I had so much fun at this shoot with these little boys, cousins all under the age of 7. Be the first person to name the beach and you will win a $10 gift certificate for Brain-Builders.com. (In the spirit of six boys under the age of 7, I chose Brain-Builders.com because they have lots of cool building and construction toys!)

Rules: If you’ve won a contest on my blog in 2007, you’re not eligible to play. The gift certificate will be delivered to the e-mail address you provide when you leave your comment, so be sure to put your address in correctly! You don’t have to leave your full name in the “name” field. First names or initials are fine!

Here’s a hint:



Watch the blog for more pictures from this shoot coming up soon!

Click the picture to jump to Sarah’s slide show. Be sure to turn up the sound! I love this one! (I love them all!) When the slide show is finished, it will jump back here where you can read about some of the pictures. Above, Sarah, with her proud parents.



Sarah was poised, articulate and beautiful on her big day.



Steve Kaplan provided the wonderful classical guitar music during the ceremony.



See those tiny things flying through the air? It’s a family tradition to shower the celebrant with candy! How fun!



I love this shot of the grandparents…



…and this one of Sarah with her friends.



Sarah’s brother somehow managed to get the first taste of wine. Gotcha!



It was difficult to get pictures of Sarah at her reception because her friends are all so close!



But I did manage to get a few cool shots. I love the light in this one.



Sweet!



Another sweet one!



This kid can dance!



See?



Sarah’s sister seemed to be having a great time!



The following week, we all went to Avon-by-the-Sea.



The family loves the beach and wanted to do their family shoot at a place that would bring back memories of beach days and family vacations.



Don’t know how I managed to make it look like we were the only people there that day because the beach was really crowded!



I love this one of Sarah.



And this is my favorite family shot — my signature “unportrait.” Love it!

I hope you all enjoyed your slide show! Congratulations, Sarah!


EDIT: Ooooh! Totally forgot to mention that prints from Sarah’s full gallery are available in my online store. The passcode is the family’s last name, all lowercase. Enjoy!

One would think that an old mamarazzi who slaps sunscreen on children like it’s butter on corn-on-the-cob would put sunscreen on herself as well.



One would think.



Instead, the mamarazzi spent the days after these pictures were taken hobbling around with feet the size of a Mexican cantaloupe and the color of her car.



Those of you who’ve seen her car know why it’s sweetly referred to as “the tomato.”



Thus, one could imagine a tomato the size of a Mexican cantaloupe with toes on one end…



…this being a fitting visual description of the mamarazzi’s feet for the last several days.



Mike laments, “Why don’t you just post a picture of your sunburned feet?”



“Uh, lemme think (what a concept)…no.”
That is Gregory’s foot.
Bradley Beach, NJ, Sept. 4, 2007



But, let it be a lesson to you, my dear loyal blog readers.



WEAR SUNSCREEN when going to the beach…



…even when wearing long pants.



You never know when the urge to roll the pants legs might overtake the brain cells that compell one to slap sunscreen on children like it’s butter.



And that’s all I have to say about that.

My new coffeetable albums are so nice! This is the book case that holds Laci’s cute little 5×5 album.



Maybe you remember seeing the preview design when I posted that a while back.



In addition to a printed book jacket, the hard cover itself is also printed.



The pages are thick and beautiful, thicker than the nicest coffeetable books I saw at the huge bookstore in the mall the other day. I fully recommend these books to my family session and portrait clients. They’re BEAUTIFUL!

If you’re booking a wedding with me and are interested in a guest album from your engagement session pictures, this is the style book I would design for you. (Except it would be a bit larger to make it easy for your guests to write notes for you.)



The binding is sturdy.



This book will last a really long time.



The printing came out pretty much exactly as I hoped it would.



The colors are rich and the textures I added to the pages using photographs of fabrics are GORGEOUS!

Check back tomorrow to find out what’s underneath our cute little coffeetable book! The RED THING is AMAZING!

Carol and Jim celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary last night. (That’s Uncle Eddie in the background. Hi Uncle Eddie!)



We started the day at the boardwalk in Avon-by-the-Sea. Jim is the grandson of one of my dearest friends, Sid. Sid couldn’t be part of yesterday’s events, so we took lots of pictures! Can’t wait to show them to you, Sid!



