Suzanne and I wandered around the waterfalls at Lucia Falls in OR. She was totally cool, 8 weeks pregnant and still 100% willing to do just about anything. She climbed on rocks, hiked down to the water and then proceeded to dive right in.

One of the main questions brides ask me when I mention the trash the dress sessions is how often people actually do this? What if their daughter wants to someday wear their dress?

Well, everybody is different, of course. I don’t ever want to push something on a client who doesn’t want it! BUT, I’m in love with the trash the dress shoot. How many times do you get to wear your wedding dress again? Usually never. And how many of us wanted to wear our mother’s wedding gown? Not many of us…and for those that did, a lot of stars have to align–correct sizing, etc. And, most of the time, your dress will already be very dirty by the end of the night. Usually you need to have it cleaned before sending it off to storage–So…why not put that gown back on, embrace the dirt and get some beautiful beach portraits?

And if worse comes to worst, you can always have your dress professionally cleaned and it will take care of all that sand and dirt you bring home with you from the beach after your shoot.

No matter how often I wipe down those eyes of hers…they remain gross and crusty and have a faint reddish hue. As if she hit the sauce a bit too hard the night before and is paying for it in saggy, baggy, crusty eyes.

It’s ok, Bebop. All us ladies have been there. Maybe I should slice some cucumbers and the two of us can have a spa day. I’ll paint your toenails if you paint mine.

A month ago, I visited the Vancouver, WA/Portland, OR area and stayed with my best friend. She and I decided to photograph each other trashing wedding dresses on the beach for fun–And OH MY GOD, was it fun. Fun and freezing.

Before my little story…here are the photos I took of Missy. Is my best friend stunning or what? I mean, yowza. Her hubby is a lucky, lucky man.

Ok, so now…I just wanted to show these photos that Missy took of me. I knew the water was going to be freezing…so in order to NOT chicken out, I ran as fast as I could into the ocean. Only–I totally lost my footing and fell face first into that icy water. Not one of my shining moments…but wow does it make a funny slideshow of pictures! (keep in mind these aren’t really edited…they’re pretty much raw images) Let’s all have a quick laugh at my expense…

Here I am running…

Running all graceful-like (look at those pretty, pointed toes)

Looking back at Missy…

Oh, craptastic

Walk it off, Colleen. Just walk it off like nothing happened.

Aaaaand last but not least, I give in and laugh at myself.

I don’t know why this keeps happening–the falling behind on blogging. It’s pathetic. There’s no excuse. I’m a terrible person, etc, etc. That being said, I have (quite literally) 10 shoots or more that I have not blogged yet. And because I’m sort of OCD, the thought of those unblogged, unorganized thoughts makes my insides twist into knots. I mean…there are STORIES. THOUGHTS. IN MY HEAD. THAT HAVE NOT BEEN ORGANIZED. Unorganized thoughts–is there anything worse?? Answer: No, there is not–except maybe for an unorganized office.

Sidebar: My office really needs to be organized.

So, to avoid my head exploding all over my recently mopped floors (yes, I spent a good two hours sweeping, mopping, dusting and vacuuming the furniture. If I had a dustbuster, I would have vacuumed my vacuum) I’m going to just blog some of the more recent shoots I’ve had and then work backwards as I have the time.

In the past month, I’ve had a ton of newborn sessions–there must have been a full moon because ALL my newborn clients who had reserved time slots went into labor within the same 5 day period. Below is one of the earlier born clients, beautiful Miss Madison. Nadine (mommy) originally came to me wanting maternity photos as well, but soon after our initial conversation, Nadine was admitted to the hospital for bedrest until birth. She spent months (literally MONTHS) in her hospital bed until just a few weeks ago when Madison decided she was ready to join us. Welcome to the world, little lady! Your mama is way stronger than I am–one week in a hospital and I would have been going stir crazy! Every year for your birthday, you should get your mom a gift, too!

This is the “D” Family–they just welcomed their first child, this beautiful baby girl into their family. I met Sheetal a couple months ago and we immediately got along. She and her husband are both such amazing people, and Sheetal is also a writer (although, she writes about political issues and education…you know, slightly more thought provoking than my posts about picking up doggie poop).

The day of the shoot, I met them at their home–and let me tell you, their apartment is the most gorgeous place I’ve ever seen. It was PRISTINE. I was afraid to step anywhere, let alone set up all my equipment! But they were both so warm and welcoming, that it wasn’t the sort of fragile home you would think. They weren’t afraid to live in their home which made it THAT much more beautiful. I’m still baffled at how their white couch remains so white and how their hardwood floors have not a single scratch on them. I was certain that they must have JUST moved in–but no. They’d been there for years. It put my 1-year old apartment to shame. Not because my apartment isn’t beautiful–but I’ll never be the girl who can have a white leather couch and not spill red wine on it. And my hardwood floors will always have scuffs and scratches–battle scars from owning 100lbs dogs.

Anyway, I digress. This post is about their beautiful baby girl–not their beautiful hardwood floors. And she really was a joy to photograph. Once she fell asleep, she stayed that way for a good 45 minutes giving us an amazing amount of time to capture those pinch-able cheeks and those chunky thighs.

While I visited home a few weeks ago, Bebop got to play with my niece, Adelynn for the first time. Well, actually, they met initially at Christmas, But Addie was too surrounded by sugar and presents to care about the chihuahua nipping at her heels. And not that I can blame her–I mean, PRESENTS! And COOKIES! And CANDY CANES! It still doesn’t get any better than candy canes and hot chocolate in my book.

But on this trip, the two really took to each other. Bebop liked having another creature to run and play with and Adelynn liked having an “Addie sized dog” as she liked to call Bebop.

