All Things Baby

I feel like I just gave birth. Not to a child of my own - I had more of a midwife position with this one.

Together with stylist Chris Bryant, I have been working for the past two weeks doggedly to finish A LOT of shots of food for babies through 3 year olds for Becky Cannon's upcoming mega book "grow healthy. grow happy: The Guide to Natural Baby Care".  While composing and shooting the photos, I've learned a lot about the ways you can prepare healthy, appetizing food for babies that doesn't come from a jar, and that tastes good too...almost makes me wish I was going to have a baby to try these dishes out on (but not quite). We were able to set up a make shift studio in Becky's dining room that provided plenty of nice light for most of the shots, trying as always to make the food "real" vs. painting all kinds of icky "enhancers" on it. We shot long and hard days, culminating in the last day's schedule that had six 10-12 month old babies showing up 30 minutes apart for back to back portraits in the summer garden (created in the fall garden on an October day). The crew scattered picked flowers all around and I bet you can't tell it wasn't shot on a summer day.  It's been a while since I've photographed babies so it was fun to use all those tricks I'd accumulated over the years that I used to photograph children a lot. We were amazingly lucky to have such happy little cutie pies show up, so Becky will have a plethora of shots to choose from.

Below is a combination of food shots from the book, setup shots and the baby shots.

Here is our set that we used for most of the food shots - a dining room table propped up on two other tables to get the right height.

Chris making a "bedside table" set in the hallway consisting of sofa pillows stacked on top of my camera bag.

Working For My Neighbor, the Grove Arcade

After many months of running across the street to the Grove Arcade to shoot this or that, and countless edits, I'm happy to report that I've finished (as much as I'm ever finished with these videos) my newest stop motion video featuring the Grove Arcade. The goal was to show that it is a happening place with lots of character (and local characters hanging out there) and diverse stores, wine bars and restaurants - something for everyone. The music is by one of my very favorite bands, local musicians Ol Hoopty with a version of "Step Back Baby", which was a perfect match for the upbeat mood I was after. I hope you enjoy watching this two minute video - please share it with your friends. If it inspires you to get a makeover at Makeup, browse the used books while sipping a latte at the Battery Park Book Exchange, sip wine on tap at Sante, or grab a burger at Burger works, then something is working...

Two are Better Than One

Thursday October 4th is the opening of Chris McMillan's new furnishings store in Biltmore Village - Dwellings Inspired Furnishings. Many of you remember the former Dwellings store in the same area, so you know what a shopping treat Chris provides, but this store takes creative furnishings to a whole new level. Not only do we get to see beautiful furniture imported from other parts of the world, we get to see the work of other artists as well that Chris invited to share his space. My friend and long time artist/collaborator, Billy Sproul, asked if I would like to help him cover the walls of his 1000 square foot "Slab Fab Studio" space with art work that we could work on together - my photos, his frames, collaborative aesthetic.

It was interesting to go through years of never printed images with "What would work with Billy's wacky sensibilities?" in my mind. I wanted to show images totally different from the Asheville colorful images I've become known for, and these definitely fit that description. Here are samples - I hope you will get to Dwellings to take a look not only at our work, but because you'll find all kinds of things for that wish list, I'm sure.