portraits
Claire & Mirek were so sweet. Holding hands and smiling secret smiles at each other, with a glow that turned on like a light switch whenever they were together; it was so much fun to photograph their love!
We ventured to the farthest part of Spanish Banks, past all the August crowds, and there they ran through tall grasses, danced, and lit a candle by the water when the sun went down. They were beautiful.
Allison had a vision for her portrait session; it involved many wonderful outfit changes & lots of boho-style props! (Feathers!) So much fun :)
Rachel has modeled for me on many occasions in the past. Most of the time, she had very few good things to say about her appearance in my photos. So you will understand that when I tell you that this time - THIS time - she had no complaints, I felt, in some small way, that I had arrived.
I spent an afternoon tearing out pages of an old Narnia book (I had two copies - don't worry) and folding them into paper airplanes. (I did have to google "how to make paper airplanes", I will admit. And yes, the fact that I couldn't remember how to do this made me feel a little old.) I then attached red yarn directly in the center of each plane and we set out to the forest, where we tied them onto trees.
I wanted to create a make-believe world where travel simply involved will-power; where merely wishing you were in Paris could take you to Paris; and where paper airplanes could actually fly.
These are paper airplane dreams.
Sneek peak from my shoot with Rachel yesterday! We made paper airplanes. It was cool.
Spring reminds me of clean laundry, breakfast, citrus fruits & flowers. (In no particular order.) These are all very clean, good-smelling, necessary, and beautiful things, just as Spring is clean and good-smelling and necessary and, of course, beautiful.
And Ellie reminds me of Spring! She is such a sweet girl & she put up well with my crazyness. I'm not entirely sure what her initial impression was of me, but considering that the first thing we did after meeting was to drag pieces of furniture and bags full of props into the middle of the forest, she can't have considered me especially sane.
Add to that the fact that I had brought along a ziploc bag with pre-sliced lemons, a car full of magnolia blossoms, a pair of mismatched socks to hang on a clothesline, and had numerous flower petals in my hair with a manic expression on my face (I call it "inspiration"), and you will have the complete picture.
Ellie was very sweet about all this, however. She watched me run back and forth as I set up my little forest scene, pulling moss from the forest floor to nestle it with flowers, half-finishing every sentence to interrupt it with another, forgetting where I had put everything, and beginning long pauses with the word, "So...." - and she didn't say a word, but began to help.
She even laughed at my jokes & created some pretty awesome ones of her own! (The fake laugh was her particular specialty. You should hear it sometime - it's truly remarkable.)
And so our Springtime session came to be, and so Ellie held lemon slices to her eye, skipped down forest trails, pinned flowers on a clothesline, braided her hair, and navigated the treacherous expanses of the Stanley Park shrubbery. All of this while wearing a dress, ladies and gentlemen.
I present to you: Ellie...
& Spring!