Las week, apparently Adelynn and Bridget were looking at my blog and Bridget was showing Addie her the photos from her photo session. Adelynn saw Bebop’s picture first and yelled, “It’s Bebowp!” Then she saw her own photos (which were obviously much more exciting) to which she exclaimed, “And dere’s Addie! And Auwnt Colleen! We look alike…aren’t we bootyfull, mommy?”

God, I love that kid. I mean, I love anyone who calls me beautiful…but when said by a three year old? The cuteness is heart-melting.

There were cuter photos of Addie smiling with Bebop….but this one is my favorite. I especially love that she’s picking her nose.

This is Brody. I shot Brody’s 4 month pictures as well as his school portraits at his Daycare in Hoboken. And now I got to share in his first birthday portraits! These were literally taken on the day of his birthday and his mommy Kristy bought a special cake JUST for smashing. It might have been the cutest and funniest moment when he didn’t dive right in!

We all expected him to go head first into the icing, but he was so hesitant…like he was gonna get in trouble. We had to physically dip his hands in and force him to taste it. And even after that, he was still hesitant. Eventually, Kristy just had to pick him up and sit him on top of the cake!

I miss this little guy already (even though I just saw him in May)!

Another noteworthy moment…there’s a photo below where he’s standing in the basket–that was his FIRST EVER stand without holding onto something! He fell shortly after, but I caught the moment!

I get this question a lot from clients, other photographers, friends, parents, etc. Who owns the copyright?

And it’s a very touchy subject–because a lot of times, clients think that it’s a studio’s policy to not release a copyright or to retain it. In actuality–it’s not our choice. It’s the law…it’s just the way it is.

My understanding of the laws (which I’ll admit, even for ALL the research I’ve done, I still learn something new everyday) is that the person who creates the art, be it painter, sketch artist or photographer, owns the copyright. In copyright terms, it doesn’t matter that the photograph is of you–it matters that I am the one who took the photograph.

And it doesn’t quite work as easy as “releasing the copyright” to another person. The only time I’ve ever heard of that is in a work for hire situation in which case the pay is very, very high. However, there is an option to allow printing rights on images–this is what most photographers do. But it’s still not the same as releasing a copyright. With this license, you have the ability to print your own images, however you could not turn around and sell that image to Coca-Cola and make a profit off of the photographer’s work.

For this reason, be cautious of the photographer who is easily willing to “release the copyright” of all their images to you. It’s likely that if they’re doing this for little or no money, they probably don’t understand the business that they’re in very well. When I just began my business, I did allow printing rights for all the images, but I’ve quickly learned that you can’t earn a living that way. Like I said, I’ve been doing this for years and there’s still a lot that I don’t understand. I even WORKED in a licensing department at both a publishing house and a television studio and I still don’t have as firm a grasp as I’d like on copyright. It’s such a complicated system.

So, to sum up:

1) Copyright belongs to the photographer. The “release” of said copyright is not a single studio’s or photographer’s choice–it’s simply the law.

2) This copyright allows the photographer to use any and all images taken to be used on their websites and in advertising (but not necessarily sold, ie to stock agencies)

If I’m incorrect on any of these points, let me know! I’m constantly trying to learn and hopefully this helps us all have a clearer idea of the laws.

This might come as a bit of a surprise to people, but my niece Adelynn is the absolute hardest portrait subject I’ve ever had to photograph. Because I’m her aunt, she doesn’t tend to take the time we have together seriously (portrait-wise). She DEFINITELY doesn’t want to sit or stand still long enough for the shutter to click and she doesn’t like being told to smile.  Oh, she smiles plenty on a normal day, but the second I hold that camera up to my eye, she stops smiling altogether. These smiles that you see were taken in the last 5 minutes that she was in town–while Bridget and Adam were packing up the car. Luckily, they were A+ smiles…

Usually when I come to visit, it’s for a holiday or a birthday. The weekend typically involves copious amounts of sugar and presents. On this last trip, however, it was for no specific reason. Just a weekend that I decided to come down and see everyone. We celebrated things like a late mother’s day, an early father’s day and my (early) birthday while I was in town, but it was very low-key.  I think that for this reason, Addie and I finally had a chance to bond.

Saturday morning she slipped into my bedroom with a box of birthday candles to wake me up. She crawled into bed with me and we watched Clubhouse Mickey while my sister showered and dressed. I rubbed her back and her head for the 30 minutes that the show was on and as the credits rolled, I stopped momentarily to stretch. In those 20 seconds that I stopped rubbing her back, Adelynn put her hand on the small of her back (like I’ve seen my dad do after lifting something heavy) and gave a loud sigh. “Oh, my back, Aunt Colleen.” She moaned as if she had just spent the whole day at the office and all she could use at the moment was a backrub and a brewskie. It was THAT kind of grunt.

Obviously, I had to continue with her backrub after that. We spent the rest of the weekend playing dress-up, tea parties, doing Addie’s and my make up…all those girlie things that you can do with your auntie.

The following week after I had gotten back to NY, my sister sent me an email. She had bought Adelynn a pack of headbands (which comes with 3 to a pack) and upon giving them to Adelynn, Addie set one aside.

“Who’s that for?” My sister asked.

“Aunt Colleen,” she responded as though it was the most idiotic question she’d heard in her life, “because she has fashbon-cents.”

Damn right, kid! Don’t you forget who the “fashbonable” one of the family is!

Anne and Sophia are sisters and are both expecting boys within a couple months of each other! They wanted to do their maternity session together. The other requirement was that Anne’s dog, Chunk, be in the photos! Which I’m always happy to be photographing anything to do with babies or dogs…it was a perfect match up.