Then, after a well-timed burst of thunderstorms, Carol and Jim renewed their vows at the same church where they were married…



…by the same pastor.



They’ve remained good friends all these years.



I loved the creative display of photographs and albums. What a blessed life this couple has had!



The three children, ahem, were not at the first wedding 25 years ago.



What a fun party!



So many great expressions in the dance shots! I had a great time!



The DJ, Eric Miller, of Be Our Guest Entertainment, did a great job playing fun music (and lots of love songs) from the 1980s and today. I was surprised by the fact that the kids were singing along with pretty much ALL the music, even the “old” stuff from 1982!



I love it when I capture a special moment that is completely unposed and unplanned. Carol’s dancing with their son, Jim’s dancing with their younger daughter, and their older daughter, who has moved away to college now, is in the picture too, with one of her best friends.

Be sure to check back in a week or so for the really FUN slide show I’m going to put together for them! You’ll LOVE it!

Click the picture to jump to a slide show of Laci’s album design. For those of you who aren’t running Flash, here’s a few spreads. Above, the wrap-around cover on the little 5×5 coffeetable album. I love it!



This is one of the inside spreads. It features Laci playing on the beach with her grandmother and mom.

All my books are custom-designed by me now. I don’t use templates anymore, and I don’t make soft-cover books anymore. For the last year or so, my clients loved their template-designed soft-cover books, but the thing is: I want my photography presentation to be unique to each family, and to have an heirloom quality, and for that to be the case, I needed to be able to design the books myself, and I needed books that would last a very long time. Hence, I simply HAD to find a book printing company that met my requirements.



Four generations of women were present at Laci’s shoot. I love this spread because this spread alone makes the book a family heirloom to be passed down for generations.

Each spread you see here measures 5×10 — the pages are designed as 2-page spreads. The center of the spread will be inside the gutter of the book, which is why you never see anything important (faces, for example) in the center of the spread.



I love this spread because it’s simple and clean and conveys a sense of one moment melding into another.



I sprinkled some quotes throughout the book, to encourage viewers to linger on the pages and perhaps contemplate what the photographs might mean, and because sometimes words are worth just as much as pictures.

This is a press-printed book, meaning the pages are printed through a printing press and bound like a book you might buy in Barnes & Noble. When the actual book arrives, I’ll post some pictures of it so you can see how it came out!

Coming soon, an example of a flush mount design. My flush mount albums are covered in full-grain Italian leather, with pages that are photographic prints. When a flush mount book is open, it lies flat and you can barely see the gutter in the middle of the spread. The pages are similar to a child’s board book — rigid, with the images professionally mounted directly to the board, creating a book that will last a lifetime. (The company even guarantees the flush mount albums for your lifetime!) Can’t wait to show you one of those! Be on the lookout in the blog for the design I’ll be submitting. It’s SO cool!

This is Laci.



Hi Laci!



This is Laci, her grandmother, Barbara, and her mom, Dawn.



Laci’s hair was blowing all over the place
while we were down at the beach. I love this shot!



And this one too!



It was challenging to keep up with Laci!



When we were working in the backyard to get the “Four Generations” shot, Barbara’s neighbor offered to come take “our” picture. That was so sweet! From the moment I walked in the door, it seemed like we were old friends and I just fell in love with Laci. What a sweet-natured little girl!



Helen seemed so comfortable in the sun. Ahhh, I love the beach.



And this is Barbara’s cat, Terabithia. I love her eyes!

Click here for the slide show! Enjoy!

Even though it was only somewhat chilly, there weren’t many people around. Nice and quiet, that’s how I like the beach.

I love fun family pictures that don’t look posed. One of these days I’m going to have some of these done for my own family!

Click here for the slide show.

I live in New Jersey, have a son named Bradley, and never went to Bradley Beach before last Sunday! So fun! Wish I had a t-shirt! All the little shops are closed for the season, it seems. Being a Carolina girl, I can’t imagine beaches that close in fall.

But it wasn’t so “fall” that the girls couldn’t put their feet in the water.
Can’t wait for next summer!