BTW – for the above picture of the family’s feet, mom had in mind that this would be a B&W image, but when I saw that mommy’s toe nails just happened to be the same blue as the blanket we happened to use, I thought this image just had to be in color.  Hope you agree!

I did also capture some quieter, timeless moments and here is a little glimpse.  But I’m not going to feature them here, because it takes away from the happy color story above.

I’m getting back into the swing of posting.  Thanks for baring with me while I get my wheels turning again.

Sometimes I find it hard to believe that my husband and I have been  in Los Angeles for twelve years (we moved here from London).  To most people that’s probably not a big deal, but I have never lived in one city for that long before.  So, it shouldn’t be surprising to me that now that I’ve been here so long I’m crossing paths again with people we met when we first moved here.   I mention this because the dad of this lovely family worked with my husband when we first moved here.  It was a small start-up part of the first generation during the internet bubble of the late nineties, when the internet was the Wild West and businesses had not yet figured out what business models would work in this new medium, or as my husband  might say, “how to monetize the web“.  As start-ups go, this one didn’t last, but we will forever be grateful to this man as he gave my husband his first opportunity in this new country; the first step in us following our “American  Dream“.  So when his wife contacted THOMPSON and SPRING for a shoot and I saw their name come up on my Caller ID, I couldn’t believe how we had come full circle… and after all these years, he hadn’t aged one bit!

However, in the interim, his family had significantly expanded and he now has three gorgeous kids.  It was fun doing a family portrait session with them near their home in Hancock Park.  The kids all had very distinct personalities and looks.  And, while the weather report had been threatening Los Angeles with rain, luck was on our side and we managed to have fun outdoors.

It was great seeing them again, and seeing how big their baby daughter had grown.  She was a very tall one and a half year old, walking up a storm.  Mom had warned me that she might take a while to warm up, but she was game from the minute we said go and we had fun playing around Century City, which is also where Mommy happens to work.  Mom is also expecting Number Two, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at her, she looked fantastic.

I have to say I’m a sucker for blue eyes and this little girl’s one are exceptional, which she definitely inherited from Daddy. My older son has slate blue eyes that change a little depending on what he wears, but this little darling’s eyes are blue through and through and couldn’t be more gorgeous! Don’t you agree?

You probably recognize this lovely little girl from previous sessions.  She honestly keeps getting cuter and cuter.  Not just physically, but in terms of personality, as she gets more playful and self-confident.

If you’ve been following this blog you know that I am primarily a family photographer, shooting newborn, babies, families and pregnancies.  That said, I have been known to take corporate headshots in the past when asked.  Such was the case for a recent shoot that I’m dubbing “Susana’s Angels”.  Much like Charlie’s Angels (the original, not the recent remake), all of Susana’s employee are gorgeous, bright and sassy young women.  However, Susana, pictured above is not a mystery boss, she’s one of the partners at BuzzSmith, a smart social media/SEO marketing company, and much like the women who work with her, she’s smart, hardworking… and stunning.

I’ve been lucky to know Susana for twenty years as we met on our first day in college, back in New York.  Most significantly she was one of my college roommates, and we choose to live together, not once, not twice, but three times.  The last time being in a small two bedroom apartment in the heart of SoHo… Have you guessed where?  At Thompson and Spring.  We lived there when we were young and single.  SoHo was cool but not completely over run with commerce and our street was a little quieter, with cobble stones.  In fact, when we lived there there was a prime piece of real estate that was occupied by a garage, the kind where you go to get your car fixed up.  Imagine prime real estate taken up by a mechanic.  A few years later that spot was taken over by the 60 Thompson Hotel, which due to the success of the hotel became a chain of hotels…

I digress, but it just shows you how long I’ve known Susana.  I’m fortunate to call her a friend.  Being BuzzSmith’s photographer is just a bonus.

I’ll be doing more corporate headshots as I move forward.  And, while I love goofing around with kids on family shoots, now that I have two little ones, this will provide me with a little more “adult interaction” that I know I could use.

There was a time, not so long ago, when pregnancy was something that you tried to conceal as much as possible, think muumuu style dresses. Then there was the more recent belly-revealing fad a la Britney Spears.  Personally I think pregnancy is beautiful, but that belly-revealing fashion should be limited to the beach or kept private, as in this maternity shoot.

For this recent pregnancy shoot, it was all about the belly, the beauty of the belly and the mother’s form.  While intimate, these images are about motherhood. I think they have a beautiful serenity about them and love the softness of the afternoon light.

I look at these images and wonder how is is possible that the beauty of pregnancy was for so long something to be concealed.  I am happy that we live in an age where we celebrate not only the miracle of birth, but the beauty of motherhood.

Hope you enjoy these images.

Towards the end of my pregnancy I was contacted by this lovely family.  They wanted to schedule their first family photo session EVER, but given my physical condition I suggested we wait until after I delivered and recovered from my c-section.  Why did I suggest we wait?  The kids are three and a half and five respectively, and with kids that age I know there’s usually quite a bit of running around.  They were patient and waited for me to resurface from baby Number Two’s arrival.  That’s a good thing as this woodsy session required some jumping around on my part.

The two kids couldn’t have been cuter and the natural light at that time of day was great for a family portrait session.  We played around the Griffith Park, which for us urban folk in Los Angeles, feels more like a forest.  I learned that Dad works in computer animation for Disney, but I forgot to ask if he was involved in my son’s all time favorite movies Cars and Cars 2.  What was more surprising is that Mom used to be an assistant zookeeper, but now stays at home to take care of her own little wild animals   I’ve never met a zookeeper before and was (still am) completely inspired by such an unconventional career.

I had fun running around with this family.  These are just a few of my favorite pics from this session.

It can be particularly disconcerting for a dog, often a couple’s first “baby”, when the real first baby shows up.  In the case of this gorgeous little girl, her cocker spaniel melted at the sight of her penetrating eyes, as did I when I met her for her baby photo session.

For these Black and White photos, I decided to give them a real luxe tint.  Her mother works as a creative executive of Ralph Lauren, so I knew she understood the world of luxury and would appreciate this interpretation, however subtle.

Needless to say, this couple’s home looked like it had come out of a high end design magazine (mine just belongs in a blog ).  As a lover of design, it’s something I always appreciate seeing and am honored that with the mother’s access to her own creative team, she felt that THOMPSON and SPRING was best suited to capture her family’s special time.

I haven’t written a blog post about what to wear for a while.  This time around I wanted to show that you can take inspiration from all around you.  I personally have always had a love for doorways (I usually make sure I photograph at least one doorway when traveling), so I thought I would write a What to Wear series inspired by doorways.  Here’s my first pick:

Photo by Ralph Ledergerber

My first pick has key colors that have a real Easter/Spring feel, which I thought appropriate for this time of year.  Based on the colors, I put together some outfits from Old Navy to show how a whole family might dress.

photo courtesy of Domino Magazine (RIP)

It’s a simple idea that can easily be replicated.  I think it looks great above a bed as shown here, or  would look great in a hallway. While the site I pulled the image from doesn’t have a tutorial, I’m pretty sure the tutorial would be along the following lines: buy multiple cheap frames all in the same color and size, affix them together to create a grid either permanently using brackets, or something less permanent but still strong like duct tape.

WHY: It’s not always easy to bring together colored photos, because color, light and vibrancy can differ so widely, but the grid creates order. I love a) that you can reproduce this idea as big or as small as you’d like, and b) that some frames are purposely left empty and filled with an accent color which allows you to both pick up colors from the surrounding photographs or room, but also gives your eye an opportunity to rest.