Fisheye Images

For my birthday my mom gave me a plastic fisheye camera. It takes plain old film and there is no sense in even trying to use the view finder, and that is what makes it fantastic. In the age of digital you get so used to instant gratification, but I still enjoy the suspense of seeing what you caught of film and being surprised to see the images created. I took the camera with me over the Christmas break and here are some of my favorites.



This was a guy in Santa Fe, Don actually took this photo, we found out that he was the builder of the snowman and his dog. Pretty cool.
This is my little collection of cameras in my office.

Fionnuala's 1st Birthday

I had the pleasure of documenting Fionnuala's first birthday on Saturday. I have been privileged to watch her grow since she was in her mom's belly. Here are a couple photos from our past shoots.

Three months, eight months and one year.

The party was held at Head House Books in Philadelphia. There were about a dozen children in attendance and they had story time. It was really a great setting, perfect for this age group.



All the guests got to pick out a book to take home and they all recieved little stickers with their name on them to put inside the book cover.





It was a really fun day. There were so many adorable children at the party. Fionnuala was the perfect little hostess, she worked the room and made sure to interact with everyone.

Here is the slideshow

Belly challenge.

Linette's husband Kyle met my challege to take some photographs of Linette! WooHoo! These images are the result. Awesome, Kyle I love it.

Linette's Belly

My very good friend Linette will be having a baby in March. I am so excited for her and Kyle that I just had to post some photographs of her. We had our first belly photo session in December and I thought Linette was big then! We are going to do our second and final session in a couple of weeks. I can't actually post many of the photos from our first session so I will just have to tease you a little.

Linette has also asked me to photograph the birth. I am really excited and nervous at the same time. She will be having the baby at The Birth Center. She has photographed a couple of births so she knows what she is in for.

The photo credit for this shot actually goes to Kyle Kielinski, Linette's husband. The touch up credit goes to me. Linette and I keep getting on Kyle to take more photographs of her. He is a professional photographer after all. I think this is the only photo he has taken of her, and Kyle you can take that as a challenge, take more photos of your beautiful pregnant wife!

This was our first attempt at a Christmas Card photo, it didn't make the final cut but it is one of my favorite images, their dog's name is Cappy.

I am really excited for our second shoot. I have had a particular photograph in my head for years but it is not something I can ask just anyone to do. Linette has obliged to help me make the image real so you will have to wait and see. Linette is also a photographer and she is actually my second shooter for my upcoming 2007 weddings. She will be shooting with me starting in June.

Microsoft School of the Future

Three generations of fashion designers are collaborating on a unique educational project in West Philly. School of the Future Principal Shirley Grover initiated the partnership with Drexel by asking the Fashion Design Program at Drexel’s Antoinette Westphal College of Media Art and Design to design a uniform for the school. Drexel fashion faculty suggested the School of the Future students design their own uniforms under the guidance of graduate fashion students at Drexel.
Student teams collaborated and put forward their design proposals. The guidelines called for a contemporary design that all students would feel proud to wear and with functional components for both the classroom and fieldwork. Graduate students in the Fashion Design Program at Drexel’s Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design “mentored” the students through the process of creating their designs. Drexel Fashion Design Program faculty used their contacts in New York to invite fashion luminaries, Nicole Miller and Stan Herman, to choose the winning design. Nicole Miller and Stan Herman, came to the School of the Future on Jan 17th to choose the winning design and honored the winning team.

Tommy Pauline and his groups design was chosen.

The payoff for the students is at least three-fold. They learned new skills, gained the confidence to try new experiences, and developed a sense of “specialness” by knowing one of their own designs will become the official school uniform. To top it off, the students’ work has been critiqued by two superstars from the fashion world.

I thought this was just a cool shot as Tommy was getting his photograph taken for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Here is Nicole Miller, Tommy Pauline and Stan Herman

The School of the Future is really fascinating and beautiful. There is one class currently attending the school, a feshman class of 170 students. Each year a new freshman class will be added so that in four years the school will be operating at full capacity. I feel like I can go on and on about how wonderful this school was but you can read about it here.

This is their lunch roomAn impressive entrance to the school

While we were waiting around I took the oportunity to get a photo with Nicole Miller.

She was a really nice woman and the kids were so excited for the chance to meet her.

Baby Maya

Saturday I had the pleasure of meeting Maya. She has some of the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. She is such a sweet baby and she was so pleasant and happy the whole time I was there.


The last time I visited George and Katria was for Katria's belly session. It was so exciting to walk into Maya's nursery and see her Belly photographs on the wall. Not to mention this nursery was so beautifully decorated.

Maya loves her toes.

Thank you George and Katria for having me out again. It was such a pleasure and I had a wonderful time with you.

Here is your slideshow

Sad VW in 2007

My car is not having a good start to the year. When I got home from Christmas vacation I found a nice big "love bump" scrape on my rear bumer and this in the front:
Now I think that is much more than a "love tap", more like a "love punch"! The whole front gille is cracked and smashed in. My poor car. I have had more scrapes in my current neighborhood than when I lived in the city. And today upon leaving the gym I found a flat tire, yep nice big screw in my tire. Luckily there was enough air to get me to the train station and I will have to deal with it later. But on the brighter side I have only two more payments and the car is paid for in full. Lets hope the year gets better for my VW and that it doesn't start to just fall apart because it is paid for.

Happy New Year

Home again home again jigity jig. What a whirl wind of a trip. I had a fantastic and much needed vacation at home in New Mexico. Before we get too far past new years I wanted to post some pictures.

Me and Don getting ready to ring in the New Year.

My brother Geoff and I were both born in Santa Fe, so it was really special to ring in the New Year there together. I can't remember the last time I got to be with my brother for New Years.

My little point and shoot takes pretty good pictures.

We ate at Geronimo in Santa Fe on New Years Eve. Geronimo is one of the best restaurants in Santa Fe. The food was fantastic, the service with out flaw, the margarita's dangerous, and the experience out of this world.

Geoff's good friend Chris owns Geronmio. He treated us like any other celebrity, fantastic.
Thank You Chris.

Here are some of my favorite shots from around Santa Fe. There was 18 inches of snow on the ground and they were saying that it was the most snow Santa Fe has seen since the 50's.

This is one of my favorite shots. Its so simple and I took it out of the back seat window on our way to breakfast.

Look at these icicles!

I am looking forward to the weekend and getting settled back into things again. I have a lot of emails and phone calls to return. Its good to be home, see you all soon.