Tag Archives: Photography

Say Hello To Our Little Rockstar

28 Mar

As I’m sure you might have guessed, due to my lack of blogging over the last two weeks, our little baby boy has arrived and we are in the midst of a crash course on how to parent a newborn!  He’s a precious little thing (ridiculously adorable – I’m not biased right??) with a pretty calm demeanor (most of the time).  I’m learning quickly though, to just take things hour by hour (sometimes minute by minute), because the trend is – once I think I have it all figured out, shit hits the fan and I feel totally clueless.  But I hear that’s the way it is in the first few weeks!

Anyway, 11 days in, we’re feeling pretty good… we are getting some sleep and trying to get our breast feeding down (been a little precarious – but improving each day) and my emotions are starting to level off a bit.  I’m also feeling much better physically (felt like I was hit by a bus for a few days post delivery) – now getting outside and going for short walks has been a total blessing for the mind and spirit.

Meanwhile, without further ado, here is a picture of our little man:

Theodore Harry Reid (Theo):   Check out that hair!!  I mean… what a little peanut – right?

Our little rockstar - Theo at 6 days old

Theo was born a St. Patrick’s baby – at 1:15 am on Saturday March 17th (his due date… he’s very punctual).  He weighed 7lbs 14 oz. and was 21 inches in length.  The labor and delivery was honestly way more intense than I ever imagined, though I made it through as intended… no epidural, no c-section.  We had some slight complications – my water broke at 2am on the 16th and then labor wasn’t progressing very quickly.  We went to my OB for an exam at 2pm and though I was 5cm dilated, Theo was “sunny side up” (facing the wrong direction), so we went back home to labor for more hours in an effort to get him to turn around.

Thank god for my incredible, amazing, angel of a doula – Megan.  She rocked my world and I don’t know if Adam or I would have made it without her calm, competent presence.  Megan made me do all these exercises over the course of about four hours and then my labor picked up so we went to the hospital at 7pm.  When I arrived, I was 7cm dilated and he had flipped and was facing the right direction.  I continued to labor until around 11pm, at which point I was finally 10cm and started to push.  2+ hours later and lots and lots of crazy pushing, our man finally arrived, with this fabulous head of hair!

Anyway, must keep it short right now, as he’s sitting on my chest in my Moby wrap sleeping – and he’s starting to stir.  I will definitely take more pictures and return to the blogging world once we situate a bit more.  Adam is going back to work next week (I’m a little nervous!) – but I am looking forward to lots of long walks with the stroller, lunches with my other new mommy friends in the neighborhood and blogging while Theo naps.  It’ll be nice to get on a routine!

I’ll leave you with this adorable little video of him waking up in the hospital.  (PS – hated the hospital – but that’s for another blog post).

Photo Shoots!

15 Mar

Nope… still no baby.  Though at my last doc visit yesterday, she said I was 3 cm dilated already – so we’re making progress!  Adam and I are hoping for today or tomorrow.  Send labor vibes my way!  I’m ready to meet this little boy already!

Meanwhile, I participated in two photo shoots this week (one way of keeping myself busy).  On Sunday, I was the subject and on Tuesday, I was the photographer.  Here are some of my favorite shots from each:

Me at 39 weeks – with my darling husband Adam as the photographer!  PS – I love getting my pictures taken by Adam.  Because I’m so comfortable with him, I can really flirt with the camera and have some fun and the pictures come out so much better when you’re having fun!

Check out that belly!!

Love this one with Adam in the mirror!

 

As for the other shoot, I went to visit my friend Megan, her husband Dave and their new little man Max on Tuesday to do a family photo shoot.  Max is SO darling and Megan and Dave were pretty chill.  They were making it look easy!  It made me so excited for our little guy’s arrival.  Here are some of my favorite shots:

Aren’t they beautiful?!!  (the people – not the photos… though I am very happy with how the photos came out too.)  Taking pictures of newborns and their families during this happy magical time is a real joy for me.  I’d like to do more of it now that I’m surrounded with friends who’ve just had babies!  But first priority… our baby.  Out of my belly.  Soon.  Really.

