something super messy and not use a bib just to really stir the hornets nest :) Honestly with all of the HUGE advancements in laundry suds technology it would be a shame to not put the stain lifting claims to the test each week. Some of the most fun we have all week is taking the Oxi Clean challenge, and bugging the neighbors to see if they think our kids socks are whiter than their kids socks.

That is a pile of red sauce on her shirt. We aren't worried about it. She managed to get most of her meal in her face. It was just a little more saucy than normal. I picked the Two and a Half Minutes at the end of dinner as she was stuffing down her strawberries, she really has started to mimic and copy cat little things she finds funny a bunch lately, and I wanted to remember this phase. Cole banged her knee on the table and when she was done wincing in pain, she blew her bangs out of her face in a huff. This became hilarious. I wonder what a crowd of 16 month old kids would be like all packed into an auditorium, could I do an entire bit on blowing hair out of your face? I want to see stand up for toddlers. A half hour stage show of blowing farts into your hands and shaking your head.

Anyway. Tessa thinks we are hilarious. People love to feel funny. So she gives us that chip in the game.

All the Love in the Universe ~ Me

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Do What You Love- episode four: Anna Bond

**This is the fourth in a series of posts that I will be featuring here on Monday mornings that I made for the Gap, you can read HERE for more info about how this series came to be, and the finer details of what it's all about. In short: This is a new series that will be featuring women who Do What They Love for a living. Women who are living their lives on their own terms, and finding success.

It has been such a pleasure to watch Anna and Nathan Bond both owners and operators of Rifle Paper Co. grow their business over the last two years together here in Orlando. I was lucky enough to work (for a quick minute) on a collaboration with Anna just before Rifle Paper officially took off, and before Anna's custom wedding invitations made the rounds on the blogosphere flooding her with orders, and ultimately landing her art and their new business in the pages of the fall issue of Martha Stewarts Weddings. Anna made a custom wedding invitation for a friend as a wedding gift, and after the internet got their eyes on her creation, she was in demand. It was thrilling for me to see someone turn their sketch book into a thriving booming business -- blank journal pages that Anna filled with ideas and designs, and whimsical illustrations, and then brought to life with paint and brush on paper. Anna hand paints all of the creations at Rifle, and with so many custom orders and personalized options to choose from, she is almost always working. While I was shooting this piece at her brand new soon to be opened storefront and studio, in Winterpark, I asked her: "When is the last time you had a weekend, you know where you slept in and didn't really do anything at all just because it was Saturday & Sunday?" She immediately smiled and blanked out a bit in thought...."It's been a really long time, not since the business started I think."

The long hours and sleepless nights, and going through the growing pains of starting a new business might have been a much lonelier place if she wasn't going through all of it with her husband. They both share the same work ethic and drive, and it is inspiring to see two people living out a dream, doing all of this together, making huge strides, believing in one another, a true partnership-- It's awesome. For me to see this couple put their heads down and work so hard, and not only find local success, but through the blogging community find global success, it is truly exciting. Anna's work has been all over the web, and shows no signs of slowing down with each new product launch. It is truly a new age in business when Rifle can launch a brand new stationary line, and choose not to utilize traditional advertising in any way, and through the power of bloggers and social media grow Rifle Paper in such a short period of time. Anna did admit that she is doing what she loves for a living, but it was impossible for me to get her to herald Rifle Paper a success, she is modest and quiet about all the noise surrounding her business. She still has the stress from their first launch in her eyes, she can laugh about it now, but you can tell it wasn't pretty. It was just her and her husband, and all that could go wrong, went wrong in the first few weeks, problems with the printer, and shipping, and website crashes, and many lessons learned. They got through it together, and came out of it all with wisdom and momentum, and they have not looked back. You can feel the buzz in the building that houses Rifle Paper, their employees are happy and busy, and it was a total joy to be around them all for the day making this profile. Jokes and stories rolled out as they packed away paper goods and filled orders, and handled calls, Anna paints away in her office, and keeps her journal filled with fresh ideas.

You can follow Anna and Rifle on Twitter right HERE! If you are curious to see more of her work, please take a look HERE. If you would like to stay linked into Anna and her latest projects, she blogs HERE.

