Tripping on Asphalt
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This breathtaking, Beinfield, steel fireplace, which I had the pleasure to photograph, is helping. But not as much as my brand new bottle of Marshmallow Smirnoff.
Little Miss A has a new brother and he’s a cutie! He showed up as a present for us right when we got home from our honeymoon! I heard he gave up his first smile to Mom this weekend, but I didn’t get one when we had our little photo shoot the other day. He was a natural in front of the camera though.
In lieu of the traditional black and whites we were planning, we decided to go with a more modern monochromatic look.
Little Miss A doesn’t know it yet, but she provided the stand-in for our set up. Ariel. With feet. After she’s given up her voice to be with Eric.
So we’ve moved! Very exciting. Also more than a little daunting and a lot time and energy consuming. We never could have made the sale happen without our amazing, Super Woman of a realtor, Doris Ghitelman. You need a realtor? Call this woman. She’s no joke.
And we never could have packed those 165 boxes in 2 days without the saintly (and a little bit masochistic) CawfeeGuy and CawfeeMate. Yes. I said it. 165 boxes in 2 days. Of all. My. Shit.
Anywhoo… I thought this would be a perfect time to give you a tour of the old digs. Which is now dismantled and is someone else’s new digs. And a perfect time to remind myself, the self that’s living amongst approximately 147 unpacked boxes in our new home, that it will get better.
See… Once upon a time, I lived like this:
But with a little bit of pixie dust and some of those cookies Alice found in the rabbit hole, it became this:
And all the while in between, which is actually the part I enjoy best, it was like this:
For me, the most stressful part is over… for a while. The selling, the packing, and the moving. I love the newness of unpacking, cleaning, reorganizing and designing a lifestyle. Designing a lifestyle with my new husband. When there are 30 boxes left and no where to put the crap, then I’ll have my next nervous breakdown. But that’s another blog post. This one’s about new beginnings. And fond farewells. And gratitude.
As I sit here working on updates to The Dance Collective web site (while missing a class at The Dance Collective), I am reminded of how rewarding it is to work with my clients. As primarily an Architectural Photographer, the vast majority of my clients are creatives by nature and trade: architects, interior designers, builders, magazines, etc. and so they approach shoots with the same creative energy they approach everything else in life. Even my rogue Clients, including Amanda and Enrique of the The Dance Collective are Creatives. And, seriously, it make for a way more interesting day, or night, as it was in the case of this particular shoot.
During my interiors shoots, I am a focused perfectionist. I shoot directly to the computer and double and triple check everything from the technical aspects of things including my lighting and camera settings, through composition, and a plethora of other artistic decisions. For example, we might move a chair multiple times to get the shot just right. Props are swapped in and out. Books, pillows, ottomans, furniture. Candles or lamps may be lit and extinguished. Until we have that perfect moment. The one that everyone feels is just the right balance. It’s all way more exacting a process than one would ever imagine.
With people it’s a little different. A lot different. There are countless decisions that are made in order to achieve the final shot. But they don’t necessarily build with each shot better than the previous. You can’t get everyone to achieve the same expression, the same posture, or the same grace in every frame. People are unruly. For me, it’s less relaxing and a little more ‘a wing and a prayer.’
So instead of shot 29 being 28 shots more sophisticated than shot 1, sometimes shot 29 looks like this.
And that’s when I’m hoping the bottle of champagne is handy.
We’ve been super fortunate over here at Sequined Asphault Studio, and some exciting news almost got lost in the shuffle. While we were on our honeymoon, Beinfield Architecture received a 2011 AIA Connecticut Design Award for their new House in Ridgefield!
Congrats to Andrew Bartolotta AIA, Bruce Beinfield FAIA and the rest of the Project Team. I was thrilled for the opportunity to photograph the project and had a great time working with the Client. There is tons of inspiration and creative genius, attributable to both Architect and Client, throughout this deceptively simple barn with something modern and surprising at every turn.
A night at the beach with a few of my favorite people. And no bug spray. A good idea gone bad.
Can you believe Little Miss A is almost 5?! She’s the first kid I’ve been photographing since birth. And she’s our beautiful Flower Girl in just a few short weeks… Holy crap… Is that right?! A few weeks? I’ve gotta go do, uh, some stuff… I think… Isn’t there some stuff I should be doing?
Thanks, people. I always appreciate the extra eyes and perspectives.
Here’s a bit of what I was doing last week. Sometimes drinks with Andrew are more productive than other times…
I couldn’t be any farther behind in my blogging and keeping up with social media in general. If we’re friends on Facebook then you’ve already heard me complain that my lists have lists and that my wonderful, fantastic, even magical iPhone4 was stolen and I’m basically interweb and point-and-shoot crippled with my original iPhone rebooted.
It’s not that I need sympathy. I don’t. I’m doing great. And I’ve never been more productive in my life. (Now I’m just bragging, apparently.) But, seriously, big things are happening over here and life and work are just blurred which, turns out, is how I like them. I’m getting married in less than 2 months; we’re looking for some new architecture to call our own, redesign and decorate; babies are being conceived and born right and left (not center, thank you very much); parties are being planned, thrown and attended; businesses are getting run; photo shoots are happening all over the place… oh, and we were published in another one of those glossy magazines! I hope you’re having as great a summer as we are over here at Sequined Asphault Studio. We’re gonna try to stay in better touch…
*sigh* Life is so hard when you have to wander around beautiful places like this…
Actually, the difficult part is getting to places like this. I mean, I’m a city girl. Gimme a metrocard. I am so not prepared for washed out road detours and Dug’s trusty gps sending me down muddy, unpaved, mountain roads. And farms. Did I mention farms and farm equipment?
Well, it was worth it for the spring shoot of the House in the Orchard. You’ve seen it before, in winter. But there’s nothing like spring in the orchard.