Anyway – happy Thursday everyone.  We’ll keep you updated!

xoxo

 

Countdown to Baby

1 Mar

So I had this list of big events that were happening leading up to our due date.  There was the holidays, then New Year’s Eve, then my birthday, then my baby shower, then Adam’s birthday, then my parents were coming for a visit in February, then the Independent Spirit Awards and then… baby.  Well… here we are and there’s nothing left on the calendar but BABY!  What a crazy feeling!  I’ve gotta say though – I’m feeling pretty prepared!  We got all our nursery furniture and our nice shaggy rug arrived on Tuesday.  I’ve been ordering supplies from Amazon and Diapers.com like a champ.  I’ve been doing loads and loads of laundry and now our apartment has that little baby smell.

The one thing I have said goodbye to already is sleeping through the night.  That is no longer happening.  Though I guess that’s inevitable anyway with a newborn on the way.  I go to sleep on my left side (snuggled with my humungous body pillow named “Hans”) and then I wake up with hip pain on my left side.  So I flip over (which is a bit of a project these days), hoisting Hans over as I go, and go back to sleep on my right side.  Then I wake up with hip pain on my right side… and the drama continues.  Then at around four in the morning I wake up to pee and then I’m usually wide awake.  So I read in bed for a while until I fall back to sleep.  I just downloaded Tina Fey’s Bossypants, which has been a fun middle-of-the-night read for me.  Oh yeah, and most nights I have to chew a couple TUMS at some point because I’m enjoying that lovely heartburn.  My TUMS are now kept in my bedside drawer.

So yes, this is a little bit of a drag.  But really – I don’t even mind that much because I know it means he’s coming SOON!  And within a matter of weeks, I won’t be pregnant anymore and I’ll probably miss it a little bit.  I have definitely liked being pregnant.  It has felt rather natural for me.  But don’t get me wrong… I can’t wait to meet this little boy in the flesh!  And it will be nice to be able to bend over and tie my shoes again without grunting like a body builder.

Meanwhile, I’ve been playing with the camera a bit more this past week.  My friends Rob and Amie (writer of awesome baby blog Bohemian Babies) were over on Sunday for bagels.  I have this crystal hanging in my window and the sunlight was streaming through creating this awesome rainbow on the wall.  So Rob was playing around – stepping into the rainbow and posing for me.  Here is my favorite shot:

"Rainbow Rob"

I promise I will post more photos of the nursery once we finish it off with our tree wall decal!  That’ll hopefully get done this weekend or on Monday.  In the meantime, enjoy your Thursday!

Oh yeah – one more thing…

This February was the biggest month yet for views on nellsdish.  In fact, this little blog broke through the 6,000 views in one month mark (which is huge and tremendously exciting for me)!  In February 2011, there were under 2,000 views – so in just one year lots of new people have discovered my blog. That makes me happy – because I have been trying to just keep it really intimate and honest and just write about my life and what I’m into.  I’m touched that all of you care enough to keep up with me and check in with me and say hi to me with your comments.  And seeing this little baby (my first baby) grow (just to be clear, I’m talking about the blog) just gives me more fuel to keep it up.  It has definitely evolved over the two years since I started it.  From photography, to career change, to cheese, to Adam’s film career, to cooking, to Brooklyn, to restaurants, to pregnancy … thanks for joining me along on the ride.  I hope to keep you on board as I start this next phase of my life – motherhood.  Though I promise to write about more than just motherhood… because you know me… I have way too many interests to just focus on one thing!

Anyway – happy March!!

Fun with the Macro Lens & Some Recent Preggy Pics

21 Feb

Well… we’re now down to under four weeks until due date!  Amazing.  I’m wrestling with giving in to my nesting urges vs. staying practical.  On one hand, I feel I have to buy everything in creation in order to be uber prepared.  On the other hand I’m thinking… “that’s stupid, control yourself Nell.  It’s a baby – he doesn’t need all that much and you already have a closet full of baby stuff!”  The funny thing is… when I was about three months pregnant I was like, “I’m going to be minimalistic and not buy tons of stuff…”.  Ha.  That tune has changed a bit as I keep getting closer.

