the ninety ten rule

"...the secret of the perfect first kiss is to go ninety percent of the way...then hold...

                                                                                                                   ...she'll come the other ten percent." :)

[i heart faces] eyes

"my eyes are my favorite part of me,                                    

not for how they look...                                  

...but for how they see."     

[chris sebastian]                    

more eye entries here

happy face. :)

every time I look at this picture I can't help but smile a little... :)

yellow.

fitting song for this weeks challenge over at I Heart Faces, no?  :)

look at the stars,
          look how they shine for you, and everything you do,
                     yeah, they were all yellow.
                                  it's true, look how they shine for you,
and all the things that you do.

 

larger than life... :)

scenic [see-nik]
-adjective
1. having pleasing or beautiful scenery
2. representing a scene
-noun
1. a photograph depicting natural scenery
2. a scenic tour

                  do you see him?         no.  do you see him?

I see his nose kissed with freckles...
I smell his skin when he hugs me...he smells like sweet boy who loves the outside...
I see his blue eyes krinkle with a joke that's sure to come...

I have this photograph.
     this scenic photograph...
              of this larger than life boy dwarfed by the great redwoods...

                                    this is my boy.
                                            the one who brings me joy...

more at:

dreamin'...

when I think of cars...I tend to think about boys and grit and toughness. :)
this picture made me change my perspective...just a bit. :)

"..like star dust glistening on fairies' wings, little girls dreams are of magical things..."
there are sometimes I wonder what she's dreamin' about...

yes.  she is my sunshine. :)

for more entries please visit:

kitschy.

three words for you...
chicago. hot. dog.
yes, I know I'm a dork...but this is my SO non-important attempt at being photo journalistic.  I know I could have picked a more "hot" topic like sickness or disease or of some great place that I've traveled to.  all of these topic's are important and I've seen great photography works done on these subjects!

but to be honest?

this IS a great place I have traveled.
once you move west of the mississippi, the fine art of creating the perfect chicago dog
(in this chicago-an native's opinion) is completely lost.
no.  there is no ketchup on this dog.
yes.  you must have poppyseeds on your bun.
no.  you can not have sweet relish on this dog, it must be dill.
and yes.  the finishing touch is celery salt.  it's like icing on the cake.  :)

and this great place that I have traveled to get the most perfect chicago dog?
none other than the almighty portillo's.  originated in IL - and perfected in IL.
(although you can order from anywhere...someday for my birthday!) :)
the atmosphere is old school and somewhat kitschy...but I love it...
it simply adds to the awesomeness and originality of the place.

this is the hot dog stand I grew up going to as a kid with my dad...
and now take my kids to as a (somewhat) grownup.

 

feeling small. :)

for full effect of this post, you need to open this song in a new tab while reading this. :)
(right click on the hyperlink & click open in new window.)

waves crashing.
sun peaking through clouds.
smell of salt and sea.
soft warm sand between toes.
playing chase with the waves.
stooping occasionally to pick up a stray seashell in hopes to capture this moment longer.

feeling small.

this is what I love about the beach.
this.
and this girl at the beach. :)

swagger. :)

sunglasses are a little like hats.
you put them on and you get a little swagger. :)
they're just a little bit magic that way...almost like being that kid in "big daddy" who though he was invisible when he put the "magic sunglasses" on...gave him confidence :)

some of my favorites...
aviator's = they make you strut with the theme from top gun running in your head...you can almost hear the surf and they make you want to say "I feel the need...the need for speed!" :)
wayfarer's = stepping out knowing you're hip and trendy...instantly makes you looker cooler by ten years. not sure if there's an age date on these babies... :)
polarized = the athletic look - flex your muscles just a bit and puff your chest out just a smidge...ooh, yeah. :)
and my favorite of the season...
tom ford "whitney" sunglasses = uber-chick classy jackie kennedy style without even trying too hard...perfect!

here's one of my favorites from a wedding I did this last year...oh, yeah...these guys are rockin' it! :)

see more awesome sunglasses entries at:

legends never die.

it's been an amazing week full of...
vacation|rest|family|mini-golf|despicable me|water balloon fights|photo's|food|and...baseball.
it all started with m&m watching the sandlot a couple weeks ago.
you know...sandlot.

"...you play ball like a girl!'

"...just stand out there and stick your glove out in the air. I'll take care of it..."

"...hey smalls, you wanna s'more? some more of what? no, do you wanna s'more?  I haven't had anything yet, so how can I have some more of nothing?  you're killing me smalls!"  

