Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! Its been a few years since we have done anything on Halloween, but this year we had a great costume party to go to! The perk to being a professional photographer is that you have a lot of professional photographer friends who will come over on a whim to take some pictures for you. Its kind of hard to take images of yourself, especially when dressed up. So my good friend and neighbor Jennifer Childress came over yesterday to document our costumes. THANK YOU JENN!

We decided to go with the fall theme and the fact that we have been surrounded by leaves.
I was a bag of leaves.

hehehe, I can't help laugh at myself.

Don, my creative man, was a tree.

The idea for the owl came from the owl we had living in our tree last winter.
Don made his outfit, I made mine.
Isn't this an adorable family photo, Alma didn't need to dress up.

A moody leaf pile! ahh

The tire swing was that little extra piece that pulled it all together.

Alma is our little leaf collector.

Don just looked amazing.

Its been a while since I posted anything personal so this is perfect! I have this weekend off, we are enjoying a little down time. Hopefully we will get some trick or treaters tonight!

Happy Halloween everyone!

Three Generations

Last weekend I went home to New Mexico to visit my Mom and Grandma for Mothers day. I had not been home in almost a year and I have not spent Mother's day with my mom in well I can't even remember how long! My Mom requested a visit and since I luckily didn't have a wedding, a little schedule rearranging was all I needed to do to make the trip possible. I had a great visit and I am so happy I was able to spend time with my Mom and Grandma.

I am a third generation New Mexican.
When you don't have someone to take a picture of everyone together this is what you have to resort to! I love this photo of all of us though.

This has to be my all time favorite image of my mom and Grandma.

Grandma just turned 85 in April!

The cactus in my mom's court yard was in bloom, isn't it gorgeous?

Here's my mom with the necklace I gave her for Mother's Day.

The new growth on the cactus was amazing. Look at the little baby spikes.

Ooh that new growth is so cute. I love this image.

Its hard having family living so far away, I don't get to do the normal things you do with family on a regular basis. Even in New Mexico its hard because everyone lives at least three hours from each other. My mom and I had a great visit though. She was here in PA over Christmas but with Alma, our dog, getting sick we really didn't get to visit and do all the fun things we wanted to do. I pampered my mom for Mothers day that's for sure. We had a lovely brunch at St. Claire Winery, shopping in Old Mesilla and we had manicures and pedicures. She just moved into a new place as well and her yard/courtyard is so cute. It has a lot of tree's and cactus, its very shaded and protected which makes it so comfortable. I love her new little place.

True Craftsmenship!

Yesterday a group of us (Ryan Estes, Sofia Negron, Jennifer Childress, Pete Malone and Geoff Horowitz) took an old fashioned field trip up to Long Island to visit our favorite album company Leather Craftsmen. I have some experience, very limited mind you, bookbinding and have always had great respect for how these albums are made. Yesterday my respect and admiration grew 100x over. I could have sat at each station in awe watching these albums being made. We flip through these albums everyday and then just sit them down without any thought. After seeing the entire process I came home and examined my albums in amazement of what I had just experienced. Leather Craftsmen albums are truly handcrafted in every sense of the word and I am proud to offer them to my clients. I kept hoping that I would see some of the albums I currently have out being bound but I didn't .

I swiped photos of the day from Ryan.

The fun antics of photographers on a road trip. We had to stop and celebrate St. Paddies day too!

Thanks for the photos Ryan. It was awesome hanging with you guys yesterday. I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am to have such great friends who are in the same profession. You guys rock.

Happy St. Patricks Day!

I hope everyone is having a great week! Its the off season but things have still been terribly busy around here, that's a good thing. Album designs being sent out every week is keeping me on my toes to say the least. I will post some here soon. Today I am actually going up to visit one of my companies, which I am very excited about.
Yesterday was Don's Birthday! We didn't do much, he teaches and with the end of the term and finals its been a bit hectic. So we will celebrate this weekend.
I wanted to post a few more shots that Ryan took of us the day we closed on the house. Ryan recently hooked me up with more images I hadn't seen and I had to share these. So in the spirit of St. Patricks day and Don's Birthday here are some images. Have a great one.

I can't help but crack up at this every time I see it. Totally Don's personality.

Have a great day!

Ready for spring

We are ready for spring time. We spent some time in the yard today cleaning up leaves, picking up sticks and wandering. Okay, so Don did the leaves and sticks part, Alma and I did the wandering part. She is like a young child and must be kept an eye on at all times or she will find her way into our neighbors house, which has happened twice now. She naturally follows me around so we spent some time inspecting the yard and checking out the first signs of spring.

Here we are smelling the flowers. She is so cute when she sticks that little tongue out.
She has actually been sleeping with her tongue out a bit lately. We find it very funny.

My favorite. She was a very good subject today and took direction well. Its not often you can get a good shot of her and see her eyes. She is a Hungarian sheep dog, Puli, not a jamacian rosta dog. Her hair naturally cords like this. She is seriously the sweetest thing around.

Can't forget to mention our new Vermont Cart. Don was very excited to get this bad boy. We are big fans of made in the USA. Our friends parents in Vermont have one of these carts and Don hasn't stopped thinking about it. We finally have our own, with our own little personal touch added.
Hope you are having a great weekend.

Off to Vegas.

I am headed to Vegas tomorrow for a fun filled week with other photographers at WPPI. Its my first time going and I am pumped! I will get to see a lot of people that I haven't seen in ages and I am looking forward to meeting many more new friends. Maybe win some money at the slots? Ah, who knows what will happen!

I will be checking email while I am away, lets face it I am addicted to checking my email, I may not get back to you until next week however.
I thought I would leave you with some images of my mom that I have neglected to post since Christmas. We had such a crazy holiday with the move and Alma getting sick that sadly not many pictures were taken while she was here. I did manage to get a few, isn't she adorable?