Meanwhile, this basketball belly is now more of a beach ball and is getting bigger and bigger!  Here are some recent photos Adam shot of me:

Me at 36 weeks! Photo by Adam Reid

I made these ones in black and white to try to make them a bit artsier…

Me at 36 weeks! Photo by Adam Reid

Me at 36 weeks! - Photo by Adam Reid

Oh yeah… I’m getting up there!

Anyway – I was very excited this weekend because I was bitten by the photography bug once again.  It’s actually been a little while since I’ve been super inspired to pull out the camera and go to town.  It started with these tulips I got over the weekend.  They are those peachy ones that have a bit of yellow – they’re my favorites.  Anyway, as I was sitting over breakfast, I was staring off into space – transfixed by the gorgeous tulip sitting on my kitchen table.  It was opened up pretty wide and the inside was just magical looking.  I instantly grabbed my macro lens and thus began a little twenty-minute photo shoot in my kitchen.  I just started snapping away with the macro lens… enjoying all the different colors and textures in my kitchen.  Here are some of my favorites:

"Inner Tulip" - 100mm Macro

"Pair of Tulips" - 100mm macro

"Tulip in Window Light" - 100mm macro

"Green Glass Jug in Window" - 100mm macro

"Red Rose in Window" - 100mm macro

"Window Woman Giggling" - 100mm macro

Aren’t those tulips delicious?  They were so inspiring to me.  I must say – I love taking pictures of flowers.  They are so intricately designed – with such gorgeous colors and textures – and they’re all natural?!  It’s amazing.  Plus – I don’t get nervous when I take photos of flowers (vs. people)… flowers don’t care if I take a long time and I find I can really get in a zone.

I also really love that green class jug photo – the texture in the glass is so cool.  It’s almost fluid-like – like an impressionist painting.

This weekend I’ve signed up for a free photography workshop all about photographing newborns and babies! I thought that might come in handy.  The workshop is through a site called creativeLIVE.  They offer a bunch of different photo workshops – and you can take them for free in the live version… which basically means, I’ll have access to it live through the internet over the course of three days.  You can also opt to pay for it and watch it at your leisure… but this is my first, so I figured I’d try out the free version.  It feels good to be feeding my photography brain once again after a little break.

Finally – since September, I’ve been meeting with a group of pregnant gals from the neighborhood once a month.  We found each other through a local list serve and it’s been great gaining a community of women going through their pregnancies (the first for all of us I believe) at the same time as me.  The best part – is once all our babies are born, we’ll now have a local network of new moms to hang out with!   So, Sunday we hosted the February get together at our place.  This time we invited husbands/partners along so they’d have a chance to meet as well.  Adam was the amazing pizza chef (he cooked up nine pizzas over the course of the evening – with the help of a few of the other guys) and we all had an awesome time.  So here is our group photo.  I think by the end of March, all our babies will be born (half the group already had their little ones).

The Preggy Gals (and Jessica, who now has an actual live baby)

The Preggy Gals With Hubbies

Adam’s obviously behind the camera.

So to my fellow preggy mamas reading this… it’s going to be a big month for all of us!  Good luck my new friends!

That’s all for today.  Hope everyone is having a lovely Tuesday.

xoxo

Crushing on Fort Greene

5 Feb

Yes, that’s right… I’m developing a total crush on our neighborhood.  It’s definitely helped that the weather has been beyond lovely. Also, my pregnancy butt pain has gotten a little less intense over the last couple days – enabling me to walk around a bit and enjoy the fresh air and this fine neighborhood.

