Than a baby wearing sunglasses? NO! Miss Madison has been a client of mine since she was first born. These were her 9-month portraits taken a few months ago, just as the weather warmed up and the sun came out. She’s always such a little ham for the camera, smiling and posing.

I think she’s getting to the point where she recognizes me and remembers that I’m fun–because, I AM FUN! FUN ENOUGH TO REMEMBER!!! (That’s my excited voice I use to get kids to smile. It’s much better in person, I promise) I’m looking forward to the day that she can say my name and come give me a hug. =0)

This puppy decided to randomly come up to Madison and give her some kisses…

I love shooting with my film cameras–namely the Holga and Hasselblad. The holga and hasselblad both shoot with 120 film (medium format negatives), but the look of the images are totally different. The holga is completely unpredictable and tends to have funky light leaks and very little ways of constructing the image. It’s sort of a “whatever happens happens” camera. The Hasselblad is much more particular–hard to focus, the lighting has to be metered just right and its hard to compose an image. Overall, it’s two completely different ways of photographing, both of which produce awesome photos making the extra effort totally worth the reward.

However, the one MAIN downside to this is that getting these images scanned in takes FOREVER. Like, think FOR.EV.ER. in the way the kid in The Sandlot says it. Over and over. FOOOOOOR.EEEEEEEEV.EEEEEEEEEER. And, not sure if you know this about me: I’m not a patient person.

Why is our sushi not here yet? (because I just hung up from ordering it). Why haven’t I burned 800 calories yet? (Because I’ve only been on the treadmill for 2 minutes). I also turn everything into a contest–but that’s a whole other issue.

So, basically if any task takes more than a few minutes, I get very impatient and it becomes a game to see how fast I can finish (without sacrificing quality, OF COURSE). Although, ok, when scanning these negatives, it takes SO LONG and is SO TEDIOUS, that I definitely don’t mind sacrificing quality a little. Mostly because I don’t print them from the digital scans–only prints come from the negative.  That being said–here are a couple of my favorites from the first few rolls:

Hasselblad:

Holga:

I was so, so, so busy last season that I haven’t really had a chance to go back through and blog about all those sessions that happened between the months of September - December! This family was so beautiful, I was rather surprised they all weren’t Ralph Lauren models. I fully expected to have to pay THEM for this shoot =0) Here are a few of my favorites from their holiday session:

I started working with a company called Gaga Baby Photos, taking newborn pictures in the hospitals. It’s a really great gig–I get to go in, photograph a mini-session for the families interested in the program and then edit them at home.

I began this several months ago during the summer and I was really excited to have a job for during the week…since most of my business shoots are on the weekends, it’s a nice filler. But more than anything, I COULDN’T WAIT FOR THE DRAMA. After years of watching ER and Grey’s Anatomy and Scrubs and Private Practice, I was ecstatic to get a chance to see the action from the frontlines.

My first week on the job went by with barely even a “code blue”. Actually that’s a lie–there was NEVER a code blue. Which I suppose is a good thing. But I was confused–where were all the hot doctors? Where were the nurses with the outbreak of syphilis? What about all the fistfights in the cafeteria. I spent a couple of weeks waiting for the excitement to begin. The craziest thing I saw was the head nurse yell at someone else for drinking her chocolate milk. BUT AT LEAST IT WAS SOMETHING. I watched with wide eyes wishing I had a bag of popcorn to munch on, too.

One day finally, after a few boring weeks, I walk in and join the other nurses for lunch. I came equipped with Godiva chocolate to share with everyone–couldn’t hurt, right? Get on their good side?

“Ok, so spill it…who’s sleeping with which doctors?” I blurted the question out without really thinking it through. I was just so desperate for some sort of drama–anything! Real hospitals were supposed to buzzing, especially in a city like New York, right?

The entire table of nurses (most of whom were late 30s-middle aged) stopped mid-bite of their salads/sandwiches. Finally one nurse looked at me, grabbed a chocolate from my bag, popped it in her mouth and just stared at me with a half-smile. “Sweetie–most doctors here are old, balding and probably have some sort of erectile dysfunction. You want that kind of action, check out LA’s hospitals.”

Six months later and I still have yet to see any sort of drama–but I’m not giving up just yet.

Here are some of my favorites from the clients who signed model releases. Hospital lighting isn’t always ideal, but I think we made do pretty well =0)

I KNOW. It’s been a while–don’t berate me, please. The fall/winter months are my craziest and this year was definitely not the exception to the rule. It usually slows down by now, but NOPE. No rest for me. But with how the economy has been, I definitely don’t want to complain. This is me not complaining.

I was home for the holidays visiting my family and I just cannot believe how big my niece is getting. She’s no longer a baby–she’s like, a kid or something. It’s crazy. One tradition that the two of us seem to share every time I visit is the back scratch. She loves her back and head being scratched. Almost every night of my visit, I was requested at bedtime to lay down with her and scratch her back and head for 10 minutes. The last night of my visit, I was wearing my new charm bracelet (a Christmas gift from my mama) and after she had fallen asleep, I very carefully tried to crawl out of the bed. The thing about charm bracelets, though–they’re not known for being quiet. The damn thing clinked and chinged and Addy’s eyes popped wide open. I froze in my spot hoping she’d pass out again. Instead, she pointed at my nose and smiled behind her pacifier. “Silly, Aunt Colleen.” I don’t know exactly what she was referring to here–my bracelet? The fact that I woke her up? I didn’t say anything, just continued sitting there frozen. As if I didn’t move an inch, she would just fall back asleep. Instead, she kept staring at me. “I love our time together, Aunt Colleen.”

Oh, boy.  Tears filled my eyes and spilled out onto her forehead. She giggled and wiped them off. I kissed her on the top of her head and slipped out of the room, listening at the crack of the door with her baby monitor in hand to make sure she fell back asleep. I heard her breath fall back into a steady beat and a breathy whisper that sounded very much like sleep talk: “Silly Aunt Colleen….”

This is little Ellis–he was the perfect baby, literally until I rang their doorbell. Then it was as though the world came crumbling down on him. He did not want to sleep. He did not want to be put down at all. It took us over 3-hours, but we finally got some beautiful images of this little guy.

This little guy did not want to sleep at all…despite the comfy beanbag he was sleeping on and the 87 degree temperature in my studio, he just wasn’t having it. He gave us about a 20 minute window of sleep and then he was ready to rock and roll. This has actually been a trend with my newborns lately…they all just want to party. I mean, I can’t really blame them–I’m pretty awesome. If I were around me, I’d want to stay awake and rock n’ roll, too.

(I love his little smile in this first one)

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.

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!