“When you moved, I felt squeezed with a wild infatuation and protectiveness.
We are one.
Nothing, not even death, can change that.”
― Suzanne Finnamore
The Zygote Chronicles
family, family, family, family, family, family, family, family, family, family, family, family
I knew that Val was pregnant when I bumped into her a few months ago at the mall. Like the others, I felt happy excited at the news. A little person for Val, one of the sweetest people I know. She would make a perfect mother and already pregnancy is doing so many good things to her body. There's a certain calm, a certain ease in how she moves despite the baby bump.It could be because Val has this naturally easy disposition but I am sure that having a baby has made her even more beautiful, if that is possible.
I am always curious about what happens to a woman when she has a baby, and for every pregnant friend that I have, I always have the same questions: do you get tired more often, mood swings, do you have cravings? Standard questions perhaps, but they give different answers, which is fascinating to me. I often wonder what will happen to me if I have a baby but that's a story for another day(and another blog post!) entirely! For now, here are a few frames from our short bump love shoot.
“I have lost my smile,
but don't worry.
The dandelion has it.”
― ThÃch Nhất Hạnh
Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
I made a mental note to discover the lovely wild flowers growing around my neck of the woods but making mental notes and taking pictures and blogging are very different things. It rained today and I was walking home and noticed a bed of flowers sticking out from the sidewalk. I started picking one or two, feeling sorry for the flowers because of this unexpected intrusion into their lives, but also aware that I really wanted to take these home before I got soaking wet. It was when I got home that I realized, I was actually excited to shoot these lovelies! It was dark and I only had my Oly with me so I know that I could expect grainy pics and tight shots, but heck, sometimes you just have to take pictures of flowers.
So in the spirit of the gratitude challenges I see on my Facebook feed, I am not ashamed to say that I am thankful to be discovering flowers again, their unexpected beauty, how ubiquitous they are, how easily it is to overlook them, yet how easy it is to fall in love with them. Can you imagine a world where flowers became expensive commodities, like gold or silver or a new iPhone? That would be a sad, sad world indeed, and I am grateful that such beautiful things grow everywhere, and they're free!
Every day I feel is a blessing from God.
And I consider it a new beginning.
Yeah, everything is beautiful.
-Prince
family, family, family, family, family, family, family, family, family, family, family, family, family
Babies... I have none of my own and am pretty ambivalent about whether or not I'll ever be ready for such a responsibility, but taking pictures of women who are having their own gives me a glimpse of what an absolutely joy the journey of motherhood is. I've always told my friends/clients who are having babies that they look different when they're pregnant. They smile differently, they appreciate things in a new way, and they glow! Boy, do they glow. Photographing expectant mothers-to-be is perhaps one of the most rewarding things I can do, especially if the mother looks half as good as Valerie here. We shot this for about an hour two weeks ago in a field near my apartment and it was casual, short and sweet, just the way we planned it. Here are a few shots of that before I blog more on this shoot soon!
“She had always lived her best life in dreams. She knew no greater pleasure than that moment of passage into the other place, when her limbs grew warm and heavy and the sparkling darkness behind her lids became ordered and doors opened; when conscious thought grew owl's wings and talons and became other than conscious.”
― John Crowley
Little, Big
As soon as we arrived in Vigan I fell in love with the doors. The old Spanish architecture of the buildings in Vigan is perhaps what draws tourists to it, but there's something to be said about it's doors. They come in all shapes and colors, mostly of old, rugged wood with metal bindings and hinges with nuts and screws as big as your thumb and heavy with rust. I knew I had to have my picture taken with Vigan's doors, these silent sentinels, witness to history as it unfolded into the cobblestone streets and shops of souvenirs that we now see today.
The stories they could tell if these doors could talk!