Reina's 1st Birthday

I have to admit, my all time favorite way to photograph is to be just thrown up in the mix of life and capturing it as I see it, as it reveals itself to me, as it takes my breath away. But I have this new obsession called Pinterest.com that if I am not careful just might be threatening to take that away from me. Let me explain...

Pinterest.com is a collection virtual pin-boards/inspiration-boards from things you collect on the web. You can create your own and browse and follow those of others. People pin everything from home ideas, to wedding ideas, food, travel, art, it's limitless. What I seem to find myself using Pinterest most for is photographic inspiration (it is also fun to find other folks pining my stuff.) The photography that people find and pin is breathtaking. Just before a photo shoot I go a little crazy with pinning pictures of newborns, or couples, or posing for large wedding parties. Most recently I have found that pinterest certainly gives me inspiration but also gives me a sort of panic. I find myself packing up my things and hoping on photographic band-wagons before I even know where I am going, simply because I am afraid of getting left behind.

All the craze in lifestyle photography right now is props, props, props. Photographers are using furniture and frames and vintage suitcases and giant letters and wooden lips and mustaches on a stick (and I have certainly tried most all of this with pleasing results). And I have to admit there is something delightful about introducing the unexpected into the photographic frame. But as I find myself crammed onto the "wagon" with all of this stuff I begin to wonder where all the real, live people went? I am not saying that props are necessarily bad. More times than not the photographer is simply trying to create the conditions for experience, at least I know that is the case for me. You bring along a vintage scrabble game, because maybe, if the people actually play it you will see them as their real selves. Competitive, coy or goofy. But I have to make sure that the props do not get in the way of authenticity. When a client phones me up about locations and what to wear and what to bring I ask them about locations that are meaningful to them, clothing that they have in their closet and things that they enjoy on a daily basis. Sometimes it takes awhile. We fiddle around with posing and positioning until we end up on a quilt with a pile of books, a mom asking her son where the luna is in "Where the Wild Things Are" as his finger lands on the page. Beautiful. (Look for this in my Ford Family post.)

So, when a client comes to me and says, "I want you to show up at my daughters first birthday party at Highlands Hammock the day before Easter and capture the event, actual life, as it is happening," my heart leaps. No contorting of bodies into unnatural posing positions, no awkward moments as a freshly dressed, pressed and combed family stares in wide-eyed silence at me while I stare off into the nothingness looking for inspiration for their next pose, and not a single prop because, well, life provides it all. (Okay, yes, I may have had my quilt, and some paper lanterns in the trunk of my car but I didn't end up using them.) At Reina's 1st birthday party I followed the kids around as they played ball, swung on the branches of trees, collected Easter eggs and buried their faces in brightly iced cupcakes. I snapped away as the birthday girl dug into her cake and as she giggled with excitement when her daddy tossed her up in the air. This was life and I just happened to be there with my camera. I guess I am a bit of an anthropologist at heart.

So I am not saying I am ready to give up props completely, or Pinterest for that matter. These are two valuable lifestyle photography tools. But I am willing to say that I am throwing the fear of being left behind into the wind and working to push aside the fluff to capture the true authenticity of the individual and of myself as a photographer. I am easing away from those fears and off that bandwagon and watching all that stuff disappear over the horizon, but not without hanging onto my quilt, of course.

Thank you, Reina's friends and family, for inviting me in to your celebration to do what I love best.

Huntley turns 2!

I have decided that I would like to officially start a movement. From now on I think we should start celebrating birthdays in the same way we did as kids. Why is it that as we get older and older the parties get smaller and smaller, with thinner and thinner guests lists if there is even a party at all? Oh yes, I know that occasionally on a milestone birthday we really throw down, but in all the other years we act as if it is just another day passing us by and then it is off into oblivion.

To start things off I would like to take a few brilliant cues from the most recent birthday party I attended. Huntley turned 2 and I was there to celebrate the glorious occasion!

1. Have a theme and plan accordingly. Now Huntley's B-day party theme was based around tractors and included a collection of toy tractors for the kids to play with, tractor crayons to draw on the paper table cloths decorated with scenes tractors may like to frolic within, a tractor banner, a custom designed shirt for the birthday boy donning a replica of the tractor that was on the invite and on the piece of artwork over his bed, goodie bags for the kiddies with plenty of tractor paraphernalia, a John Deer tractor cake, and even a real live full-sized tractor which served as the perfect photo-op spot.

2. Invite a crowd. Now that you have the scene set you have to get some people in the mix. And don't just invite a crowd of friends your own age, but everyone. Your friends, their parents (or their kids), aunts, uncles, grandparents, neighbors, school friends, church friends, gym friends, work friends, grocery store friends, etc. The more the merrier, right? And definitely stand around in a circle with this crowd, hand-in-hand, and bless the b-day boy/girl, those who came to celebrate, and the yumminess you are about to experience.