Please enjoy the video below...

**Pictured Above: Forever skinny jeans (saturated dark wash) by: Gap



**All of the clothes seen in the still images and video were provided by the Gap for this series, you can check out the entire 1969 collection HERE

For more videos and stills and loads of denim inspiration please take a look HERE. it's a really great collection of images and looks.

The Music was provided as always by the band: Rabbit! - Song: When We Were Young - This song is unfortunately NOT available for purchase on their latest album Connect the Dots which you can grab HERE. But it will be coming so very soooooooon on their next release :)

If you missed the first posts in the series, please take a look HERE

All the Love in the Universe ~ Me

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Around the House: by Cole

Remember months ago when I was all yapping about making Cole her own space here? A place to host her pics from around the house, and to post up some of her hair inspiration, and creations. Well... we haven't had any time to work towards that. Not even a little. It turns out, that when I am busy, that it makes it so that Cole loses any and all of her spare time to herself. Not that either of us ever have mountains of free time to begin with, but it really puts a strain on doing little things like exercise, or blog, or just blank out and stare at a wall. Cole is a fan of the staring into space thing, right after we were married it was funny to learn how we both unwind. I was all buried into the laptop, with the TV on, while watching videos online, and talking to friends on IM, and I would look up, and there was Cole, staring at a wall.

ME: "What are you doing?"
Cole: "Relaxing."
Me: "That doesn't make sense."
Cole: "shhhh."

I get it now. Sometimes I just want a good wall to veg out on. A nice hour to let the jaw flap open, my eyes to cross, and my brain to take me on vacation. Anyone up for some of this?

Below is a group of iPhone shots from the last couple of weeks of living that I pilfered off of Cole's phone last night. The last scraps of a black-bean & rice dish is my favorite :) I say it every time I post her shots, how grateful I am that she gets these pictures.

We have the first Christmas party of the season to attend this weekend. The salon Cole works at always does the party early because they get too slammed during the holidays to slow down for a celebration. So we are off to ring in the holidays. Maybe we can go and just sit down and find a nice wall to stare at. That sounds lovely.

Have a great weekend everyone.

All the Love in the Universe ~ Me

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Falling from Fall

**Taken with Polaroid 600SE w/ Fuji FP100C pack film

I'm sure to Tessa she must be trying to figure out how we managed to turn the air conditioning on outside. Fall finally arrived in FL, It has been cool, and even cold at some points this week. Both kids are really into it. Playing outside is choice. I had no idea that putting a jean jacket on my daughter was going to make me weak from the cuteness. The cuteness! Tessa took off running down the sidewalk after this shot. Screaming out laughs and flapping her arms until she face planted on the concrete and got her first road rash ever. She now matches her brother who face planted over the weekend when he was away, and so now we have two busted faced kids walking around. We look like parents of the year when you get them side by side in a grocery cart. I can already feel the judgy eyes.

Starting today I will be pretty much shooting every single day from now until Nov 23rd and then my face glued to a computer screen editing. I am going to do my best to keep things moving forward and interesting around here, but I am not going to lie... I am sure posts will be sparse until I get all of this done. I guess I am just giving a heads up in case I vanish here and there. Cole and I were going to try and go somewhere fun for Thanksgiving. Just a random quick excursion, but nothing seems to be popping up as an obvious choice. For years I would always make a huge traditional meal for all the friends I had that didn't have anywhere to go for Thanksgiving, and looking back-- they hold the fondest memories above all. **big heavy sigh.

Any suggestions on where to go? Have you ever taken a Thanksgiving vacation just to get away from Thanksgiving? Does it work? Or do you just end up sitting around wishing for turkey and heavy gravy? Everything is closed on Thanksgiving. I feel like we would be the Griswolds standing in front of a closed up Wally World.

I have a feeling we will end up doing what we always do. Cole loves that cranberry sauce that still looks like the can after you get it to slide out, and I love turkey naps. Geez, I just realized how much Thanksgiving depresses the hell out of me. Yuck. We need to figure this one out before the kids get much older. The holidays are here. Oh my. The guilt is building.

