Leaving on a Jet Plane

Well, tonight I am off to my third wedding in a row! This one is in Chicago. Every time I go to Chicago, I love it, but I'm only ever there for a weekend at a time. Doug has never been, so we'll spend some time walking around and, of course, taking pictures.
I still have photos to post from last weekend's wedding in Mystic, CT. You'll have to keep checking back because there were beluga whales and penguins at that wedding! Other than that, I'll leave you with this photo:

There Is Nothing For Me But To Love You

Sal & Jess, August 18, 2007

{The Ceremony}









{The Reception}









I thought Frank Sinatra fit perfectly with this wedding. Everything was so beautiful! And let me tell you, the bride and groom did not stop dancing all night! Yes, that's the groom you see belting it out, with all the other male guests. They were singing "You've Lost That Loving Feeling." And, yes, that's the bride and groom doing choreographed dancing to "Cotton-Eyed Joe." It was sort of like walking onto the set of "She's All That" while they filmed the dance sequence. They even had a conga line!

I Put Some New Shoes On

I may not be Carrie Bradshaw, but these make me smile!


This photo doesn't exactly go with this post, but I took it the same day, so I'm throwing it in here. Not to bring up the whole nostalgia thing again, but I've had to let go of a lot of "stuff" over the past few months. Yesterday, it was my first fancy dress. I loved this dress... it was forest green velvet on top and green satin on the bottom. There were rhinestones on the sleeves. I even remember the brand name - Zum Zum. Does that ring a bell for anyone? And it was expensive! But, I had a black tie party to go to - my grandfather's 75th birthday celebration. I think I was in 6th grade, which was still elementary school for me. Can you imagine being 12 and going to a black tie party with the adults? My younger brother even wore a tux! Needless to say, there are plenty of photos of me in the dress floating around. I just needed to take one more.

Upside Down, Boy You Turn Me

As long as the sun continues to shine
There's a place in my heart for you
That's the bottomline


This is my wonderful friend Doug. I've put his photos to the tune of Diana Ross' song "Upside Down." We lived together our senior year of college, with three other people. Besides our one roommate Bill who was on the college basketeball team, we weren't really an exercising group of people. Instead of going to the gym (yuck!), we danced. We danced our hearts out. We went through phases with songs - I think it all started with the song "Crush" by Jennifer Paige. But it continued with "Believe" by Cher, "Livin' La Vida Loca" by Ricky Martin, "Hit Me Baby One More Time" by Britney Spears, "Save Tonight" by Eagle Eye Cherry, and "Upside Down" by Miss Ross. I'm quite sure we danced our way through many more songs but these are the ones that really stick out.

Enough nostalgia. You might have guessed I revel in it, but I will move on to the photos at hand. Doug lives south of the Mason-Dixon line in Baltimore but came up here for a visit. We had a lot of fun hanging out in a park down at the Seaport where I managed to grab some of the images. The other ones are in Provincetown, MA. There's nothing like Cape Cod in the summer. I had never been as far out as P-town, despite growing up here, so I had a lot of fun!





I thought this was a really cool photo. I love the way the light outlines his body!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like....

Okay, so not quite yet, but I shot my first Christmas card photo of the season last week. Talk about being on top of things! Mom even had her props ready to go. I'm not going to reveal the Christmas photos - all in good time. However, these are some of the other images I captured that day. These kids are awesome models. They all have such gorgeous eyes. And we had so much fun, just playing around in trees, in fountains, in the grass.

{Tanner}


{Tyler)


{Tess}







On the dreaded subject of Christmas, if you're interested in booking a session for Christmas photos, start thinking about when! I'd love to start scheduling appointments early so there's plenty of time for everyone to plan. Phew.

The World's a Nicer Place in My Beautiful Balloon

Caught this in the sky on a drive home from Maine. For a while, it seemed like it was following me. When I finally got to a stop light, I was able to take out my camera and grab some quick shots before the light turned green. Seeing a hot air balloon floating along in the sky - it's just one of those moments that makes the world seem like a better place.

Every Picture Tells A Story

I can't decide whether I want to describe this photo or just let it speak for itself.