Of course, I’ve been wanting to document the loveliness so that I can share it here, with all of you.  Normally, I would be walking for miles with my camera and a couple lenses and I would do it up right.  Unfortunately, with the extra pregnancy poundage and the sore butt/back – that’s been a little tough and the thought of schlepping around my camera bag has not been too appealing.  Luckily (glass half full), I dropped my Droid cell phone in the toilet a few weeks ago, forgetting it was in my back pocket (pregnancy brain), which was the perfect excuse for me to go out and get myself a long-awaited iPhone.  And I must say – the iPhone camera is far superior to my old Droid camera.

Thus begins photography fun with my iPhone…  lightweight, fits in my pocket… and the photos are not too shabby.

First – there is South Portland Street.  This is one of the most beautiful blocks I’ve seen – in Brooklyn, in Manhattan – pretty much anywhere.  It is lined with trees and gorgeous old brownstones.  It’s a special street.

When you stop and pay attention to the details, you notice the little things – like the railings and balusters decorating the front stoops and entryways to these beautiful brownstones.  Just on this one block alone, I spotted more than ten different styles.  Here are a few:

Then, within a manner of blocks, you experience this amazing variety of architecture:

A modern, renovated Brownstone:

Next to a beautiful renovated church (at least it looks like a church – I’m not sure):

Then down the street – buildings like these… which to me, make me feel like I’m not even in New York anymore:

And this is all within about six blocks of my apartment.  I can’t wait until the spring, when my pain (and extra weight) is hopefully completely gone, my little man is born and fits snuggly in his stroller and I can strap on my proper camera and go out on walking photography adventures to see and document everything this fascinating neighborhood has to offer.

Oh – and for those of you who are interested in learning more about Fort Greene and the surrounding Brooklyn neighborhoods, there has been a documentary airing on Showtime recently called Brooklyn Boheme (future airings listed here).  The film, made by Diane Paragus and Nelson George, chronicles the black arts movement that exploded in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill during the 1980′s and 90′s.  Filmmakers (Spike Lee), Musicians (Wynton and Branford Marsalis), Comedians (Chris Rock), Poets/Hip Hop Artists, Writers, Actors, Photographers… they were all part of a cultural renaissance and it all happened right here in this neighborhood.  Here is the trailer for Brooklyn Boheme:

To make matters more interesting, the apartment we now live in, housed Spike Lee’s production company 40 Acres and a Mule for over twenty years.  So a lot of this meeting and creating and magic happened right here… now that’s inspiring.  Here is an old photo (clipped from the doc) taken on what is now our staircase – featuring Spike Lee, Russell Simmons, Chris Rock and many other creative players from that time:

Photo from "Brooklyn Boheme"

Crazy.

Anyway – that’s all for today!  Looking forward to watching the game later and being the sole person in New York rooting for the Patriots!  GO PATS!

Happy Superbowl Sunday.

xoxo

Sunday Eats at PeteZaaz!

31 Jan

One of the other blogs I follow from time to time is called Nona Brooklyn.  The other day, I checked out Nona and read a great post about this new pizza joint in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn called PeteZaaz.  Chef/Owner Peter Nentner comes from No. 7 – a delicious restaurant in my neighborhood of Fort Greene and the other Chef/Owner and “Dough Man”, Glen Hudson comes from Pulino’s – a popular Keith McNally pizza spot on the Lower East Side.

PeteZaaz was written about for their inventive and playful approach to pizza.  The featured pizza that totally grabbed my attention was the Chili Con Carne pie… described in Nona Brooklyn here:

PeteZAAZ Chili-Con-Carne Pizza - Photo from http://nonabrooklyn.com

It’s got an ancho-based sauce. We use dehydrated ancho chilis and we rehydrate them with Sprite. We add garlic, onions, some lime zest, and we puree all that to make a nice little chili sauce. We braise some pork shoulder in the sauce, then we incorporate the rest of the sauce with a tomato sauce for the base for the pizza. We top it with the chopped braised pork shoulder, and I make a cream cheese burrata to top it as well.

