I always promised myself, one day, one day I’m going to actually see those dang cherry blossoms! A flurry of texts between friends and a date was set and then reset (because you know how it is when you try to get more than two in the same room). I hadn’t been to DC since my 8th grade trip way back when (a fact I may have mentioned more than once on the day we were there….) so I was a little more than excited for this day trip!

We had been promised sunny, warm weather for the day. That morning brought grey clouds and cold damp weather. Undeterred, we met at the New Carrollton Station and took the Metro in to the Smithsonian stop. As we exited on to the mall, immediately to our left were two protesters – two! – and walking by a Park Ranger. We flagged the Park Ranger down and asked him the best way to the blossoms (because, yeah, we had tourist written all over us!). He informed us that we were about a week to late, most of the petals were on the ground now. All these years and I still missed it!!

We wandered our way past the Washington Memorial and down to the basin. Most of the trees were definitely past their prime but there was one tree that completely made the trip worth it! This tree was in lush full bloom and gorgeous! Now I totally have to see them when they are all in their full glory!

We had a fabulous day – two girls lazily wandering around DC, covering all topics of discussion along the way – what could be better than that!?!

When was the last time you saw fun, professional images of a Dad with his child? I’ll give you a minute… EXACTLY!! This is something that’s been on my brain for a long, long time – years actually and I wanted to change that. I wanted to capture the pure joy, love and affection between a father and his child and I knew I found the perfect pair for this project when I met these two!

How did I know and where did I meet this charming pair? Back in October I went to THE football game at Kent Island High School (that little rivalry between Queen Anne’s and Kent Island – yeah, that one). I was part of a large group of people – friends of friends etc – and these two were part of our group. We sat in the stands screaming and yelling and the whole time the little one was bundled inside his dad’s jacket being held, cuddled and loved. It stuck with me. After the holidays, I asked our mutual friend if she could put some feelers out to see if the ‘boys’ would be interested in helping me out with my project. It was a resounding YES!

The morning of the session started with me getting two text messages from the dad showing me outfits choices and asking which ones should they wear. It tickled and thrilled me that they were as excited about this session as I was! Both boys were looking dapper when I showed up. We quickly got down to business – playing, eating and crawling all over the house. These two together are a special thing to see. The instant they make eye connection it’s big smiles all around! I can’t thank them enough for allowing me to be part of their world for a few hours and letting me put their love into images.

I have so, so many images that I love and want to share that I made a video of the entire day – enjoy!

Every January, like clockwork, it begins. He starts pacing around the house muttering under his breath – P and C’s, P and C’s. Soon afterwards you can find him throwing phantom curve and knuckle balls from his lazy-boy. My Dad is a huge baseball fan – Red Sox to be exact.  What exactly does the P and C’s he’s muttering about stand for? It’s his shortened, bring spring on, mantra for Pitchers and Catchers – the day that the MLB Pitchers and Catchers can first report for spring training. This year it’s February 14th.

I attract baseball fans in my life like gum to perfectly white sneakers. I don’t go looking for them, but there they are in my life. Briefly, last year, I was seeing a man who is a huge Mets fan. Had he been a Yankees fan he wouldn’t have gotten a second date.  My Daddy taught me well!! My good friend Mary’s happy place is Camden Yards. This woman LOVES baseball and her Orioles. I swear she owns more orange clothing than anyone I know! It was Mary who made it possible for me to see my beloved Red Sox again – this time in Camden Yards and several other games last season. The ball in the images above are from a first date last summer. What did we do? Drove across 3 states to watch him play baseball with his brother! I told you! Baseball fans just find me!!

Actually, I love baseball. I love being in the park; being part of the crowd and watching the game. I have so many memories attached to baseball: my first live game at Shea Stadium, the annual family excursions to Fenway and the huge Citgo sign, the years and years of hope and utter despair of being a Red Sox fan, my nephew Cooper being born the same week of “The Ultimate Pennant Race” between the Red Sox and Yankees, catching a game at Camden Yards with a 19 year old wounded solider and it goes on and on. All of the baseball fans in my life (Dad, Mary, Tom, Paul, Katie, Noah…) inspired this series. Now if I somehow manage to marry a left handed pitcher, all of my Dad’s baseball dreams will be realized..