"...the sultan of swat!  the king of crash!  the colossus of clout! the great bambino!"

and the best one from the babe himself (well, in the movie) :)

"...remember kid, there's heroes and there's legends. heroes get remembered but legends never die, follow your heart kid, and you'll never go wrong..." 

my boy is especially into it lately...so grampa and daddy took him out to the backyard to hit a few.  even now I'm smiling...you should have seen his determination stepping up to the plate...it reminded me of the movie and how a simple sandlot was transformed into yankee stadium...

it was in the boys eyes...he wasn't in the backyard anymore - he was wearing p.f.flyers getting ready to hit a homer...just like the great bambino. :)

playing with a thunderstorm

"pets" is this weeks challenge over at i heart faces.
but I do not have a pet.
although, I should VERY much like one (for you matt, if you happen to read todays post) :)
a pug, a min-pin or even better yet...an english bulldog.  *sigh*  but it is not to be.
you see...my husbands heart is three sizes too small...he and the grinch are cousins. :)
*bigger sigh* but I love him anyways :)

I like to imagine sometimes what it would be like to have a pet.
having the thought like tiny tim from a christmas carol
"if I can't have none of them, why not want all of them?" 
and if I could pick any animal in the world without fear of being bitten or eaten,
I think I would pick a lion.
a lion?!
yes.  I lion.

when you're a kid, what's the first animal you want to see at the zoo?  yup, it's a lion.  they're majestic.  they're powerful to the point of being slightly scary.  and their eyes look like they've seen a lot and could tell stories if they could talk - almost as if they're looking through you...

as a young girl I read the chronicles of Narnia.  and my fascination with lions only grew.
aslan was all of the things I imagined a lion to be and more!

"...He stood for a second, his eyes very bright, his limbs quivering, lashing himself with his tail.
then he made a leap high over their heads and landed on the other side of the Table.
laughing, though she didn't know why, lucy scrambled over it to reach him.
Aslan leaped again.
a mad chase began.
round and round the hill-top he led them, now hopelessly out of their reach, now letting them almost catch his tail, now diving between them, now tossing them in the air with his huge and beautifully velveted paws and catching them again, and now stopping unexpectedly so that all three of them rolled over together in a happy laughing heap of fur and arms and legs.
it was such a romp as no one has ever had except in Narnia; and whether it was more like
playing with a thunderstorm or playing with a kitten 
lucy could never make up her mind..."

so here is my "pet"...
photographed from an amazing place called "out of africa" set in the high hills of arizona.
his name is lazarus.  he almost died as a cub and was even pronounced dead for a full minute before simply breathing on his own.
I like that...Lazarus. :)

coloring with different colors

this weeks challenge at i ♥ faces is teenagers.
whenever I hear that word I hear sebastian from "the little mermaid" when he's talking to the king and he says "teeeenayjuhs." in his thick jamaican accent...
makes me smile.

and yes, I am 32.  and no, I will never grow up. ;)

I still really love this picture.  one of my favorite things to do as a photographer is go back through favorite shoots and and remember the people and places in them.

the place of this shoot makes me smile...Red, baby chicks getting a bath, the alpha goat, 1920 old cars and tractors...
and this girl?  this girl sparkled.

for me this shoot was like a new box of crayons.  excited about all the new colors you can't pronounce and not too sure how it's really going to go - but excited nonetheless!  and I loved how her pictures turned out...

fun, colorful girl.  fun, colorful memory! :)

smile

may I be transparent?

I'm not a fan of pictures of me.
I can take a million pictures of other people and enjoy them tremendously, but when it comes to me...I don't like to look at them.
buuuuuuut...
my husband.
he fancy's himself a second shooter photographer.
and he tells me all the time that he has "mad undiscovered skills" in the land of photography.  and to be honest, I give him a hard time teasing him about not knowing his settings or blah, blah, blah "i'm cooler than you" banter...
but really, he's pretty good.
he see's moodiness and moments and details.

so for this weeks iheartfaces challenge the theme is "smile".
and I'm being brave deciding that this weeks entry is going to be a self-portrait.
is my hair perfect?  most definitly not.
am I posed in a perfect way?  nope.
do I look like a "rock-star"? ha...no.
but I'm happy.
and content.
and my husband took this.  in a place that I now love.

