worlds blur- a challenge

"Worlds Blur at First Light.

All is real and imagined.

fantastical and true"

Angie Warren has created a challenge tonight based on a quote from an Anthropolgie catalog (my favorite store, by the way). She has asked people to demonstrate in picture form what that quote may mean to them. I have chosen two pictures that immediately came to mind. The quote makes me think of childhood in it's innocent, dreamy & yes, fantastical ways...

i heart faces- "best face of 2010"

"Keep your face always towards the sunshine- and shadows will fall behind you." - Walt Whitman

To ring in the new year, i heart faces is looking back at the last year in photos and asking for the best face photo of 2010. This was a difficult task as I think back to my year in photos. I have pictures of my children and other people that I think are fabulous and, really, how could I ever choose between those?  

The more I thought about it, the more this one particular picture kept coming back to me. I fell in love with it back in July and I still am head over heels for this particular capture. I chose it, not just because of the handsome subject whom I love dearly.  While I do love this picture because of the just out of the pool messy hair, the freckled nose,  sparkly blue eyes, perfect lips and his beautiful soul shining through.  I  also love it because it represents the evolution of my photography. And that is why I chose it.

I had just completed two fabulous online photography workshops and was at a point where I was extremely comfortable shooting 100% in manual. I had finally grasped where I wanted my focus to be and was able to nail it, most of the time. This picture also represents how far I have come with my editing. This picture was actually a full-length view of my son that I cropped in for compositions sake. I edited it in Lightroom creating my own black and white conversion which I was thrilled with. Then to make the photo more interesting I added a Florabella texture. When I was done, I could not stop staring at this beautiful picture of my beautiful boy.

I am still trying to figure out what my "photographic vision" is. I know I want to capture people being who they are but in an artistic way that brings out their most beautiful, inherent self. I think I have always been working at that and if this picture represents anything, it represents the fact that I am on my way to that particular "photographic vision". 

I look forward to the year ahead in pictures. Capturing life as we see it, live it and love it. xo


To view some beautiful faces of 2010, click on the link below!

i heart faces- "orange"

i heart faces is all about orange this week, head on over and check it out!

the eyes have it

When it comes to photographing eyes, these chocolate brown ones are my favorite. My other two children have beautiful eyes; my oldest has beautiful blue and my youngest has stunning green. But still, these are they eyes I live to photograph. The catchlights are always amazing on him. His dark eyelashes provide such a beautiful frame for those peepers. Beyond the camera, those eyes get me all the time. Not sure if it's the rich warmth in them or the glint of mischievious charm. As I see it, these eyes have it. 

i heart faces- "Over My Head"

Wow, two posts in one day! This is my entry for this week's "i heart faces" challenge, "over my head". For lack of creativity I chose this picture of my two boys with their heads over each others. Sometimes I do believe they share they same head/brain, so why not?

Go out of your head looking at awesome pictures at i heart faces!

i heart faces- pets only!

Pets only this week at i heart faces!! 

i heart faces- baby

I heart faces is all about babies this week!

i heart face- play!

"It's a happy talent to know how to play." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

i heart faces is focusing on play this week! What a fun week to view other photographs and get inspired to play, play, play!

i heart faces- yellow

"Look at the stars, look how they shine for you. And everything you do. Yeah, they were all yellow too."- Coldplay

Yellow is the color of the week at i heart faces. I thought of lemons, bananas, sunflowers, and so on. I couldn't get my act together to properly work a yellow prop. My daughter said her hair was yellow and I thought of stars, thanks to a little help from a favorite Coldplay song of mine. So here's my little yellow haired star.

 Check out i heart faces for some yellow inspiration!

i heart faces- flowers and faces

"Can we conceive what humanity would be if it did not know the flowers?"- Maurice Maeterlinck

My daughter's current favorite pastime is picking flowers, or weeds... She will pick flowers anywhere we go; in the backyard, at the marina, the baseball field, on a walk, in someone's garden (alright, she's only done that once). I do love the pure innocence of the act of picking flowers. She gets completely lost in her flower picking and really does seem so content. I love that she reminds me to slow down and just enjoy those simple things we are so fortunate to have all around us.

Stop and smell the flowers over at i heart faces!

i heart faces- celebrating mom!

"Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."- Elizabeth Stone

I stumbled upon this quote during my first pregnancy while feverishly reading through what seems like hundreds of pregnancy books and manuals. The quote struck me immediately and I have had it tucked away all these years. Reading about my heart walking outside my body was something I instinctively understood despite the fact that my baby was still sharing my body with me. I knew that once he entered the world my life would take on a new meaning and that meaning was him. I remember going out to dinner with my husband weeks after my son arrived, my heart aching to be with my baby, like most first time mothers. The second we returned home I was okay, my heart was okay. The first five years of my son's life I was able to keep him (and my heart) in the bubble that being a stay-at-home allows. He would go to preschool, but I would be the one to drop him off and then pick up a few hours later. Never has that quote resonated more  than when two years ago that big yellow bus came barreling down our street. My son kissed me goodbye and got on the bus, along with my heart. I stood watching as the bus got smaller and smaller and this quote entered my head. Yes, there goes my heart. Thankfully, my son and my heart returned promptly after school and all was okay. Yes, my heart was okay. I experienced it again this year when my middle child got on that big yellow bus and then again when my baby started preschool.  I know as they get older it will only get worse. I suppose now I am okay with my heart walking all around, as long as it always comes back to me. 

This week i heart faces is celebrating mom in honor of Mother's Day. I do not really have many photos of myself with my children, but I do adore this one. My husband took it of me and my daughter on vacation in Turks and Caicos. The picture just radiates love. My daughter leaning into me with that big smile and the love I know I was feeling. Mother's Day is an amazing holiday. Without my children, obviously I wouldn't be able to celebrate it. It's just funny that they celebrate me on this special day, when really I am just so thankful that I get to be their mom. So, for me Mother's Day is me celebrating the fact that they are mine and I am theirs.

Now go check out the mom celebration over at i heart faces!

i heart faces "smile"

"Beauty is power; a smile is its sword." ~Charles Reade


My kids smiles slay me, completely and utterly. Not the smile for the sake of a picture, but their true and genuine smiles. The kind of smile that bring out my oldest's dimple, the kind that makes my middle child's huge brown eyes twinkle and the one where my daughter's face just turns into a complete ray of sunshine. Ahhh, those are the smiles I adore, the ones I heart. Picking just one picture of any of their sweet smiles for this week's i heart faces "smile" competition is proving to be very hard because I am partial to that little dimple, those big brown eyes and that sunny little face in every picture they show up.


After much deliberation I chose this picture of all three goofing around. All three personalities are so well represented here that I just adore this picture. This picture of  those three smiles completely and utterly slay me...


Say "cheese" and head on over to i heart faces!