]]> http://lilbludragonfly.com/2011/01/p-and-cs-p-and-cs/feed/ 0 http://lilbludragonfly.com/2011/01/a-family-session-of-epic-proportions/ http://lilbludragonfly.com/2011/01/a-family-session-of-epic-proportions/#comments Thu, 06 Jan 2011 13:00:01 +0000 Jennie http://lilbludragonfly.com/?p=2091

Back in July, I got a twitter DM from Heather, which quickly turned into a full fledged facebook conversation. Heather had a special project in mind and asked me for my help. The special project? Photograph the family horse farm and 22 members of the family. I loved the idea!

Well, like all great ideas that involve a lot of people (and in this case several dogs and one very nosey horse!), there were a few ‘issues’. A small one being a little thing called Hurricane Earl… Earl pushed the shoot back from September to November. Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to work very well for the over all farm images, so we broke the session into two.  On a cold morning in October, with a full moon still in the sky, I drove out to the farm and found beauty! Golden light, frosty fields and a little piece of heaven.

November arrived and we were a go! I arrived early to set up for the BIG portrait in one of the barns. As I was working, I could hear the laughter and joy ringing out of the house. It was clear, this family loved each other and being together. And generous – did I mention generous? At the end of the session they invited me to share in the family dinner! It was a smorgasbord in the making and soo delish!!  I’m thinking from here on out that’s how every session should end!

Life is a very funny thing.  It really is true, the more you live, learn and love, the more you stay the same.  Meeting this beautiful boy is a perfect example of that. Back in the day, I went to high school with his mom!

Muffy and I are the same age but were a year apart in school.  I was a year ahead and wish I could say it was because of my brilliance. Really it all came down to the fact that I started school at age 4.  Our high school was tiny – no, really – really tiny! There were 300 students – not in each grade level – in the ENTIRE school. Due to this fact, everyone knew everyone (boy did you not want to mess up on the weekend – there was no grapevine – everyone was present and accounted for to witness the mayhap!)

One of my strongest memories of Muffy is of us sharing a bus seat on a NYC field trip.  (Our school trip every year was to NYC and always included going to the Frick Museum, a broadway show and the boys counting how many prostitutes they could spot on the street corners. Hey! We came from a small town, this was well out of our scope of everyday kind of entertainment! *This was also before the days of Giuliani and his infamous cleaning up of Time Square*) Muffy decided, for that day, we had to pretend we were NYC elite and have “airs”.  There was no way in the world that I could pull that off and didn’t even try.  Honestly, I don’t even remember how successful Muffy was. I do remember being impressed that she stuck with that role the whole day. It was funny, outrageous, bold and living out loud. She’s still that way today and I love that.

Here’s where life is funny.  I, like you do, lost touch with Muffy.  I’d get an occasional update about the people who had gone to school with me from my parents. Nothing more concrete or solid than a, “hey, did you hear?” Honestly, I had no idea where Muffy was living or where she was in her life. Then along came Facebook (you knew there had to be a FB connection some where!). I realized she wasn’t living to far from where I had just moved to and her status updates were counting down the days until her first born arrived in the world.  I had been itching to get a newborn in front of my lens for awhile now. So, I sent her a message asking her if I could photograph her son when they got home from the hospital. I was thrilled she said yes.  It took Facebook and a birth to get Muffy and I back in the same room! Honestly, it was like nothing had changed. We are both who we were back then, only now stronger and more confident versions. Without further ado, here is the little man who made it all happen!

He loved sucking on his fingers and hands and I wanted to make sure I captured that.

Here are two more of his pure sweetness!

After a really good game of phone tag, we finally connected to go over the session details and setup a time/place. I KNEW this was my kind of family when he said “Sunday would be perfect for us. We’re all going to wedding and the kids will be clean that day.” Loved that!!