We make our own fresh mozzarella in-house, at least twice a day. To make the burrata, I stretch some of the mozz and heat up some cream cheese, then stuff the warm cream cheese into a balloon of stretched mozzarella, and seal it up like a burrata. It’s like a mozzarella and cream cheese water balloon. After cooking it on the pizza, the cream cheese just oozes out.

When we pull the pizza out, we sprinkle it with cold pickled corn kernels, to give you a little acidic burst. Have you ever had Gushers candy? When you bite into a Gusher the juice comes shooting out, and I like that effect. With the cold pickled corn kernels, when you take a bite of the slice you get this burst of acidic flavor.

For crunch on that one we do a Cheez-It gremolata. I love Cheez-Its. I’ve been eating them forever. I mix crumbled Cheez-Its with lime zest, garlic, cilantro, parsley and Thai basil, and sprinkle that over the top for a little crunch.

I like to have an acidic component, a crunchy component and a sweet component as a base for all the pizzas. That’s the rule of thumb when we’re coming up with a pie.

 ~ Excerpt from NonaBrooklyn.com
Chilis rehydrated with Sprite?  braised pork shoulder, a house-made mozzarella and cream cheese water balloon that oozes over the pie?  I was so there.  I immediately contacted some friends (Kelly & Val, who live around the block) and Amie and Rob and we made a date for this past Sunday.
Upon walking into PeteZaaz, we realized it wasn’t the best atmosphere for seating a table of six.  It’s a long narrow entrance, where you can watch them making pies and grinding their own house-made sausage, which is cool, but the back seating area is pretty tight.  We decided to order a bunch of pizzas (thankfully, we were six people, so we could order a lot and try most things on the menu!) and bring them home to Kelly & Val’s apartment.

Making Sausage

Meanwhile, I was a little heartbroken when I found out that the chili-con-carne pie was just a special and was not available.  BUMMER!  But we managed to do alright with the other menu choices.
Here are Adam, Kelly & Rob waiting out front for our food…
So here’s the breakdown of our order:
One Baked Potato Pie (please forgive… the photo does not do this pie justice):
Baked Potato Pie – purple potatoes, applewood smoked bacon lardons, white cheddar and green onion covered with heavenly creme fraiche.
This pizza seriously rocked our worlds.  It was definitely the favorite of all of us.  It was basically like the best potato skin you’ve ever had (with the most amazing ingredients) served on top of this fresh, slightly crispy, slightly chewy amazing dough.  It was to die for.  I’m still craving more.
One Pie – Half Brooklyn (Tomato, House-Made Mozzarella and Marjoram), Half topped with House-Made Sweet Sausage 
The house-made sausage on this baby was pretty amazing.  That was my second-favorite item we ordered (after that life-changing baked potato pizza).  Side note… I never ate sausage growing up.  Like never.  I thought it was gross.  Since moving to New York, I have found a total love for sausage.  It is now one of my favorite pizza toppings.  And this sausage was outstanding.
One Pie – Half Pepperoni, Half Cold-Fried Chicken
Cold-Fried Chicken Pie – Curried Yellow Squash, Fontina, Stewed Collard Greens, Pickled Thai Chilis
I enjoyed the pepperoni pizza – they sliced up their pepperoni in thin strands and scattered them pretty uniformly throughout, which I liked… you got a little bit of pep in each bite!  The cold-fried chicken pie was not my thing.  The collards were hard to bite through and I just wasn’t crazy about the overall flavor in this pizza.  But the rest were winners!
Valerie ordered a Kimchi Roll – House-made Mozzarella, Kimchi Bruschetta, Thai Basil Pesto and Fried Shallots
I’m not a huge kimchi fan, but I had a bite and thought this sandwich was pretty good.  The fresh mozzarella was milky and delicious and the fried shallots were super tasty.
And Rob (our poor lactose-intolerant friend) ordered The Reuben Stromboli – Minus the Mozz - Pastrami, Sauerkraut, Chinese Mustard
I also took a bite of this one (it’s for the blog… I need to sample EVERYTHING!!).  The pastrami was super yummy – of course, I would have liked it better with the cheese – I mean, look who you’re dealing with here.  But another yummy dish – full of flavor for sure!
So – that was our PeteZaaz experience.  I would definitely hit this place up again.  Kelly and Val are lucky to live so close.  And they deliver!!  Next time I would have to get the Baked Potato pie again – only because it’s just divinely delicious.  But I’m hoping they get rid of the Cold-Fried Chicken pie and add the Chili-Con-Carne pie instead as a regular menu item… there has been some rumor of that according to Nona Brooklyn.  Fingers crossed… I have to try that chili pie!!
Meanwhile, even Lola the pup was digging this pizza:
Thanks for a delicious Sunday afternoon meal PeteZaaz.  I will definitely be back for more!

