I love shooting head shots of kids. So I had to enter the “Best Face of 2016” Photo Challenge at I Heart Faces with this shot of my middle kiddo helping me test out my new studio lights. Something new and fun I’m trying out this year! I’m so glad these photo challenges are back, they’re so fun, I even got to be a guest judge for one last year!
I’m thrilled to report that winter this year has been exceptionally mild. Well deserved after the last two years of living in the arctic polar vortex. The funny this is that we were so prepared this year, got everyone new boots and snow pants, really great insulated gloves, etc. And we went sledding exactly twice.
We heard that Michigan had some snow so we jumped in the car and headed up to the lake to try to catch the last remnants of winter, and to have the baby wear her adorable little snow pants and boots at least once. It was her first time playing in the snow. Even though it’s snowed a handful of times, we just hadn’t really played in it yet with her.
Normally at this time of year, the lake is frozen solid and there are ice fisherman and snowmobiles out there. This year it’s only frozen out in the middle, just enough for the geese to stand around on it. Calvin (our pup) decided to take a little dip in the ice water a few times.
It snowed in Michigan last weekend so we decided to head up and catch a little bit of the white stuff. We have barely had any snow thanks to El Nino and this unusually warm winter. I don’t mind the mild winter one bit, that’s for sure! But we thought it might be fun to have the baby put on her adorable little snow pants and boots for once and turn her loose outside. The boys were dying to go sledding and build a snowman.
She was pretty unsure at first and stood frozen for quite some time until she got the hang of it and started carefully tiptoeing around in the snow. Not bad for a 16 month old! And as for the sledding, she loved it and laughed the whole way down the hill. Pretty much her approach to life. #shesthebest
Had to cheat and include this shot of her sledding with her brothers! Our “sled” of choice up at the lake is actually an old kneeboard. In fact, this old kneeboard was the very first one my brother and I got back in the ’80s. The infamous O’Brien Black Magic. Pretty beat up but still the best kneeboard we’ve got. Works great in the snow too!
Now follow me around our circle to beautiful Bainbridge Island, WA to see what my dear friend Krista has been up to in February! She’s been dealing with a lot of rain and muddy paws for many weeks now…
Okay now I can safely share these since the holiday card season is long over and I won’t spoil anything! And to think – this early snow was basically the only sorta major snowfall this year! And my dear friends were willing and excited to go out into the woods for their family pictures despite having to drive around to even find a place that was accessible that day.
It was so fun to shoot in the snow, I’ve always wanted to – it’s just normally too impossible to time it right with people other than my own family, and often it’s just too cold for the little ones. But this worked out perfectly. Such a beautiful winter day! And the funniest part, I was warned that the little guy was not so into being photographed these days. He could not have been a bigger ham! It’s often so much easier to take pictures of kids other than your own!
This winter has been so unusually mild thanks to El Nino. One of the benefits was that I was able to meet some photographer friends old and new for some fun and photo walking in downtown Chicago – in January! Normally we’d be hibernating under snow in subzero temps and waiting for spring until our next photo safari adventure. But this particular day was partly sunny and in the 30’s, which to us was good enough to give it a go. Warm enough to hit the pavement and take some photographs anyhow, dodging into buildings whenever we got cold.
So as I’m in my own little world, shooting down at a puddle in an alley…I popped up to change my lens, and got startled by this woman who walked right past us in the alley. There really is no reason I can think of why she’d be walking down into this alley, and she was such a striking figure, very tall, older, and dressed head to toe in black. It was as if the photography gods told her to walk down the alley just for me. I had my Lensbaby on my camera and it’s a finicky, manually focusing lens. I tried to adjust it and focus as fast as I could to capture her as she walked away off into nowhere. I’m still not convinced she was real 😉
The aforementioned puddle:
In 2016 I’m trying to get back into blogging more regularly (insert laughs here)! I have about 50 posts, both photography and non-photography related all lined up in my head to create. One foot in front of the other. I started a “favorite things” series last year and want to continue, since I personally love this type of post and reading reviews from others who are actually using and testing things out. It’s great learning about products and services I might otherwise not have known about.
After having my baby girl (who is now 15 months old, I can’t believe it) I didn’t go back to my “day job”, which was as a researcher and lab manager of a large academic research lab. Yep, I’m a scientist for those of you who don’t know that! I love science and loved doing research, but became pretty overwhelmed once I had 3 kids (and a photography business). Not being able to bring the lab home, I needed to fully embrace my inner entrepreneur so that I could work completely from home. And then I decided to start another home-based virtual business about 8 months ago (more on that later, what’s one more thing??) so I REALLY needed to find a better way to plan and manage my time because I was feeling scattered and unable to focus.
Working from home, it’s SO easy to get distracted by just about everything. And I only have small blocks of time available to work – when the baby is napping, after the kids have gone to bed, or when I have a sitter. I have to pre-plan all of my time or I find myself struggling to accomplish everything or anything that I want to (hello, neglected blog…)
It’s a digital world and I love the convenience of the many apps and calendars available, and of course am super dependent on my various Google calendars for the big picture – we have all of our family events and appointments on there. To track my time while I’m working, I use toggl. Toggl was suggested to me by one of my besties who is a home-based graphic designer and it’s an amazing tool for creatives. You can tell where you are spending (and potentially wasting) your time. It has really helped me tighten up my photography work flow.
As great as the digital tools are I’m a very visual person. I love paper. If I write something down, it just sticks. In the lab, I always had one of those huge monthly desk calendars and all of my experiments and meetings were planned out, right in front of me often weeks in advance. It was like my brain on paper and if it wasn’t on the calendar, it wasn’t happening! I realized I needed to go back to paper here at home, and searched around for the perfect planner. After reading many rave reviews, I decided to purchase a Passion Planner and give it a try. I LOVE this thing. It’s mapped out in half-hour increments which is great for me because my life happens in half hour blocks of time with photo and editing sessions, calls, appointments, meetings, etc.
The Passion Planner is not cutesy, it’s no frills and all black and white. Normally, I’m a sucker for colorful eye-catching design but in this case I was looking for something super functional. I don’t need lots of space taken up in my planner by inspirational quotes or pretty pictures. The cover of the planner is not too thick or rigid, but it’s sturdy and kind of flexible which is great when you’re toting it around. It comes in two sizes. Currently I’m using the larger size. What’s good is that I have plenty of space to write things legibly and I can go crazy with different colors of highlighters and pens. What I don’t like is that it takes up a lot of space on my desk and isn’t super portable. I used the smaller size last year and I think I’ll go back to that.
Inside, there is space to do a giant brain dump of all of your hopes, dreams and goals for the year (both personal and professional), and then, an area to break them down into specific chunks with steps and plans of action to get you there. I love how there are areas to jot down both personal and work-related to-do lists for each week, in order of importance. To me, it always feels so satisfying to check something off of a list! There’s also the “space of infinite possibility” for random thoughts, doodles, and notes.
FYI: I’m not getting compensated to review or endorse any of these products, I’m simply writing about them because I use them every day and have found them very useful!
Happy planning friends! What’s your favorite way to keep everything organized?
Jennifer - Love his hat!! So cute 🙂
Adrienne - Such a cutie!