When Chris and I originally spoke we talked about doing individual and group portraits in black and white. As this was what Chris and Patty specifically asked for, I wanted to make sure we started here.

*Complete Aside – This is one of my favorite images from the shoot! I know, I know, doesn’t exactly fall under the kids portrait category, but I love how Chris and Patty where totally game to help out.*

Then it was time for some color and fun! I had eyed up the ice cream truck when we pulled in and so wanted to incorporate it some of the images. Not only did we use the truck as a back drop but the driver also invited the kids in to sit in the window! Completely love how the colors of the girls’ dresses matched up with the colors on the truck.

Now before they were all whisked away to the wedding (and before the kids got dirty!) there was one last setting I wanted to use.  You see, the beach we were shooting on, White Sands, was the same beach I spent all the summers of my childhood.  Very, very little has changed.  The ice cream truck still parks in the same place and the changing rooms have never been updated (except for possibly a new coat of paint). So, for years, I’ve been thinking of ways to incorporate the changing rooms into some images. Something about them just says White Sands Beach to me. I’m so very, very happy with the final images!

One week every summer my entire family converges on my parents’ house for a week of beach, lobster and boating. I grew up in a small coastal town in Connecticut, the kind of town whose population doubles in the summer months due to the influx of SPs (Summer People). This year, for the first time, we were pulled together from all over the country (IL, CO and MD), a last minute gathering at that.

There are certain traditions we maintain every year – going out on Dad’s boat, time at the beach and a lobster dinner. This year potty training Sanna, my Dad having surgery on both hands and a leaking A/C unit were thrown in for added fun! Seriously each one of these added events merits their own blog post but I’ll give you the highlights instead:

• Due to sleeping arrangements and the fact I was the last one to arrive I ended up sharing a room with Sanna. Every morning at 5:20 on the dot (I kid you not) I woke to Sanna yelling “Peeing! Peeing! Change! Change!” Yeah that was fun.

• Dad spent the entire week with hands straight up in the air in casts. He couldn’t tie his shoes, drive, etc… I walked downstairs one morning; he looked at me and said, “I think I have an eye infection…” I took him to the Dr’s for the umpteenth that week and sure enough he had an eye infection. The man was falling apart in front of our eyes!

• Now for the kicker. It was our last full day of being together. It was going to be a full day – visit Gram (Great Grandma) in the morning, beach in the afternoon with the kids (minus napping Sanna) and a lobster dinner in the rough to round the day out. The first two events of the day came off mostly without a hitch.

We knew we were pushing the limits of our stay at the beach. A major rainstorm was brewing just north and west but we decided to eek out every last second we could get. The skies opened as we were racing to the cars but the real fun began when we got back to the house. My sister Katie met us at the door with the news of a major leak in one of the bedrooms. You guessed it, mine and Sanna’s. I went racing upstairs to move anything (clothes, cameras, etc…) that might be in the way and encountered a running stream of water pouring out of the ceiling and just missing my bed.

Here’s roughly the timeline of what happened next: Dad in the attic trying to find the source; Mom calling the A/C guy who had been there just last week for the other A/C; Dad enticing Paulie (family friend) with beers to stay and be his muscle guy (remember Dad still has two casts on); kids running up and down the stairs shouting updates and wanting to check out the attic; numerous trips to the garage for the right tool(s); the boys ‘helping’; someone literally sucking on a pipe (sorry no images here!); people staged at various levels of the house playing telephone – “Turned it on!”, “It’s on!”, “On!”; finally being told they ‘think’ they fixed it but the true test would be if I woke up in a puddle of water or not – wonderful…

Needless to say, we didn’t make it out to the restaurant for dinner that night. We did the next best thing and ordered in 7 lobster dinners, 2 steamed clams and 1 order of mussels. Just as we were walking up to the pick up window, my sister Sara and I overheard a guy in the kitchen say, “I really hope this order comes to pickup. This is a lot of lobster…” Ye of little faith!! He obviously had no idea the depth of the Sjursen family obsession with lobster! Not even a damaged, flooded house would get in our way!!