All the Love in the Universe~ Me

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Two and a Half Minutes with Tessa - episode five

Cole had to take LB to the dentist super early this morning, and so I was on breakfast duty with The Tangerine. I went with bacon & eggs with a cold milk chaser and it seemed to do the trick. The bacon was a little extra crispy since I had to change a diaper in the middle of it cooking. Bad timing Tessa. She let me know about its crappiness when she finally gave it a try and commenced to "grrrowling" at it in disapproval before she took her bites. She made me proud when she let out an "uh-oh" upon hearing the sound of a low flying plane-- all of that early Red-Dawn training is coming in handy (sorry really excited about the remake).

You might not be able to tell, but Tessa got her first real haircut from Cole in the tub last night. She is still sporting the major bedhead in this video, but I am going to find some time later today and get a picture of her all put together. So cute.

She is still talking way more than she is willing to belt out at breakfast. I didn't want to push her to talk in these videos, it was more of a wait and see what she wants to say to us kind of thing. So we will keep waiting.

Enjoy.

All the Love in the Universe ~ Me

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Taking a Good Long Look

** The Do What You Love series will return next Monday morning, this one has been a little more complicated to put together because of hectic schedules. Apologies for those of you following along. It will be worth the wait.

We had a pregnancy scare this last week. A really late period and all of the sudden Cole and I got a real good hard look about how we really feel about having another baby right now. We were both kind of tensed up shoulders and nervous faced with the thought of it. We are not ready. We have a plan and a time line and a lot of work to do before that next addition to the family. So this got me really thinking about my work, and where I need to take it, and how much I have to step it up, and so I picked over my photography files and was honest about where I was when I first started this blog. I walked myself through the archives to see how much I have changed in the last few years of trying to make photography my profession. It's a painful practice let me tell you. Being honest with yourself and your abilities. I got started very late in my life giving myself permission to turn this dream into my career, and when you're in your 30's, and you see 16 year old kids on flickr making gorgeous thoughtful sophisticated work, it really messes with your head.

What was most painful about this learning process, was when I took a look back at what I had been doing, and saw the terrible photoshopping decisions that were going down. There was a definite phase of idiotic amateur meddling that took place with almost every single photo I took. I remember clearly that point where I thought I could make every picture whole and better by doing some kind of photoshop magic to them. Sitting down to each picture with heavy hands thinking: "This is going to look totally awesome!" In reality I ruined perfectly fine photos with good intentions and no edit for my editing. In many cases I was taking the picture in terrible conditions knowing what I would do to reverse that in photoshop. I had this editing tool, and a very basic knowledge of how to use it, and yet I was letting it rule my photography. It's a trap. So I wanted to write this down. Maybe it will snap someone out of that phase. I think a lot of people go through this bad photoshop phase that never take care to really study their camera first. Even still, there are just some things that are never okay to do.

** Saturation- There is never a reason to saturate your colors so vivid and bright that the colors in the picture start to break apart and pixelate. Your picture should never look like a sweater from the 80's that one of the Cosby kids would wear. It is not natural. It does not look good. Get your hand off that saturation tool.

**Diffused glow. Never use this tool if you think it looks cool when people look illuminated. People don't need to shine like porcelain.

** Vignetting. This is the one thing that someone showed me how to do that I took and applied to every single photo that I took for months. MONTHS and MONTHS I would add this silly effect to pictures for no reason other than I knew how to do it. It made no sense, and it looks terrible, and I wish someone would have slapped my face and snapped me out of it.

**Blur Tool- Using the blur tool to try and create a shallow depth of field effect for your photos is a terrible mistake. There should be a lockout feature on photoshop, that if it senses that you are in fact trying to do this, a little skull and cross bones pop up, and your computer screen locks you out, and it melts your photo into a pile of pixels and tells you no, no, no.

** Zombie Eyes- People can't leave eyes alone. They break out the diffused tool and start blasting away at the whites of the eyes and then cut out the center and start pumping in the color. More blue. More green. I know you have brown eyes, but they look cool when I add red, and yellow. The end result is not natural, and the sparkle, does not look like a sparkle. It doesn't. I swear.