there's a song that was orignally from charlie chaplin (nat king cole's version is my favorite...reminds me of the little cafe downtown wheaton where I would play his music during lunch break) called "smile".  and I love to sing it. (albeit in my slippers cleaning my house pretending I'm on broadway somewhere) :)  the lyric's are haunting and beautiful and ring true in my soul somewhere.  and thinking of charlie chaplin - an original entertainer - who you would think gives the appereance of jesting and amusement...he still felt the need to remind himself...to smile. :)

"...smile though your heart is aching.
smile even though it's breaking.
when there are clouds in the sky
you'll get by...
if you smile through your fear and sorrow.

smile and maybe tomorrow
you'll see the sun come shining through for you.

light up your face with gladness.
hide every trace of sadness.
although a tear may be ever so near
that's the time you must keep on trying.

smile, what's the use of crying?
you'll find that life is still worthwhile
if you just smile...

that's the time you must keep on trying
smile, what's the use of crying?
you'll find that life is still worthwhile...

if you just smile."
 
my heart is not aching today.
there aren't clouds in my sky today...maybe a few wisp's. :)
but there might be tomorrow.
and I know...
I know.
that life is SO worthwhile and worth trying and most definity worth the smile.
 

 
 
for more "smiles" visit here:

i ♥ desserts!

this weeks challenge is your favorite dessert!  who doesn't love that?!  plus, the guest judge this week is bakerella...someone I've been following in blog-land for a little while now...she makes the most amazing cake pops!

these "groom strawberries" are Ah-mazing!  plus, they're sitting on top of chocolate cake...does it get any more perfect?!  I submit, that it does not...only maybe if a can of diet coke was sitting right next to these... ;)

check out more DE-licious desserts here:

i ♥ faces - focusing on angles

I love getting to participate in these challenges using pictures I've already taken.
not that I don't like a new photo shoot simply for the challenge...but it lets me go through previous shoots and remember the moments I had with the people in the pictures. :)

this girl is my friend.
this girl is a gifted writer.
she makes me smile when she see's the colors that life has to offer.
in this picture she looks like a grown up alice from "alice in wonderland" to me...
or maybe drew barrymore in her early years.
this girls senior pictures seem like yesterday.
yes, this girl is my friend and I love her. :)

see more entry's @

i ♥ faces - "jump for joy!"

anyone who has had a photoshoot with me knows that I love feet (not in a weird mr. deeds kind of a way) and I L.O.V.E. the "high school musical" jump :)  here's my take on "jump for joy" this week...

I love that I got to capture this moment!
one, because I love the people in this picture
and two, it make me happy to look at it...
it captures this stage of life and I love it! :)

I ♥ faces - hilarious out-takes

this one was yet again...a challenge.  mostly in part of the fact that as a photographer you try and HIDE the "crazy/not-so-good/seriously you call yourself a photographer" shots :)

but this one I like.
because even though they are fed up with me, they're still cute :)
and it's obvious that this "NO MORE pictures, mommy!" is the title of the picture!
I don't know if it's knock me on the floor hilarious, but it's funny to me just the same :)

check out more entries @

i ♥ faces - "hands on" fun!

I guess they don't call these "challenges" for nothing? 

I chose this photo because it reminds me of how creative and powerful my God is.  her little hand compared to the orangutan is so small and helpless.  and yet God made both.  so I watched this orangutan for awhile at the Brookfield zoo and was in awe of her beauty.
she mothered...like me.
she ate...like me.
she looked at the people coming through...like I looked at her.
and when she climbed, it was breathtaking.  I cannot climb like that.  no, I cannot.
she was beautiful and a complete pleasure to watch.  her hands were completely designed for strength.  strength in climbing...
strength in holding her kids...
strength for weaving through the maze with ease that was made for her. 
it made me very much in awe and admiration of her and somewhat in fear of her.
breathtaking.

I am SO happy!

okay, I'm trying not to post on the weekend, but THIS is too awesome for me to hold it in until Monday!

I got eigth place on "I Heart Faces" this week out of three hundred and sixty nine amazing photographers!!!
The theme was "i wanna dance" which was a hard one for me until I remembered maddie + jonas dancing at my brother's wedding in november...perfect!  and I totally just screamed like a little girl about it too to my sister and I'm not even a little bit ashamed :)

Yay!  and have an Ah-MAZING weekend!

I wanna dance - i ♥ faces challenge

I snuck into this moment while photographing my brother's wedding in november. 

you can see in her eyes that she is beyond in the moment.
in a place in her mind where princesses reign.
where there really are fairy godmothers.
and birds + mice are your friends.
oh yes, she is so in this moment.
and I love this boy for being her friend.
and for dancing with her the whole night long.
and allowing her princess moment. :)