And finally some images of the kids at the beach!

The main players – Dorrie, Kai and Cooper

Chill’n

Mmmm – sand….

Kai making friends.

Sign we may have stayed to long and the mad dash to the car!

Sanna cuddling with her mom just after her nap.

]]> http://lilbludragonfly.com/2010/08/potty-training-lobster-and-leaking-ac-units/feed/ 1 http://lilbludragonfly.com/2010/07/baseball-and-beehives/ http://lilbludragonfly.com/2010/07/baseball-and-beehives/#comments Fri, 02 Jul 2010 13:56:37 +0000 Jennie http://lilbludragonfly.com/?p=1120 Good Lord it was freaking hot! May 31 2010 was moving day.  What started out as a breezy, beautiful 70˚ day in CT turned into a gross, disgusting, humid 90˚+ day in Baltimore County, MD.  To top it off the local electric company hadn’t turned on the power like I requested.  Can you read NO a/c!!! This also meant that the cable guy couldn’t hook up the tv and internet.  No internet for over an entire week – slay me now!!  This was not an auspicious start to my big move.  Thankfully it got a whole lot better really quickly.

I’ve been planning this move since last August.  Coming down, checking out places I might like to live, meeting people (Twitter is totally awesome for this) and just soaking up the vibe that is Baltimore. As it goes, a friend of mine had a friend who lives in the area and connected us through Facebook. Back in October we met for lunch at a local Panera and four hours later Mary and I parted as the best of friends – love that!

Mary’s happy place is Camden Yards. I mean – BIG time happy place!  She gives the most amazing tours of the ballpark and the history/baseball knowledge that pours out of her is nothing short of astounding.  A couple of weeks before the move Mary and I started talking about meeting up and going to an O’s game.  I checked the schedule and happened to notice that the O’s were going to be hosting the Red Soxs my first Friday in town. As a CT girl who grew up going to Fenway and vividly remembers Bill Buckner’s flub during the 1986 World Series, this was an opportunity that just couldn’t be missed. Mary, knowing full well it was going to be ugly for the O’s, was up for it.  And it was – ugly, ugly, ugly for the O’s but it was also completely awesome to be at the ballpark.  I love the vibe and feel of Camden Yards, so much so, that the following Friday I was back at Camden Yards and on Mary’s tour taking photos.

*Complete aside – It’s official – every ballpark/team on the east coast somehow has a tie to Babe Ruth.  How that is possible I have no absolutely no idea! The image of the statute on the end – yup, you guess it – that’s the “young Babe Ruth”…*

So how could it possibly get better then that?? I give you Honfest! Talk about something that is quintessentially Baltimore! For those of you who don’t live in the Baltimore area – what is Honfest you ask? I’m not sure I can fully answer that question! Think beehived, hair sprayed, curler wearing, gum smacking women wearing lots of pink, orange, animal print clothing with cat eye glasses. I kid you not. Here’s how the official Honfest site defines a Hon:

The term Hon is actually a friendly Baltimore greeting and comes from the word honey. Around here, however, the women who vie to become Baltimore’s Best Hon are a vision of the sixties-era. They are women with beehive hairdos, bright-blue eye shadow, spandex pants and anything with leopard print!

Adore, Adore, Adore Honfest! So much fun, people watching and great food. There was even a place were you could get your ‘hair did’ in a beehive.  I am sooo doing that next year. Without further ado – here were some of my favorite Hon’s of the day!

I have no idea what adventures Baltimore in July will bring but I am SO looking forward to them!! If there is anything going on that I absolutely HAVE to go to, see and be a part of – share it here and I’ll try to make it happen!

These past few weeks have been full of ups and downs.  For those that don’t know, I have been care taking my Grandmother’s house for the past couple of years.  What originally was suppose to be a temporary move somehow morphed into years.  Two weeks ago the family decided it was time to sell the house.