3. Provide some seasonal, occasion appropriate snacks for noshing. For Huntley's party they hit this right on. There were the makings for smores for snacking then for dinner we had chili and corn bread muffins, hot dogs, chips and TWO options for dessert. There was the happiest little tractor cake I had ever seen and cupcakes. I tried both desserts, of course. And watched as little Edy, after eating her cake, sat just inches away from the cupcakes mesmerized for at least 10 min. before asking me if she could have one. Now I have learned by now that if a kid wants extra sugar after sun down you always ask the parent. "What do you think your mom will say?" I asked her. And she quite confidently told me her mom would most certainly say, "Why, yes!" And she did. :)

4. Invite a photographer, or a friend with a camera and a friendly disposition, to tell the story of the celebration through pictures. This way you can relive the celebration for the next 365 days until it is time to celebrate again.




delish........................ and delish.

and this is Edy, a double dessert eatin' girl after my own heart.

and this is the Birthday Boy. Happy Birthday Huntley!

Ketan Turns One!

Remember that airplane trip to Tampa I wrote about a few posts back? It was for my one and only god son's first b-day and baptism weekend and I thought I would share some pics from the truly adorable and memorable weekend...

The party, which had a sports theme, was a real crowd pleaser! Guests enjoyed everything from concession stand inspired food and candy with unique sporty names, to a giant sports themed bounce house, to a b-day boy sporting a custom made FSU jersey with the No. 1 along with the his name on the back, to a "photo zone" with a life sized vintage baseball card cut out where they could take home their own baseball card sized instant pic of themselves. And as the beautiful Florida day wound down we found ourselves sitting outside watching football in the car port. A truly fun day.

Detail of invite illustrated and designed by... yours truly.















Happy Birthday, Ketan!

CREDITS:
Cupcakes by Cupcakes Royale in Sebring, FL
Cupcake toppers, favor bags, decor, party planning and much more by Radha Bachman (mom)
Invite, banners and food tag illustration and design by Caroline Maxcy Prietz (yours truly)
Vintage baseball card cutout design by Caroline Maxcy Prietz (me, again) and printed at FedEx Office in Tampa, FL
Baseball Card Sized Instant Photos taken with Fujifilm Instax MINI 7s
Non-stop one year old adorableness provided by Ketan Bachman

Field to Fork Fourth

For the past several years of my life I have spent the Fourth of July at the island but this year... well, a lot of things have been different this year. Several of my fellow NC State MGD 2010 graduates have been sticking around Raleigh (which I love). And we are half-way into what I have now deemed "The Summer of Seeing." Which is the opposite of a Summer of Making. The job searching has been a long process for most of us (and for those of us who haven't even started it looks like it is going to be even longer.) But I have finally become okay with that. Instead of cursing each day I am without a job, a plan or a direction, only to look back several months from now and say, "If only, I would have appreciated those days more," I am just going to actually appreciate these days more. Take time to step away, to stand back, and to see, to watch and appreciate the world before diving back in.

So, I have been seeing. Seeing Casablanca for the first time on an ampitheater lawn under the moon. Seeing sunrises over a North Carolina coast. Seeing sunsets over the Gulf. Seeing more pages of more books than I have any other summer of my life, books about thoughts on modernist design, about paths and direction and intention, as well as sagas involving vampires and werewolves (I somewhat embarrassingly admit). I have seen every word of every verse in the entire book of Proverbs. I have seen and experienced the process of hay bailing under the NC summertime sun. I have seen and experience the process of bagel making in a packed friend's kitchen. I have seen dappled sunlight on an Oakwood front porch. I have watched and waved at the backs of friends that on to the next phase of life outside of Raleigh. I have seen anxiety swell up like a tsunami while I tense for impact and I have watch as peace "like a river attendeth my soul."

And, of course, there is more to see (stay posted.) But one thing that I have noticed is that sometimes it takes stepping back to see and appreciate things that have been there all along (really profound, I know.) This summer has allowed me to breath again, away from the stresses of school, and really take stock in today. Almost two years ago I sat in a room, looking around a table at ten other anxious student faces. The director of our graduate program told us to look around the room, "these are the people you are going to be in contact with for the rest of your design careers." I couldn't have ever imagined how familiar those faces would become. And while I have always considered myself curious I have been surprised to find how much wider of a world they have introduce to my oftentimes naive and narrow eyes. Oh no, now my sight is getting blurry behind sentimental tears. So enough of that.

One of my Summer of Seeing projects was the Field to Fork Fourth with some of those very friends. Myself and three of my dear MGD friends, Brooke, Cady and Lauren, headed out early in the afternoon on July 4th to the Raleigh Farmer's Market with recipes in hand and ended the day divvying up the most beautiful leftovers I have ever seen in my life. Somewhere in between there was dicing, slicing, peeling, stirring, whisking, spreading, snacking, chatting, dancing, drinking, laughing, speculating, dreaming, napping (well, Brooke that is), indulging, congratulating, debating, sparkler twirling, firework launching and dance party starting.

I choose my recipes carefully, for the way they would look, for the visual. The fact that they ended up tasting delicious was a bonus. A colorful summertime Gazpacho Salsa, a Rosé Sangria and a decadent Vanilla Bean Ice Cream to accompany Lauren's Peach Cobbler. Brooke made Panini All'Olio (a.k.a...rolls) for Portabello Mushroom Sandwiches with roasted peppers, onions and goat cheese. Cady made a Savory Squash Tart. And Lauren made a Peach Cobbler as well as helped with the Sangria. The results were delicious and absolutely beautiful. But quite honestly the process was the best part. Happy Fourth of July!