I am guilty of all of these mistakes (and more), and many of them became my habits. A set of things that I just automatically did to each photo. Like I was supposed to. I'm not sure what blinds a person to not recognize how terrible they are making their photos look. But it happens. If you think you might be caught in this photoshop trap, turn to your camera to shake yourself out of it. Don't put your pictures through an edit process. Force yourself to edit in camera for a few weeks, and you will really make big strides, it will force you to look at your conditions more realistically. Read your manual. I cannot stress this enough. Read your cameras manual. Actually read it. One of the big benefits to shooting digital is it allows you to learn very quickly through trial and error. Make sure you are working towards making gains in your camera, not in your editing software. You will be amazed at how exhilarating photoshop becomes when you bring in a gorgeous well exposed, crisp photo. Small subtle moves will make your images sing, and it becomes a really exciting tool, instead of your crutch.

Two weeks ago I made a promise to myself that if the photos from Trish's shoot turned out well, that I would finally consider myself a photographer. The reason being was that I walked into the situation with high expectations, a clear vision and goal, the tools I needed to capture that, and no excuses for it to turn out poorly. It was a studio situation, we had a great model, talented team, and unlimited resources for light, and so it was on me to make great images. I felt for the first time at the end of that day that I had finally arrived at the end of a very long growing pain. It was the first time I felt like a photographer and felt ready to finally step into that world full force. As soon as that happened, a brand new wave of reality set in, and I am a different kind of student. I am excited about this new phase, because I finally feel like I am at a place where I can really start to make the kind of images that I dream up.

My best friend Devin told me once that pretty much anything you dream up that you want to do well, will take you at the very minimum seven years to become decent at it. Seven years of practice and education and pushing yourself to get better before you can even think about telling anyone you are good at it. I didn't believe him at first. I finally get it. Keep at it. That is what I tell myself every time I see inspiring images coming out of people and I feel like I am never going to get there. Keep at it.

All the Love in the Universe ~ Me

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90 Seconds Brought Me Back

Do you remember how awesome it was to rush to your car with your Mom or Dad, and sit in the parking lot of the Eckerd Drugs, or Walgreens and rip open your pack of developed photo prints that you had just picked up? Everyone would gather around to get first looks, heads would peek over shoulders, and siblings would fight for a better view, you were taken back to the memories captured on your stack of 24 glossy double prints. I am sure I am not breaking any new ground writing about how neato it used to feel to flip through photo prints. Don't even get me started on the holy awesomeness of developing your own prints. I have really been missing that excited feeling when I have been shooting lately. That feeling of bubbling anticipation of finally getting to see what you had captured was a big part of what made me start to fall in love with photography in the first place. Seeing the picture after processing, and remembering how I felt when I pressed the shutter.

Lately I have noticed that I've been taking 10 times the amount of pictures for some situations, I let myself get into the habit of shooting every shred of a second to just get the coverage, knowing that I will have a great capture within a burst of shots. It was odd to realize that having the ability to shoot fast was making me miss more. I blame 32GB memory cards. For the longest time when I would fall into that practice I would force myself to use smaller memory cards. Slapping in a 2GB card and shooting in RAW forces you to treat your shots with more care and takes you through a better selection process. Of course you can still go through and delete and manage your shots... but it was the closest thing I could do to recreate the feeling of having 24 exposures to get right on my camera. It is a great exercise, and I have talked about it before, please try it.

I took things a step further.

I recently purchased "The Goose" the marvelous Polaroid 600 SE portrait maker-- and I sucked it up and bought a good stack of film knowing it would all be used for trial and error to get myself reacquainted with shooting. I grabbed Cole's sewing measuring tape, and studied the depth of field chart that came with the camera, and shot all kinds of film stock, in all kinds of conditions, and with each shot, put myself in the position to get it right. Making better decisions on exposure, and composition, and the biggest thing for me was making a deeper connection with the subject. I found myself seeing all the way through the viewfinder for the first time in a good long while. I was looking so much further. You know what I mean? With the digital blasting away in bursts, I was not looking for "the moment." I had started to become lazy and blast away hoping "the moment" was mixed in there somewhere. I used to never do that. With this camera, I was holding steady and really seeing what I was shooting (not just looking at it), recognizing exactly when I should be pressing the shutter release. Of course my favorite part is waiting that 90 seconds for all the gooey chemicals to mix and mash and do their magic, and finally peel apart the paper to see how I did. How was the light, the focus, did I time it all just right?! By the 3rd pack of film I was feeling that old joy that I had forgotten about. I really needed to do this. It has been a great exercise.

