mother's day minis - success! | boston family photographer |

April 21, 2011

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

the adventure continues

April 18, 2011

a little over a year ago, i stopped talking about how badly i wanted to take my photography to the next level and blew through one tax return to start my adventure. never in a million years did i think i'd have the courage to book my first session. never in a million years did i think i'd have the courage to book a paying session. never in a million years did i think that in just the short span of a year, i would improve as much as i have. never in a million years did i think i'd have the courage to photograph a wedding, or set myself up for 6 families i've never met before to meet me at a park in unpredictable new england april for mini sessions. but in just one short year, i have done all of these things. i have completely surprised myself. right before i shot my first wedding, last weekend, a friend posted something totally cliche and corny on my personal facebook page. you know how sometimes you read one of these things and all of a sudden you're totally welling up and feel completely embarrassed?! that's what happened to me. the line read "you are what you've been waiting for" and it was like a tiny little brain grenade. the kind of thing that you think you're done thinking about and like 45 minutes later you slap your knee and exclaim "damnit! it's just so true!" sometimes the pressure and the exhaustion and the stress of having had a baby and getting married before pretty much any part of me had even begun to grow up had me sitting slumped in a chair...waiting. waiting for something to happen. looking at it now i'm not sure i could tell you what exactly i was waiting for. for my husband to suddenly be wealthy? for job security? for a good night's sleep? maybe i'd be a nanny forever? or maybe i'd just wait until the kids were grown and then try and find myself. maybe i was waiting to stop feeling so afraid of actually listening to myself and maybe even have enough faith in myself to try something risky and new. the only thing, the only person who was going to give me what i wanted, what i was waiting for, was me. the one holding all the fear and creating all the roadblocks was me.

this is not to say that i didn't spend the days leading up to that wedding with a sour stomach. or that i wasn't up at a ridiculous hour this past weekend rocking in a corner like a crazy person begging the weather gods to behave. maybe that happened. whatever. the point is, i know i made the right choice a year ago. i am doing something that challenges me endlessly in more ways than i first expected. there's always room for doing what you love, for doing what challenges you, for jumping off a cliff and hoping for the best.

of course i'll do a wedding post. it was such a beautiful day with a beautiful bride and groom. i could definitely be talked into doing a wedding or two in the future. and the mother's minis were great, despite some rowdy new england weather and a quite unwelcome breeze. it was so great to meet these families, all different, all at different stages. some with newborns, some with first borns, and some with teens. i love working with new people and i only hope i am lucky enough to work with them all again in the future.

onto some pictures. and another ridiculous tale of "how isabel makes friends online" back in 2007 i connected with my friend Kristina in an online mother's support forum. both of us in a bit of a dark patch (Kristina is probably chuckling a bit at the light heartedness of that statement) we eventually became friends on facebook too. she is a good friend, a great mother, and a talented professional. her little daughter Fiona is absolutely gorgeous. i've been joyfully watching from over here in boston as she's gone from a tiny little preemie, to a tall for her age almost 2 year old who, as i know as fact now, never stops moving, is very smart and never stops talking and is one of the happiest kids i've ever seen. Kristina and her crew lived in CA for a long while and recently relocated to TX. i never thought in a million years i'd ever meet her in real life, but up she came for a visit with an old friend who happened to live in boston! oh, and did i mention Kristina is a photographer? yea, you should have seen the two of us. sitting on the floor in the ICA (in the one freaking room we were allowed to take pictures and where the kids couldn't break, destroy or spill on anything valuable) with our cameras, carrying most of our conversations with a lens to our eyes. i know there will be more photos when she returns to TX. but for now, here's most of my batch.

we started off at the ICA.

then we headed out to lunch...

and then, finally, with the wind dying down, we played outside. for a long time.

sadly, we walked them to the train stop. holding hands by the way, completely unprompted. this was a good crew.

such a great day. if you had told me 6 years ago, i would meet such interesting, wonderful people like Kristina and Fiona, or that i'd be a photographer, i'm not sure i'd believe you. just goes to show you how much you can surprise yourself.