A Baby Shower to Remember…

19 Jan

This past Sunday my mom and sister threw me a beautiful baby shower.  Sometimes events like this make me a bit nervous, and I feel a little awkward being the center of attention.  However this shower was so thoughtful and I was surrounded by such wonderful people, delicious food and an all around fun and festive vibe.  I couldn’t have asked for a more lovely day.  True to form… I was totally emotional (typical me + pregnancy hormones = a lot of crying!!).

Me crying...

The shower was held at an awesome restaurant in the Columbia Waterfront District of Brooklyn called Alma.  Anthony, one of the owners of Alma, was a complete pleasure to work with and made sure the day was perfect!  I highly recommend this spot for a delicious bite to eat or to host a celebration.  They totally rocked it!

My friend Andrea Reese - fellow photographer (turning pro… she’s an inspiration) worked her butt of snapping shots of the day from beginning to end.  So, thanks to Andrea, I can share this day with the rest of you here on nellsdish.  All photos on this post were taken by Andrea of AndreaReesePhotography.com!!

It’s all in the details:

I am not one of those women who is typically into all the little details of party planning (no Martha Stewart here – though I did get rather into it while planning our wedding!).  I tend to be low maintenance, I shy away from party games and I never want to spend money needlessly.  That being said, my mom and sis came up with some adorable details and activities that really made the day extra special.  I’m so glad they didn’t listen to me and did things their way!

Here is the beautiful cake made by Betty Bakery on Atlantic Ave in Brooklyn.  It was a red velvet cake (my favorite), with vanilla buttercream frosting and layers of chocolate inside.  To die for.  Really.  I’m still eating leftovers and loving every minute.  The bakery also perfectly recreated the cute Mama duck image from my shower invitation (I used Paperless Post – check it out!  Great way to send adorable invites via email) and thus – duckies became the theme of the shower!

Baby Shower Cake by Betty Bakery

My mom bought all these adorable little rubber duckies and wrote numbers on the bottom of each one.  Each guest got a rubber ducky with their slice of cake and the guest with the winning number (17 – my due date!!), won a prize.

Slice of Cake with Rubber Ducky

Valerie was the winner!

For centerpieces, there were bunches of yellow and white daisies – they matched the duck color scheme and provided a bright and cheery atmosphere at brunch!

Table Centerpieces

For favors, they gave our these adorable little mint tins personalized with the date of the shower!  What a cute surprise.

Favors - Little Mint Tins

Shower Activites:

So even though I said “no games”, my mom and sister thought they should organize a little something to provide entertainment for the shower.  I absolutely LOVED what they did.

They put together a multiple choice quiz about me and all the shenanegans I pulled growing up.  It was fun sharing these details about my life with my friends.  I think they learned a lot about me that they never knew before!  Here are a couple of Nell facts from the quiz:

  • At a young age, Nell shocked her Papa Arnold by eating an entire… (d. king-sized prime rib)
  • Nell and her friend, Jess, once devoured a whole bottle of… (a. Flintstone vitamins)
  • Nell’s first career goal was to be… (d. both a waitress and a cheerleader)
  • One of the few times Nell was grounded it was because she had… (c. driven our car without a license)
  • Nell’s anthem should be… (b. “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”)

My mom sharing the answers to the "Nell" quiz

Another really sweet activity they organized was to have each guest fill out an advice card for me as I enter motherhood.  I read all the advice cards when I got home and was so touched by the thoughtful advice my friends shared with me.  What a special keepsake from the shower… of course, I cried while reading through all these as well!

