I've had lots of requests for mini sessions now that flowers and springtime are here - sooo... I'm very excited to let you know that I'm now offering Mayflower Mini Sessions*!
Send me a message through the contact form on this website, or an email at hola[at]emmylouvirginia.com if you're interested :) Can't wait to hear from you!
*Valid for children & family sessions, from now through the end of May; only at locations within Vancouver; 5 people maximum per session.
This is the story of how ze internets make crazy things happen. (You have to say it like that. 'Ze Internets.' Using a heavy, unidentifiable foreign accent is a bonus.)
One early spring day, I took a photo of two friends who were crazy in love, as she jumped into his arms on the cobbled streets of Gastown. I sent it to them and I put it on my blog. And that, I thought, was that.
Suddenly, it exploded and was reblogged thousands and thousands of times. It was a little exciting, but mostly just an amusing social experiment, and occasionally I would do a reverse image search to see where the photo had ended up. (A few examples: a dating website and a Huffington Post article about the power of hugging. Not to mention numerous tumblr blogs devoted to teenage love, longing and despair, in equal quantities.)
A year ago, I was asked to use it for the cover of a self-published e-book. Then, a few months ago, another author emailed me asking if he could put my photo on his book cover. Since I am clearly not up-to-date on French novelists, I googled his name. Turns out Marc Levy is the most-read French author in the world. GULP. And Steven Spielberg made a movie of one of his books. GULLLLP. So I said yes.
This week, I received copies of the book and saw the cover in real life! I can hold it in my hands. My name is there in tiny print and everything. And if you search under the #marclevy hashtag on instagram, you will see numerous photos of the book lying next to cups of coffee or delicate china plates holding muffins lightly spread with butter. (You know how it is. On instagram, you can't simply post a photo of the book you're reading. There must be food involved. And latte art, if at all possible. These are the rules.)
So that was it. The crazy story of ze internets. And here is the photo, and here is the book cover.
I can't quite help it, the euphoria that springtime brings. It sprinkles my street with magnolia petals, stacks my bookshelf with poetry, and fills the vases up with flowers, until there are no vases left and instead I use leftover baby food jars.
And here is one of my favourite poems, and here are some pretty pictures that I took this morning. (Don't worry, darling - I didn't leave the flowers perched precariously on top of your guitar.)
"It is not the tilted buildings or the blind alleys
that I mind,
nor the winding staircases leading nowhere
or the ones that are simply missing.
Nor is walking through a foreign city
with a ring of a thousand keys
looking for the one door the worst of it,
nor the blank maps I am offered by strangers.
I can even tolerate your constant running
away from me, slipping around corners,
rising in the cage of an elevator,
squinting out the rear window of a taxi,
and always on the arm of a tall man
in a beautiful suit
and a perfectly furled hat
whom I know is carrying a gun.
What kills me is the way you lie there
in the morning, eyes closed,
curled into a sweet ball of sleep
and that innocent look on your face
when you tell me over coffee and oranges
that really you were right there all night
next to me in bed
and then expect me to believe you
were lost in your own dreamworld,
some ridiculous alibi
involving swimming through clouds
to the pealing of bells,
a transparent white lie about leaping
from a high window ledge
then burying your face
in the plumage of an angel."
-Billy Collins, "Jealousy" (Sailing Alone Around the Room)
I loved photographing these two. Henrique is my husband Jorge's coworker at Giant Ant, where they create really cool moving things on screens. (That's the simple definition, where I describe what they do and forget to describe almost everything that they actually do. Ask Jorge if you want to get more technical.) Fernanda also works in animation (talk about a creative couple!) and paints adorable illustrations as well. For Fernanda's birthday, Henrique asked me to photograph a morning in their lives - and we happened to choose a sunny Saturday!
Henrique & Fernanda are Brazilian, and Brazilians have invented the most delicious food: Pão de Queijo. That means cheese bread, but the name is such an understatement. It's delicious and chewy and very very cheesy and I find myself craving it at the most inconvenient times. (It's also gluten free - using tapioca flour - which is cool.) So when I was in Brazil recently, I bought some tapioca flour and managed to get it home without any customs officials getting suspicious (it looked like white powder in an unlabelled plastic bag, so that was a relief) and made pão de queijo myself. AMAZING.
Anyways, that was just to let you know the identity of those little round biscuits they are eating in many of the photos, and partly just because I wanted to talk about cheesy bread because I'm craving it yet again. Also, Henrique & Fernanda's apartment is so awesome and unique and so very "them" - filled with art and light and delicious food and quirkyness. I had so much fun this day - thank you again, Henrique and Fernanda, for letting me document a tiny moment of your lives :)
I just returned last night from Brazil, where I photographed my dear brother's wedding. I'm so thankful God brought together Ger & Amanda, and their wedding was so beautiful. Here's a tiny little sneak peek that I put together as I quickly went through the photos :)
P.S. You can see their engagement photos here.