xo isabel

distractions of the Milo kind

April 7, 2011

hey, guys, did i tell you i'm shooting my first wedding this weekend? like, the day after tomorrow. did i tell you i'm totally out of my brains nervous. that i'm dreading new england will pull her old tricks and snow or rain or BOTH! we had a ton of rain which put a major crimp in my "go out and drive around the area of the wedding" plan for days. you know what's hard? finding a spot that's beautiful, public, but not crowded and not the same as everything else you've seen and also not ugly. i think i may have got it though, which has really relieved a lot of my stress. the husband will be my right hand man the whole day. if i can go into a room and make my ugly freak out face with anyone, it's him. but mostly i know he'll just keep telling me i'm doing great, which i might need. who knows, maybe he'll become my always assistant. he is great with kids... starting a business, becoming a mother, a wife, a friend, a sister, whatever transition it is that you and i are going through, is really hard. sometimes i wake up and wonder why i feel so out of sorts. probably because every day is a combo of constant worrying about all the balls i'm juggling and constant worrying about what balls i'm not juggling that i should be juggling. i should be writing a post about why i freaking love shooting and editing in RAW and how i ponder how one can be a photographer without doing it this way and what took me so damn long (fear, duh!) to switch. i should be catching up on late print orders, i should be putting away that 3573498673986739876th load of laundry or spend more than 10 minutes with my husband that doesn't involve the glow of a screen. i should also be enjoying this exhilarating feeling of being at the very beginning of an adventure, because while adventures are super crazy happy fun times, they're also a lot of work.

i should also find a way to work on photos of my own kids and life. i know for a while it probably felt like they were all you were seeing. but sometimes there is only enough time or energy to whip up what i'm feeling, what i want to write about, what i want to share. maybe i'm going to force myself to share some amount of photos of them a week. a classmate's mom asked me for photos i had taken at their winter concert, in JANUARY, and i realized. shit. i haven't even touched those photos. i was waiting for my niece to be born (which meant my travel to DC), my lens was in the shop. then february happened and sucked. and then march happened and sucked, mostly. and then poof, it's not january anymore.

but with april comes a fresh start. a wedding, mother's day minis, meeting new families and doing what i love. speaking of doing what i love, i love spending time with my baby Milomunchkindoodle. he kind of is my baby from another mother. don't worry, it's a joke i make with his ma. funny, right? anyway...Milo and his ma, Leah, made the trip up to our stomping grounds yesterday. and since last i saw him (here) he is now sitting up alone, and has two teeth, his very first two! since it was a nice day out, Leah and i treated ourselves to some starbucks, which Milo found quite boring and unimpressive:

and a walk to the playground. it just happened to be Milo's first time ever in a swing. i'd say he's a fan.

Leo was, in fact, at the playground with us. i think he was in such shock that we were even able to be at the playground that he was totally happy by himself.

then, we headed back for food and nap. after everyone was fed and rested, it was time to get to work. the wonderful owner of the wonderful Gnorasaurus, saw a picture i had taken of miss Mary in a hat from the Gnorasaurus store, and wondered if i would be interested in photographing some more babies in some more awesome Gnorasaurus threads. uh, don't have to ask me twice! but with that whole crazy winter and no indoor natural light studio (yet) it was proving harder than i first thought to get this done. Milo to the rescue! he modeled two of the little boy onesies and boy are they cute! the onesies are so soft and the fit is great. Milo is a huge chunk and the 6-12 month onesie fit him perfectly with enough room to grow. but before we got him into his clothes...we had to get him out of his clothes!

ok ok, Milo, put some clothes on young man.

like my make shift inside studio? (insert me rolling my eyes) that's one thing i'm really hoping for in whatever our new place is. maybe just a small corner where i could set up a mini travel studio. dream a little dream for me...

i might post one more jibberish filled post before the wedding. it will contain mostly brain mush and likely will not make sense.

wish me luck! xo isabel

the cousins came, they saw, they drooled, they fevered, they went.

April 4, 2011

so yea, remember the whole my husband is one of nine thing? what this means is that when all his kid having siblings get together in one spot, we have this many children running around (and this many germs...) :

i had my camera out the whole time, and was starting to shoot in RAW. it's taken me forever to get through these images. sometimes, i wish i shot film, because you would just get your pictures and that would be that. half of my lack of motivation came from how exhausted we all were every day after being around so many kids. and half of it was that i was so sad when they left that i didn't really want to look at all the fun we'd been having. then, in the mix, i started shooting RAW and really really prefer the post processing abilities that come with that, and going back and forth between JPEG editing and RAW editing was, well, a pain in the ass. but i knew if i didn't just get through them asap, i never would.

the great thing about this trip was i got to photograph my sister Tricia with her various nieces and nephews. since they live in DC she hasn't really gotten to spend time with the babies.

we spent a lot of time just hanging around inside. since, ya know, we live in new england and it's still freakin freezing...

we did go home occasionally. my little guy got his hair cut, finally. after all my whining, there is nothing quite like a clean cut little boy.

i spent a lot of time following Olivia around. sometimes, i put so much pressure on myself for every shot, every moment. that i forget to just take the moments for what they are. the lighting might not be perfect, maybe i was too busy cooing to get the focus right. i have to let that be ok when i'm just being with my family.

the expressions on this child are too much...