Advice cards

Here are some more pictures from the day:

My lovely niece Monique and me

Pee Pee Teepees... I'm sure I'll get a lot of use out of these!

my girl Amie and me - we're pregnant together... what's better?!

Cool mirror shot

Someone's having fun!

Brette and me

Me and my mom

And finally…

Me, my mom and my sister

Thank you so much much mom and Erika – for planning and creating such a memorable baby shower for me.  And to all my friends who helped me celebrate, I love you so much and I feel so grateful to have you all in my life!  This little baby boy is entering the world into a major love-fest.  What a lucky little dude.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A little creative inspiration for the holiday weekend…

24 Dec

Carousel at Bryant Park

Happy holidays everyone!  It has been a lovely start to the day over here.  Reading in bed until ten-thirty (currently reading On Writing by Stephen King), a delightful egg and cheese sandwich on a toasted Bays Multigrain English Muffin, made with love by my breakfast chef supreme husband.  In a couple hours we are heading out to go see The Artist at BAM (down the street) and that is pretty much the main event on this quiet and sleepy Saturday.  Tomorrow we’ll probably catch another movie and a Chinese dinner (Jewish Christmas).  My kind of weekend for sure.  I hope you are all traveling safe and that you enjoy your weekend filled with family, food, friends, presents and all things merry.

I’ll leave you with a fun, creative, foodie-inspired stop motion short by an artist named Pes that Adam turned me onto this week. Enjoy!

Oh – and here’s a little stop motion holiday gem – created by Adam and the talented team at Bodega:

Happy holidays to all of you and warmest wishes for a wonderful weekend!

xoxo

Let the Pregginess Begin

14 Dec

Yes that’s right…  I’m officially looking and feeling like a pregnant woman now.  My belly is quite large (though I’m still finding it rather cute thus far) and I’m starting to get some pain in my lower back and butt so I’ve definitely got a little pregnant waddle going on. Oye.  I still have three months to go!  That’s a little bit scary.  The subway routine is definitely getting a bit tougher these days.  I surprised myself while huffing and puffing up the stairs at the 2nd Avenue stop yesterday. Lately, in fact, I’ve grown fond of skipping the stairs altogether and opting for the elevators (at those stations that are blessed with elevators).  Here is a photo of me from this past weekend – there’s no mistaking it now… this girl is PREGO!

Meanwhile, this little guy is kicking up a storm, which I really love.  I love lying on the couch with my hands on my belly and feeling him move around.  It’s such a trip.  Though he’s funny… he’s just like me.  He doesn’t like to perform on demand.  Every time my mom is around for a visit and tries to feel him kick, he stops and stays really still.  Stubborn little guy.  Also when I go for ultrasounds and they try to get a good photo of him, he hardly ever cooperates.  It’s ok though.  Between Adam and his filmmaking and me and my photography – he is going to be the most documented kid ever… a camera in his face at all times!  I’m happy to give him some space while he’s still in the womb.

As for me, I’ve been keeping busy with several projects.  This past Friday I did a photo shoot with my friend Yvonne.  She’s moving to LA (sniffle sniffle) and looking for a new job and wanted some portraits for her online portfolio.  We played around with some natural light indoors and outdoors as well as some shots in front of a seamless white backdrop paper I bought from Adorama.  She got her makeup done ahead of time and brought a few outfit changes and we had a blast!  She was a great model – and I definitely feel like I’m getting more confident shooting people, which is good.  I will post a selection of my favorites next week after I spend this weekend going through the hundreds of photos we took!

