on sunday i met up with jill + greg (who went to high school with my beloved sarah + zach) in NJ to capture this time in their lives when they’re young, independent, living in (near) the big apple. babies are the next step for them, but they’re enjoying RIGHT NOW, and they wanted some pictures to prove it (which i wholeheartedly approve of!) thanks for the adventures, jill + greg! i hope you love your pictures as much as i do.

but those days are gone…she’s all grown up. got her PhD and left me for the ocean state so she can be Dr. Rachel. she recently celebrated her birthday, so i made her a dress…and then asked if i could play dress-up with her and photograph her. this is the result of our fun afternoon yesterday!

i love the dichotomy of these two…fierce fierce fierce, and then…his laughter is BEYOND infectious…

tanya contact me this summer to see about getting some gorgeous portraits of them in their wedding day finery. often…the wedding day itself is harried and frantic or weather keeps a couple and their photographer from spending quality time together…and that’s where i came in! we met up at great island common in new castle, nh. i love shooting around the new hampshire coast, because it’s not just beach. there’s beach and sea grass, and rocks galore…often there are strange leftover navy structures from 200 years ago…impossible to run out of variety or inspiration!

these two kept me laughing, and when one of the flowers came off of her dress…we made lemonade…HELLO HAIRPIECE! i think this sort of creativity and roll-with-the-punches attitude is going to stand them in good stead in life, don’t you?

(also, SUMMER! it’s coming! yay!)

i’m only going to include a few teaser spreads, though we did do the entire alphabet. i just ordered the books for these, and i’m SO excited to see them. wouldn’t it be fantastic as a kid to learn your letters with pictures of yourself holding things that are important to your life?

if you’re interested in an alphabook session for your own little one…or know someone who might be, get in touch!  it was lots of fun to do, and it produces a keepsake that j’s own kids are going to enjoy, i’m sure!  (if he doesn’t go all tasmanian devil 2 year old on it and rip it or crayon it…  :-D)

we lucked out and there was still some pretty fall color to be found in newburyport.

her mom came along…so of course we had to make sure to get a couple images of the two of them together…

this may be my absolute favorite image from the session.  she just looks so beautiful and peaceful and strong.

another favorite…this location we found was full of eclectic colors and textures…it was a dream to shoot in!

amazon konnar!  and adorable konnar.

have you ever seen a face this fierce?  wow.  konnar you’re FIERCE.  (that’s a tyra-ism…she’s not an ANTM fan.  girl’s got way more going on in her life than i do, so no time for tv.  :-D)

this time of day is one of my favorites to shoot…when the light is golden and soft enough to let people face it directly.  look how it makes her eyes glow, and the blue of the sky and the water behind her…magic.

thanks for hanging out with me yesterday, ladies.  hope you enjoy these images!

anyone else looking for fun and unique senior portraits…get in touch!

the one on the left is one of my very favorites from the session…

this is another favorite…

these were at kayla’s mom’s request…very mary tyler moore, no?

kayla (& teresa) thanks for the fun afternoon…i hope you love these images, and i’ll see you when it’s time to hang out with the whole fam!

how cute is she?!  (answer:  so cute.)

dan is an aspiring filmmaker trapped in a soul-sucking 9-5…so dover’s own strand theatre seemed like a fitting backdrop for these two…especially with their ensembles…

i told them to be moviestars posing for the papparazzi before the premiere of their new film…dan promises me he’s going to photoshop the name of his movie into the marquee above them…

if you looked at their facebooks, you’d see them with jumping pictures…everywhere.  they travel a lot…and mel’s working on a jumping with dan & mel around the world (or something like that.  her title is better.)  so i HAD to get at least one jumping shot.

i didn’t really tell them what to do here…but i love it…

(yes, i know.  i am the luckiest girl ever to live in new england, in such a charming, magical town.)

*guilt, guilt, guilt*

a lot has happened this month.  i had tomme hilton and january newbanks fly in to shoot weddings with me…and oh, monday was my birthday.  my best friend came up (with her baby and almost-3-year-old-who-likes-to-sleep-in-boxes-when-she-visits)

she gave me the most beautiful fascinator for my birthday.  (please excuse the mobile upload picture.)

(brides looking for something special for your wedding day hair-do…check out that link.  lo boheme’s etsy store has some GORGEOUS bridal fascinators.  i covet…most of them.)

today i had a shoot on a garlic farm!  the wonderful allison and jon gave me some of their (very own, handmade) garlic powder and some of the largest non-elephant garlic you’ll ever see.  (pictured behind the garlic are some of the apples i picked for my day-after-my-birthday traditional apple-picking outing.  if you live in the northeast and have never tried macouns…hurry up and rectify that!  best apples EVAR.)

and, for allison, my loyal blog-reader and guilt-inducer…here are a couple teasers from today!

j’s wedding was a few weeks ago, so i can finally share some of these with you!

these images were, of course, shared with permission and do not include some of the ones that i’m sure her now-husband likes the most. 

please contact me if you’re interested in a pin-up session!  this was one of the most fun sessions i’ve ever done, and i’d love to do lots more!

there were 5 people living in the weird old house…luke, joanna, amy, whatshisface–the lanky vegetarian from up north who was incongruously a total rugger-head (that is, rugby enthusiast), and laura (joanna’s sister.)  laura enthusiastically suggested, “share my room!”  (her room was quite large and had this lofted cupboard thing that she slept in…so there was plenty of room to throw a mattress in the corner for me.

eventually luke shifted out, laura left, other people moved in, but i stayed in that room sleeping on the mattress in the corner.

a couple years later, in 2005, joanna came to north america for a big inspiration tour…she wanted to see the artistic expression, street art, graphic design happening in the cities.  we met up and went on a massive road trip…slept on various friends couches, in a dodgy hostel in montreal, in the car in toronto after a blue jay’s game, walked around the shores of lake michigan, swung by niagara falls…it was a great trip.

she’s now co-launched her own design/art/media company called we love inc and is working her little tail off, because they’re crazy talented and busy…but i insisted that we needed to take a day and have some photo fun.  and oh DID we.  we took turns styling one another and driving around the city to shoot.  (and of course, we couldn’t do something like that without incident…we had to swap the rental car halfway through because it was protesting driving up hills.  that’s like getting a car that can’t go up hills in san francisco.  just not going to work.)  without further ado…the beautiful joanna.

it was SUCH a fun shoot…if you’d like to see any of the others, you can view the gallery here.  (and, of course, when i’ve got more than 2 teasers of the ones she took of me…you’ll get to see ‘em!  but, i’ll leave you with:  peacock feather, dead body in graffiti-d trash den, gwyn hepburn in roman holiday…)