Shine A Different Attitude From Underneath Your Skin

This is from the song "Attitude Dancing" by Carly Simon. I've moved on to some really esoteric lyrics, I guess. Well, that just means you learn something new every time you check in.

You might remember Jovee from a few entries ago - I posted a photo of her on a tire swing. Well, I finally got around to editing the rest of her shoot. There were so many fabulous pictures! Thanks to a wonderful model with plenty of attitude, we got exactly what I was looking for and then some! Hopefully we'll get to play again soon.








Usually I am such a fan of black and white photos, but I really thought Jovee's photos looked better in color overall. So, for all you Jovee fans out there, enjoy the photos!

Aw Man, I'm Gonna Miss "Stairway To Heaven!"

(this photo looks better full size - just click on it for a better view!)
This post is brought to you by the Barenaked Ladies' "Grade 9." However, I'm using it to refer to grade 8 - it didn't matter what grade you were in; "Stairway to Heaven" was always the last song. Frankly, I grew to loathe that song because of school dances. I'm just now starting to come around again. That's almost two decades of trauma. What can I say about junior high? Not much, really. The hardest class I ever took (and I'm including college and grad school) was my 8th grade science class, Investigating the Earth, with Mr. Bouley. He would give us these crazy labs where we would have to study erosion in a sand table and then he'd tell us, "I came up with 214 conclusions; I'd like you to come up with 156." However, the hard labs always gave me a good reason to call my friends, and even occasionally, the boy I had a crush on. The reason I am bringing any of this up at all is because I came across a bag full of notes from junior high - notes my friends passed me during class, after school, even mailed. Some are just a few sentences - others seem like endless missives about who knows what. And 95% of them are folded up into little triangles that I'm too scared to open because I'm not sure my 30-year-old fingers are nimble enough to refold them. I'm trying to junk some of my old stuff, but am having a difficult time throwing out old letters. I'm awfully sentimental. So, to possibly help the process along, I thought I would photograph the notes in their natural habitat. My thinking is, if I document them photographically, maybe it will be easier to put them in the trash. What do you think? Should I keep them or throw them away?

{PART TWO}
Instead of starting a new post, I am just going to add on to this one. Here are other things I've found, photographed, and now, thrown away...


What you're looking at right here is my "behavior card" from 4th grade. My teacher was Mrs. Nagle (she replaced my original teacher, Mr. Brush, who had cancer - that was a hard lesson for a 10 yr old). Anyway, she instituted this practice to reward good behavior. If you got your name written on your card, you did not get a treat that day. If, after a week, no one in the class had their names written on their cards, we got a party. Always educational, but a party nonetheless.


This is obviously police tape. What you can't tell from looking at it is that it's from when my friend Alison and I went to see Luke Perry and Ian Ziering at the Cambridgeside Galleria. We battled many screaming girls to try to get a good look (which we never did). The police tape made a quick and easy souvenir.


This is a giant Spaghettios can that dates back to when I was 15 and we moved into our new house. My parents let my friend Laura and I spend the night in the house before we actually moved in. We had this lovely food for dinner, but no can opener. So, we accomplished this with some sort of knife, and in the end, it sort of looked like art, so I kept it around as a sculpture. Like all other things, it eventually found its way into a box in the attic...

A Whale of a Tale and It's All True

This song ("Whale of a Tale") is sung by Kirk Douglas in the Disney movie, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." I was extremely excited when it popped into my head; I couldn't think of any other song lyrics that talked about whales.

This past weekend, I took some time off and enjoyed the city. Normally, I love to walk around Fanueil Hall, Newbury Street, the Common, even go to the movies. We decided to do something different this time. A friend of mine works at the Aquarium and has been talking about us going on a whale watch. Well, she's off to train dolphins in Florida for a few months (yay, meg!) so I took the initiative and decided to go with my boyfriend instead (much to his land-loving chagrin). It was breathtaking, when I wasn't too busy trying to get a good shot. I'm afraid that when trying to photograph whales on a large ship that's moving, surrounded by lots of strangers taller than me, a lot of my photography skills went flying out the window. Thank god for cropping! Here are a few that came out okay.

Now Everything Is Easy, Part Two

Cheryl & Paul

{informal formals}





{dancing fools}