Then Monday I did some shooting with my friend Amie.  We fashioned a little makeshift studio in my apartment with some lights and the seamless white backdrop.   Amie’s friend  recently launched this awesome men’s sock and accessories line called hook + Albert so we were doing some product shots for him – testing out our skills in that department.  It was fun to experiment with a new type of photography and I do think the photos came out pretty good.  Here are a few examples.

The biggest challenge in this exercise was perfecting white balance/color temperature (easy intro to white balance here if interested).  Because we are advertising a fashion product, I thought it was quite important to get the colors as true to real as possible.  You know when you buy something online and then when you see it in person it’s a totally different color from what was advertised?  I was trying to avoid that.  So, while shooting, I spent a lot of time customizing the color temperature and playing with the degrees Kelvin (more info on color temperature) in the camera settings until it looked perfect.   After uploading the images to Lightroom on my computer, the color looked totally different from how I saw it on the camera monitor.   And now, the color looks different once again after uploading the images from Lightroom to WordPress!  I’m not sure if this can be totally perfected as I believe different monitors will often have different settings – and you can only control the settings on your own monitor.  But I’m going to do a little more research into this area to see if there is anything else I should be doing to improve my results.  More on that to come.

So, I’ve been busy busy – but alas – I feel like my body (which has been tremendously cooperative throughout this pregnancy so far) is starting to tell me to slow down a bit and chill the hell out.  I am approaching the third trimester (Saturday is the official start for me).  I have this tendency to push myself and run around all the time but I’m picking up on the signals lately and I’m thinking… I better rest while I still can!  Right?  So my new goal is to start taking it a little easier and get my body feeling as good as it can in preparation for what’s to come.   Hopefully I’m capable of slowing down – it might take a little self-control. :)  I’m looking forward to a nice quiet holiday week this year, which will help.  We’re keeping it low key – just hanging out at home, enjoying the last of our vacation time with just the two of us.  I’m thinking some good food, some good movies some Rummy 500 and LOTS of relaxation (plus, maybe a massage).  Sounds good right?

Anyway, have a great Wednesday everyone!  Thanks for visiting.

xo

Greetings From the Bahamas…

3 Dec

Good morning from Paradise Island!  This is the start of our third full day in the Bahamas and we’ve been kind of vacationing/kind of working thus far.  Thursday we saw a movie marathon – we were at the theater from 11am until 7:30pm and saw four feature films and four shorts.  CRAZY!  My butt’s been hurting ever since.  Yesterday I let Adam go to the theater without me and I did some exploring around the Atlantis resort, some reading (currently reading Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides) and a little swimming.  Swimming DOES feel good when you’re pregnant!  Although I do feel a little funny in a swimsuit with my big belly!  I stayed outside by the pool until the sun started to fade and then I ran back to the room and got my camera for a quick photo walk.  Here are some of my favorite photos from yesterday afternoon/evening:

Atlantis at Sunset - Blissed Out

Atlantis at Sunset - Moody

These two photos have such a different feel – taken only about fifteen minutes apart.

Grumpy Fish Poses for Portrait

A face only a fish mother could love.

School of Fish

Sting Ray

I like how the reflection of the hotel in the water gave this photo more life.

Moon Behind Palm Leaves

I totally played with the colors on this one…  I like the deep red blossoms in the trees against the aqua sky.  Also kind of moody.

Meanwhile, it’s now 10:30am and of course – I’m STARVING (one of the side-effects of pregnancy – I wake up completely famished).  It looks nice and sunny this morning and we don’t have any movies to see until early this evening.  So we have to go get our fun and sun on!

I’ll leave you with this…  Adam found this awesome site featuring Stanley Kubrick’s photography of New York.  I never knew Stanley Kubrick worked as a stills photographer.  I really love a lot of his work.  Here are a couple of my favorites found on VandM.com (Vintage and Modern):

Stanley Kubrick's "Walking Away on the Streets of New York"

Stanley Kubrick's "High Wire Act"

Enjoy and happy weekend to you all!

xo

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