I feel like this is a gateway leading me back to shooting on film again for some occasions, and with the way this Polaroid has been making me feel I am pretty fine with that.

The Goose - Polaroid 600SE and my stack of shots that brought me back to photography








That last photo is a behind the scenes of what Cole wears around the house when I have the AC cranked to freezing cold

** I am aware these are not the greatest scans of the shots I took, I have a Canon all in one printer/fax/scanner thing and the scanner on this machine is not built for bringing out great photo quality. I was too excited for this post to wait for a brand new scanner to arrive. There is one on the way that should make a good bit of difference. I am in the process of educating myself on why and what makes a great scanner before I buy something super insane.

Since we are talking about photography...

I am really happy to say that Cole and I will be going on a trip in January to Utah. To my surprise I was officially selected to speak HERE this coming year, and since Cole is a top-notch snow boarder down mountains, and I can't stand to go on a fabulous trip like this without her, and she was so hell bent on hanging out with THIS lady, Cole will be making the trip with me to Salt Lake City.

Is anyone else going to Alt Summit?! I decided that I would go to two conferences a year. I chose Alt Summit and SXSW and felt like they would be the most valuable and the most fun for me to attend.

See you in Utah? I will have more news about what I will be yapping about and with WHO very soon!

All the Love in the Universe ~ Me

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The Jet-Setter & Stealer of Grapes

Song: The Ghost of the River / by: The Anniversary / From the Album: Your Majesty


That grape was Tessa's first theft, it was obviously the gateway to her thieving that little girls candy in the Halloween video I posted yesterday :)

That's right. Tessa took her first plane flight, we went to some little beach town North Carolina for a nice wedding, and I have to say it was not the most fun I have ever had on an airplane :) Tessa is not well known for sitting still, but with that said she did very well for the majority of the flying time. She just can't figure out how to nap on the go. If she is out, she is up. Too much to see I guess. So once the nap had come and gone by an hour, she really got unreasonable. I have to tell ya, being a "blogger" has really ruined me in many ways-- I just imagine that everyone that sat around us authored a blog, and so I start crafting their blog entries about how much they despise us as Tessa would scream and squirm, like the woman I referenced in the pictures above that HATED us. I kept writing her blog post for her. Every time she huffed or puffed, or gave us the stink eye, squirmed, frowned, every one of her annoyed and tense moves was one more hilarious nasty biting line in her blog post about getting stuck sitting next to this ridiculous family on an airplane.

I did feel bad for her for a second, but her intolerance for the situation started the second we sat down. Her whole body sunk, and it was obvious she was a kid on a plane hater. Cole made it all simmer down at the height of the hysteria by whipping out her boob one last time, and she nursed Tessa into a quiet little baby angel for most of the flight. Without knowing it I had burned about 30 seconds of video when Tessa was nursing, and had no idea that it would mean so much to Cole that saw the footage this week-- she got a little choked knowing that it was the last time she would nurse Tessa. She instructed me to never throw that clip away.

Who else spends every second of a plane flight with their toddler sweating out the seconds, wishing and muttering to the Universe to please keep their kid from pooping on this plane? It was all I could think about. Just don't poop.

** If you have not been reading Pacing The Panic Room for long, the jumping picture of Cole up there, that is a vacation tradition of ours that started on our honeymoon. As you can SEE HERE (not pictured is the jump in Big Sur), we have not been to very many places since we have been married. So it felt great to see her leap into the air off this beach sand. Happy to say she will be jumping into the air again soon :) More on that later.