Have a great week everyone.

Having a little fun.

Yesterday Jenn Childress and I took Pete out for a little photo shoot. Pete recently went for an old fashioned shave with his dad, the end product was a pencil mustache. Obviously he is not keeping this look so we knew we had to have some fun and document it. We already know Pete is up for anything. So on the leiderhosen went! Needless to say we had a blast. Its always good to get out of the office for a few hours.






Hopefully these will help put a smile on your face today.

Phun with Philly Photogs

I have been out all day and just came home to find this fun video of an intimate get together we had back in December. Pete Malone, Jenn Childress, Sofia Negron, Ryan Estes and myself got together for some good ole fun. Yep, again we are all great friends and like to do things together. Its great to get out of the office and goof off, since we don't get normal weekends most of the time.

I am always a bit embarassed to see myself in moving film, but I guess everyone is? Jenn and Ryan win the prize for goofiest, I am a little too camera shy to be so goofy. Pete is responsible for the video and well you will get the idea. Watch for Ryan falling and Pete taking his pants off in public. Oh believe me its never a dull day with us, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Phun with Philly Photogs from First Floor Films on Vimeo.

Philly Photog Shootout

Everyone is always so surprised to learn that so many of us photographers in the area hang out. We don't view each other as "the competition" we love getting together to learn and well just have some fun. Rob from Humbled Eyes along with PhotoJoe did a fantastic job of organizing this event. I didn't really know the scope of what they had in store until I showed up. Now we don't do this often and these girls are models, but its just fun to get out and practice alongside a dozen other photographers. Its actually quite a funny sight. I wasn't there the whole time and I missed the after party but I had a great time while I was there and grabbed a few shots.

Lots of names in here, Doll Face studios, Ryan Estes, Humbled Eyes and Missy Swoden.

The spectacle

Miss Jackie Bayne sporting her ski pants!

Good day! I love my job.

Animals

We have been enjoying all the wild life living near our house and just discovered the other day that we have an owl nesting in the tree in front of the house. He has been spending a lot of time just hanging out and we hear him...or her...hooting at night. I can see him from my office window perfectly. Its really cool. We looked him up in our bird book and he is an eastern red screech owl. We are trying to figure out a good name for him other than "Owlie or Hootie" those are way to obvious. I was calling him David for a while but he doesn't seem like a David and what if he is not a he? We need some sort of non gender specific name like Pat. If you guys have any ideas let me know.
Our other wild animal miss Alma is doing quite well. She had one little set back last week when we were on a walk she broke one of her nails, right at the base. Poor girl. The vet had to remove it completely. So she walked around in a little pink bootie cast for three days. Its off now and she is doing just fine. She is pretty much back to normal, a little stumblie now and then but she has all her spunk and personality back.
Just wanted to share an animal update. Today we are doing work around the house and I am getting my gear all ready for Matt and Marcella's wedding tomorrow. Hope everyone is having a great weekend.

School Photos

Don needed a bio photo, long overdue, so we decided to get them done. Don is not your typical instructor so a typical head shot would not do. We took inspiration from the 40 year old virgin and the sparkler was totally Don's vision. Our dining room was the perfect backdrop.

hehe it makes me giggle.

Never a dull day. He is too adorable.

Update on Alma! Thank you so much for all your well wishes and concerns. She is an amazing dog. She has pulled through with leaps and bounds! It was a very rough week for us during Christmas, we brought her home from the hospital on Christmas Eve. The vet techs were not totally sure we could handle the care but luckily a house full of people was just what the doctor ordered. The first couple of nights were the worst. She was very anxious and scared, crying and panting uncontrollably. It was about three days until she started standing on her own. She would just stand for a few minutes then lay down in exhaustion and sleep. She was determined and she never lost her appetite, which is key. We just took baby steps and it got to the point where she just wanted to get up and get moving. She was certainly tired of lying around all day. She is pretty much herself now. She has a bit of head tilt which most likely will not go away, she is still a tad off balance but is compensating. She just started trying to get up the stairs by herself today, she is still not steady enough for us to trust her to do it on her own. She is back to being attached to me like glue, where ever I go she goes!

I will be getting caught up on a lot over the next few weeks, some adorable baby shoots to post and long overdue slideshows from some fall weddings. I hope you all had a wonderful New Year! I am looking forward to a fantastic 2009.

Wishing for Christmas miracles.

I will be posting about my giveaway later tonight, so stay tuned. A lot of you already know that our little pooch Alma is not doing so hot.

She has been trying to stand on her own this morning which is a good sign. It was a rough night for me as I stayed up with her, anytime I wasn't touching her she would start crying. If you read about it you will see that a lot of dogs do come out of it, we hope we are that lucky.

She was hospitalized for a few days after suffering a bad bout with vestibular disease. We have
her home now and are taking care of her, but she's in rough shape. She can't move and can only lay on her left side. We have to hand feed and give water.

All of this after a fun romp in the yard on Sunday morning, she got very excited when she came in, then her legs went out on her and here we are.

Here are a few links if you want to read more about vestibular disease. We didn't know anything about it before this happened. The doctors have basically ruled out ear infection or thyroid problems as the cause and think that it's central (neurological). The best we can do is wait a few more days to see if there's improvement, but the poor girl is laying in her box and continually crying. Not the Christmas plans we set out. We are trying to stay positive. She is such a major part of our lives like any of you with pets probably know.

Wish her luck.

-don & joy

A photo from a couple Christmases ago, we didn't get around to getting a holiday card together this year.

http://www.petplace.com/dogs/vestibular-disease-in-dogs/page1.aspx

http://www.canine-epilepsy.com/vestibular.html

http://marvistavet.com/html/body_vestibular_disease.html