Category Archives: Family

Spring Portraits with a Seasoned Veteran

When my niece was a little younger, we did portraits of her twice a year, to send to her out of town family members. We’d do these at her birthday in October and around Easter in the spring. Because I’d been living “in the city” and working at churches the past couple of years, it had been difficult for me to get together with my niece on Easter itself to do her spring portraits. I really wanted to revive our spring photo tradition this year, and was so thankful for the beautiful weather this Easter Sunday.

I like to think of AM (my niece) as being a seasoned model. The first picture I took of her in the hospital, she was making eye contact with the camera. There are times when I can tell that AM knows the “look” she wants to portray to the camera. Quite savvy of her, I think.

But, mostly, as with any other portrait subject, I don’t want AM to worry too much about posing. I just want her to be herself. And what a wonderful “self” she is. Even if the kid DID pull her out tooth out a few minutes before we were set to go out and do these photos, she’s still alright by me.

Oh happy day!

It’s a happy day, if for no other reason than I’m logged onto the internet at my apartment. That’s never happened before!

It’s also a happy day because I went to my favorite camera shop and picked up a CD containing scans of several rolls of film. You should understand: seeing scans of photos I’ve taken is like Christmas for me. Every time. Popping the disc into the computer and looking at those images for the first time, well, is just like unwrapping a Christmas pressie. Every time.

What did I receive on this particular Mini Christmas Day?

Among other things, I received photos from when I was with my brother Jonathan last week. He moved to Montana 4 years ago, and I have only seen him twice since. Because I enjoy documenting my friends and family, it was really important to me to get some photos of my brother. I wanted to make sure we’d have something to remember our day by.

I met with Jonathan at Otherlands. He was on the patio, having a smoke.


My bruvva at Otherland’s

Jonathan has two goals when he comes home: 1) Enjoy as much time as he can, with as many friends and loved ones as he can. 2) Eat his way across the Mid-South at all the restaurants that can’t be equaled in Montana. That means my normally health-conscious brother gladly guzzles gallons of sweet tea,  eats his weight in the white cheese dip at Mexican restaurants (who knew THAT’S something he’d have to do without in Montana???), and makes frequent visits to the BBQ restaurants that seem to dot every corner in this city (hey, he’s only home every couple of years. Why not live it up while he is here? And hopefully he’ll never see this blog and find out that I’ve shared with the world his Memphis eating habits.)


Can you tell I had to forced Jonathan to stand here while I took his picture at Tom’s?


I was pretty glad that the BBQ restaurant Jonathan chose that day was photogenic.

I wish I had more photos to show you. Unfortunately, the rest of the day wasn’t quite as photogenic as what you see here. But I don’t think I’ll need photos to remember going on a quest with Jonathan to find something zombie-related, something red, and something green for him to send to a girl back in Montana. Traipsing around Summer Avenue’s fine selection of thrift and antique stores with my brother will remain in my memory forever, even without photos to remind me.


(For those of you who like to know the technical information on my photos, the shots in this blog post were made with my Holga 120N and expired, cross-processed Fuji Velvia.)

My Best Friend Meredith (and my brilliant plan)

I have a best friend named Meredith. She is a free-spirited gal. She climbs trees. She usually has a blonde streak in her hair, that can be shaded blue from time to time if the mood strikes. She laughs a lot. She doesn’t sleep much. These are things to know about Meredith.

Meredith doesn’t live in Memphis anymore, but she graced us with her presence this past weekend. I met her on a playground in Nutbush. She climbed things and made a make-shift see-saw with her friend Jake from the Northwest. I was glad I was on hand to photograph Meredith being Meredith, and now I am sharing that with you.

Current Updates

Hiya.

I added some new photos to the Shoot With Personality Galleries this week.

*art photography

* weddings

*people

Don’t forget to check out the Weiss Family photos from their show in Memphis last week if you haven’t done so already.

And because I don’t like the way blog entries look if they don’t have a photo somewhere in them, here is a picture of my niece. Dressed as an American Indian during a trip we made to Jerry’s Sno Cones last month.

Yashica D TLR * cross-processed, 10 year old Fuji Velvia

(Yashica D TLR * cross-processed, 10 year old Fuji Velvia film)

Cheerio! I have been baking again recently, so expect some titillating food photography to be posted here soon.