My Grandmother fell and broke her hip and it was hoped she would heal quickly and come home.  Unfortunately, she’s never been able to come back to the home she loves.  As my stay at the house was always suppose to be temporary, I never fully moved in.  Most of the house was kept exactly how my Grandmother left it – pictures on the wall, curtains on the windows and towels in the bathroom.  Not that I didn’t walk around the house and dream of things I’d love to change: rip down wallpaper, new kitchen floor – even as big as tearing down walls.  I didn’t do any of those things.  It was never my house and never would be.  It’s a strange experience to live in a house that for all extents and purposes you are really a guest in.

We called a real estate agent and before I knew it the process was full steam ahead!  The real estate agent asked me to pack away all of Gram’s personal photos and nicknacks.  Suddenly it struck me – this was real – this was a goodbye.  My Grandmother had lived across the street from my parents for almost 30 years.  A piece of my childhood was fading away.  I knew before I took another step forward, I needed to photograph the things that were the essence of my Grandmother and her home.

I photographed her dressing table, full of family photos and the mirror and hairbrush she has had my entire life.  I walked around and captured small vignettes – my father’s teddy bear from when he was a child, her thimble and tea cup collection, her sewing machine where she made us Easter dresses and Halloween costumes and the carved table my Great Grandfather brought back from his travels.  It was an exercise in remembering and saying goodbye.

So I’ve spent the last two weeks packing and getting the house ready for show.  Frankly, it’s heartbreaking and a relief as well.  I’m ready to move on, to no longer be responsible for another’s worldly possessions.  I will, however, be sad when I look out my parents window to the house across the street that is no longer “ours”.  I know a few more tears will be shed over the next few weeks, as were done while writing this post.  As much as it pulls on my heartstrings to see this chapter close, I know it is the right thing.  I am also excited for what comes next.  I have no idea what that is but I’m ready to meet it!

]]> http://lilbludragonfly.com/2010/04/a-time-to-weep-and-a-time-to-laugh/feed/ 3 http://lilbludragonfly.com/2010/03/the-extraordinary-funky-chickens-fine-art-shoot/ http://lilbludragonfly.com/2010/03/the-extraordinary-funky-chickens-fine-art-shoot/#comments Thu, 25 Mar 2010 11:27:22 +0000 Jennie http://lilbludragonfly.com/?p=871

Oh No, she didn’t!  Oh yes, she did!!

If you know nothing about me, you must know this.  I am cut throat competitive.  I just can’t help myself – this other being comes over me and I’m going to get there first, fastest and smartest.  Of course, that rarely happens but I give the good fight all the way down to my crumbling demise…  So, when one of my photographer friends saw this paper mache, feather coated, chicken in my mother’s kitchen and challenged me to take a fine art photo of it, which if I was successful she would hang in her house – you know the game was on!!

I spent a lot of time, to much time, trying to come up with the perfect location.  I issued a call of help out to my Facebook Fans.  Nothing resonated.  A trip to Baltimore found the Extraordinary Funky Chicken and I on our first road trip.  (pic here)  Still nothing – really how hard could this be.  Finally I got up one morning and decided this was the morning.  Extraordinary Funky Chicken and I headed up to Nehantic State Forest – Uncas Lake for the locals.  Location be damned this shoot was happening right then and there.

It’s a most interesting experience to be standing on the access road in the middle of the forest at 6:30 in the morning with a fake chicken.  There I was, thinking how ridiculous I am and seriously couldn’t I ratchet down my competitive nature and the need to make this spectacular! (obviously not!!)  Fabulous… now I have an audience….  I swear the man is home telling people – “Well I never saw anything like it.  There was this woman in the middle of the forest with a camera and a fake chicken….”  Seriously the things I do in the name of art!!

So here it is – the fabulous Extraordinary Funky Chicken’s Fine Art shoot!

Update:  I won! I won!  Got an email from my friend asking when she’ll be getting her print!!  Ok yeah, all I got is bragging rights – but hey I still won!