took my little rinky dink to the cape. forced myself again. forced myself to think of it as film with little room for post processing. my sister wives. bffs 4-eva. soul mates from anotha motha. i just really love them. and love their kids. and their mens. love em.
the last time i photographed evie and kai was in CA. i lost those photos. felt good to make new ones today, though. and man. what a good, good day. a summer day.
yep. no words, just a lot of love. xo isabel
short on words. been a strange summer. gear was stolen. as in camera gear. as in my dear sweet d7000 and my beautiful 35mm f/1.4 longer post coming.
hadn't taken a photo in approximately one week. picked up my "feels like a toy in my hands" d3000 today and popped on the 50mm f/1.4 and forced myself.
i saw this awesome lady (tara whitney) who i totally admire do this one time. well, she's done it a few times. the diptych thing. it makes me feel like i'm there. when i get to the end i always wish there was more. and what with my losing my gear and sort of going back to a basic camera for a bit, i've been forcing myself to think on some things i've been struggling with. maybe that's in the next post. but really, i didn't allow myself to edit these outside of adobe ACR, and what i did do was just sharpen and up the contrast a bit. editing won't change the composition of a photo, or the light, or the colors of that moment. trust the eye. we got to crane beach at 6:30PM (yep...that's us) and we played in the pink light and tide pools and sandy ripples. not much dinner was consumed and we got bit by a few greenheads, but the night was perfect. the boys had fun. they are sleeping snug in their crisp layer of beach skin.
i'm coming back... xo isabel
lots of little earthy tidbits popped into my head when i thought about writing today. a day like today has me taking a look at our life, at our footprint, at our waste. ironically, our power went off for an hour and a half this morning. i am glad no one but my family saw the embarrassing, frantic lunatic i became. my husband, the electrician (ha, yea) said there was nothing he could do and i swear i reacted like he told me his new passion in life was snakes and that he was bringing home a 9ft. boa constrictor whether i liked it or not. shock. horror. it was bad folks, bad. but, we did play with playdoh, my most hated childhood pastime. i'm learning to get over it. the point is, we sat in a room together, lit by the sun, all together with only the sweet sounds of two playdoh high kids. oh wait, wasn't i supposed to be going somewhere positive with this? all the time actually, i am thinking about the ways i'm falling short. the things that i really feel deep down are important, that i just can't seem to implement. somehow buying locally seems way more expensive, as do farm shares, and then i know if i had all this fresh produce in my house, i either wouldn't know what to do with it or it would sit in the veggie drawer until someone noticed a smell. when i think back to the kind of grocery shopping i did when we had just jack, when we were still so young, when we were still shell shocked. it was terrible. TERRIBLE. but we still aren't eating enough fresh produce, we are not cooking enough dinners. i just can't seem to find the balance in it all. and top it off that i just despise the kitchen in this apartment. i have all these dreams for our new place. all the junk we'll abandon, fresh, living, growing, green plants all over the house, a kitchen with light. a girl can dream. and then i'll feel inspired and motivated and happy. this will surely solve all problems.
no. but we do have this dream of one day owning a little old house on a good patch of land. and we'll build a chicken coop and have chickens. leo requests frogs, pigs, sheep and a cow too. i'd be happy to just start with chickens.
but until these dreams can come true, i need to make more of an effort now to try and find a way for what's important to me to be a part of our lives. and keep apartment hunting.
in line with earth day, i'll be photographing the great cloth diaper change for the diaper lab in Somerville. tomorrow is also my husband's birthday. being the lovely assistant he is, he's offered to come along to be my right hand. a man who will spend his birthday with cloth diapers. ladies, i am lucky.
and finally. we spent a day this week with our friends who are family, Leah and Milo. they are so earth friendly. every time i leave from a visit with them i wish we could move to a tucked away little cape house. with a nice garden, plenty of room to sun dry cloth diapers, and there are so many great local farms around them. they are also my most outdoorsy friends. my kids are always guaranteed a nature walk with Stellapuppy when we visit. the cape has so many amazing trails. again. want to move. i wish the two year old had been a bit more cooperative so i could have like, taken a few pictures of the amazing swamps we walked through. instead, he insisted on being carried and then walking and then being carried and then walking. 30+lbs folks...make up your mind! however, if miss new england would get her act together and grace us with some damn warmth that would probably help the whole being outside thing.
we started the day hanging out around the house, letting babies nap and nurse. while the big kids pretty much experienced love at first site. the adorable little girls are courtesy of new to us friends. Avery is the gorgeous blonde bopping around with my big kid and Evan is her gorgeous little sister.
then, we packed up and headed out for our walk.
and when we returned, we were cooked delicious macaroni and cheese with broccoli and headed back to boston. add this to the list of things milo does now, he eats!
look at how he goes in for the kill. this kid knows his way around food.
thanks for playing Milo!
and cheers to the next earth day. as with new years resolutions, i always hope to incorporate more of these things that are important to me in my life with my family. what earth friendly habits do you resolve to add to your life?
xo isabel
i'd like to go ahead and pat myself on the back for just a second. when everything wrapped up and the last session was done just before noon on sunday, my husband said to me "hey! you told 6 families you've never met to meet you at a playground and they all came, they all found us, and they all had their pictures taken. no one was late, no one got lost and no one fell in mud!" true the last statement was an unfortunate concern due to an entire night of delightful april "showers" between saturday and sunday. but, we powered through, and no one fell in any mud. i really loved doing this. the families were all so different. one with a newborn, one with a first born and one with her teens. it was fun to talk to all these people, either commiserating over a current shared stage, or reminiscing my boys' newborn days or even remembering back to when we had just jack. and really, i swear, social situations like these are not my strong suit, but i'm so glad i went for it, and i really look forward to doing these in the future. thanks to everyone who came out and shared their beautiful families with me!
i love this picture so much. i asked each set of parents to get together and for most they said they couldn't remember the last time they were photographed together. everyone was so sweet and giggly.
this last family was just beyond sweet. and this little girl was happy the entire time, showing off her walking skills all through the big forest. i also need to point out, her eyes. i know some photographers do the thing with the eyes. i will tell you that i wouldn't even know how to do the thing with the eyes, even if i wanted to. these eyes are legit, 100%, true blue.
so, all in all, i'd say it was a success. i can't wait for everyone to get their beautiful prints. and i am really excited about incorporating this into things at furie photography!
school vacation is kicking my ass and i feel a cold coming on. it's off to thursday night tv for me. xo isabel