All the Love in the Universe ~ Me

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A Bat & Spider

The Littlest Buddy spent the last 4 weeks telling us with absolute certainty that he wanted to be a "Bat" for Halloween this year. We have no idea how he got this idea. We think from school. We showed him page after page of costume ideas, and he would always say: "Bat" and when asked well, what kind of a bat? A Vampire Bat? Batman? he would shake his head "no" and say: "A Halloween Bat." So Cole made him a bat suit. LB loved his bat wings, and he had no problem showing them off at each house we visited for candy. Tessa of course had no preference or opinion, so we opted to make her a "Halloween Spider" and kept it simple.

I have been seeing gorgeous and sweet photo after sweet photo of children and families all dressed up on Halloween doing the Halloween thing, and it is always impressive. I'm like HOW ON EARTH did you manage to get such great images?! How do you get your children to hold still? There must be some sort of candy bribery going on. For the same reason I am horrible at shooting weddings, this night just goes too fast for me. I am just terrible in these situations. The chaos and hustle, and sugar fueled dashes -- by the time I kneel down to take a picture the moment is gone, and rather than keeping at it, and miss out on the fun from trying to capture it all, I usually give up and just enjoy the night. I was bummed the next day of course looking at what the camera had on it for still shots, a collection of blurry and missed moments. I am a greedy person when it comes to wanting these pictures and memories for the family. I always wish for more. This year, we literally only have this one picture of Cole & the kids in their costumes. Tessa has her finger in her nose, and LB is looking down, and at first I was all "Shit. This sucks!" and then I took a second and realized that this was them in the moment. Cole trying to keep everyone still for a tiny fraction of a shutter speed, and Tessa is too little to care, and LB just wanted to play and run. I am writing this as a little reminder to myself that trying to force a great image to remember a holiday or a moment can be a ruiner. How many of you get caught up in trying to get the perfect picture that you make everyone else miserable? Come on... admit it.

There you go. That feels better doesn't it? I mean some people are just naturally great at capturing these types of things, (and I am so sickly jealous of your abilities) but for people like me that need a second to get things right, this night is way too jacked up on sugar and hysterical fun to hold still for the camera.

I don't want to be a ruiner. The grouchy guy pleading for people to "hold still" a second. I have to keep that little voice in my head loud enough reminding me that these are little kids high on sugar, and really amped up to run and laugh, and be silly, and be bats & spiders & the last thing they want is this guy trying to get them to stand still and smile. There was a few minutes where I let myself get all shitty frustrated, and right in the middle of it LB was being so funny with his relentless flapping of his bat wings, paying no mind that he was holding a giant bag of candy, and he was smacking this bag into everything on our porch and shouting "ROAR" and "Halloween Bat" that I was swept up in his fun. He shook me out of this dumb I have to take amazing pictures for this night to be perfect mode. The night was already perfect, and I was missing it by trying to slow it down for a picture. So I just put the camera down and laughed. I flipped the switch on my camera to video, and just made sure I grabbed a few shots of them running around, and spent the rest of the night happy that the kids were having such a blast. I slapped some of the video into a short clip for you. Both kids just kept my camera shaking from laughing all night with their antics. Between LB's wing flapping, and Tessa stealing candy bags, it was a hilarious night. Nobody could scare Tessa, not even ol' Freddy Kruger, she loved it all. Made me proud.



All the Love in the Universe ~ Me

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Two and a Half Minutes with Tessa- episode four

16 months old now.

For a series set up to document the progress of her speech, it turns out all the focus is on her feeding herself lately. We chose the high chair at breakfast because it is literally one of the only times during the day she sits still long enough to film her for two and a half minutes. She is a mover.

Tessa insists so strongly that she not be fed that any attempt to assist her is met with epic tantrums that are subdued instantly just by handing her back the spoon. She is fiercely independent, and so the amount of time it takes for a meal has quadrupled in the last couple weeks. We have to up the portions to account for the amount that doesn't make it into her belly. She has been talking more and more lately but she is so focused on eating that she stays pretty quiet during breakfast. So the question is do all babies freak out at this age when you try and feed them? It took us a minute to figure out that she wanted to feed herself and not that she hated the food we were serving up. For a about a week we thought she had turned super finicky, turns out she just wanted to do it all herself. You should see this girl eat raviolis what a mess.

