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