Maternity Portraits

My own son Zack and his wife Sarah are expecting my first grandchild in July, and we are all very excited about this new addition coming into our family of course. It is poignant to see how much this child is already loved by all of us, and she isn't even born yet. Maybe that is why I love doing Maternity Portraits for my clients. It gives you a chance to capture this amazing, beautiful, tender, and fleeting moment in time.

It is a time when the couple becomes so close, a calm before the storm, and when the mother's beauty is unbounded. It is so important to capture all those emotions in a portrait! Here are some examples of some recent maternity portraits for couples. Sometimes they are couples who I have had the honor of photographing their wedding, or even their high school senior portraits years ago. Now they have returned to capture this delightful time, as well as when the baby is born. There is a special quiet beauty in these moments, and as artists have captured the Madonna portraits for generations, I too adore this subject.










If you know someone expecting a baby, encourage them to capture their beauty in a photograph today!

A Week of Creativity

My Painting Class at NEIPP 09


I recently went away for a divine week of learning and networking with photographers from all around New England at The New England Institute of Professional Photography. I have attended this yearly event for nearly twenty years now. This year I studied with world-renowned artist, author and painting instructor Jeremy Sutton, perfecting my portrait painting skills. It was a week to totally immerse in creativity and push myself in new directions in going to a more abstract style. Here are a couple of "before and afters" from the week.

This one is a photo I took of a man in Ireland, who was standing in an alley smoking a cigarette. It is titled "Irish Gypsy". Since he was not a "client" I felt the freedom to go for it with expressive color. What do you think???
Photo Before Painting After

This was done in the style of the Fauve Artists, such as Matisse, who used extremely bold colors, in fact their name actually means "wild beasts". I enjoyed being "unleashed" to paint in this looser more expressionistic way.

Here is another, more Impressionistic image, in the style of another of my favorite artists Renoir, called "Mother's Kiss":


Photo Before Painting After

Let me know if you have a loved one that you would like to have a painting made of. Makes a cherished Mother's Day or Father's Day gift. Or you can just give them the gift certificate for now, and we can do the session in the future. I can do it in any style you prefer, realistic or more abstract. They can be done on canvas or watercolor giclee.

Actual Snowflakes Photos

Winter 09

Hey, I found this to be so interesting that I must tell you about another photographer other than me. :)

These snowflake photos were taken by Kenneth Libbrecht of CalTech, using a specially-designed snowflake photomicroscope. They show real snow crystals that fell to earth in northern Ontario, Alaska, Vermont, the Michigan Upper Peninsula, and the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. . See the link below for a fascinating look:




http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/dn16170-snowflakes/6

The above photos were taken recently. But the man who invented a way to take photos of snowflakes was a farmer and self-taught scientist named Wilson Bentley. He developed a technique of photo-micrography to reveal to the world the grandeur and mystery of the infinite number of lovely designs and universal hexagon shape of the snowflake. He photographed them and cataloged them for over fifty years. Here are some of the images he took. He is now known as "Snowflake Bentley", and there are children's books written about him. Check him out, and share it with someone you know who loves snowflakes!