All the Love in the Universe ~ Me

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Do What You Love - episode three: Trish

**This is the third in a series of posts that I will be featuring here on Monday mornings that I made for the Gap, you can read HERE for more info about how this series came to be, and the finer details of what it's all about. In short: This is a new series that will be featuring women who Do What They Love for a living. Women who are living their lives on their own terms, and finding success.

When I was first figuring out how I was going to approach this project I knew right away that I wanted to profile Trish, (you might remember her from the Walk to 40 Weeks). I was a little worried about the redundancy of featuring two people in the same career, both Cole and Trish work at the same salon, but the more I thought about it, the more I appreciated the connection they share. They are both on the same career path, but are currently on different ends. With Cole, she is in the middle of her exciting climb for more experience and comfort, and with Trish she brings 15 years of knowledge with her to the salon, she is a mentor to many, and very much the wily veteran. She has arrived at a level of confidence that has allowed her to start down a new path within the beauty industry, to put herself and her styles out there to make a statement. This project created a great chance for me to approach her to style a fashion shoot, something I have not had the chance to do in awhile, and styling shoots is something she very much wants to start to do more of. So Trish was tasked with casting the model, and coming up with the looks. Basically I piled on the pressure, putting her at the center of a team of talented people, and giving her the chance to branch out to do what she loves, she put herself and her creative talents to work to make her statement of what she thinks looks fresh and fashionable. I loved the results, and we both learned a ton from this whole experience and later talked at length about the balance of taking chances to try new things, and pulling from your bag of experience to make sure you don't screw the whole thing up. We were both sweating from the pressure, in these situations the team is tied so closely together, if everything isn't swinging in unison, if the makeup is off, or the hair falls apart, the photography weak, or maybe the model doesn't deliver, then your big bold statement will fall flat, if one thing is off, the shoot is a bust. So it was crucial that Trish could communicate her ideas to the team, and keep us all in sync. It feels good to be a little scared once in awhile, and this was one of those times.

In making this profile, it was important for me to share that Trish is also a new mom. I was lucky enough to get to know Trish as more than one of Cole's hair cutting and style heroes, when we teamed up to do the Walk to 40 Weeks. I got to watch Trish grow in a lot of ways from that series, and watching her balance new motherhood and her very successful styling career, has been inspiring to me as a parent. Since she had her baby boy, she has used the natural instincts that emerge from becoming a new parent, and channeled them into her job. As she speaks about in this video, she feels new life in everything that she approaches, and the urge to share her experience and to teach... keeps pushing at her to come out. So she has embraced these feelings and let it create a fresh approach to her job life. She has very much let the energy she feels from being a mom, give her confidence to branch out in new ways within her career. Someone told me right before Cole had Tessa, that some of the best writing and photography I will do will come right after our baby was born. They said I would feel intensely creative and motivated, and they were correct. I am not sure if this a universal experience, but I could absolutely relate hearing Trish talk about how she feels about her career now that she has her baby. It's like you take a nice big satisfying drink from a tall glass of bravery and the urge to just do better in everything takes you over. A survival instinct? Boosts in adrenaline, and confidence, and motivation, to make sure you do your best for your baby. Now if someone could bottle this please.

Enjoy the Video...

**Pictured Above: Legging jeans (true black wash) by: Gap


Lightweight Wool Blazer (Heather Gray) & Forever Skinny Jeans (saturated dark wash) by: Gap

BIG thanks to the talented team that made this photo shoot happen. Hair: Trish, Hair Assistant: Michael Pennimpede, MUA: Erin Green) Model: Lauren Klemm (takes a few seconds to load the Next Model site) Photo Assistant: Bryan Fulmer

**All of the clothes seen in the still images and video were provided by the Gap for this series, you can check out the entire 1969 collection HERE

The Music was provided as always by the band: Rabbit! - Song: Camera - This song is available for purchase on their album Connect the Dots which you can grab HERE.

If you missed the first posts in the series, please take a look HERE

All the Love in the Universe ~ Me

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