once upon a time

Once upon a time, there was a lovely young lady who lived in Montana.

One day, while minding her own business and living the normal life of a high school senior, she got a call on her cell phone.

As luck would have it, it was her fairy-godmother-photographer calling. (Fairy-godphotographer just doesn't sound quite right.)

Fairy-godmother-photographer had just been to an antique show where her buddies, the vintage prom dress fairies, were obviously looking out for her because she scored a gorgeous vintage dress for a gorgeous vintage price.

This fortuitous event set into motion dreams/scenarios/photo shoot visions that the fairy-godmother-photographer could not. get. out. of. her. head.

Something must be done.

Thus, the aforementioned phone call to the aforementioned lovely young lady.

Now, the fairy-godmother-photographer, living in a house full of prince charmings with nary a princess to be found and therefore not much frame of reference for young ladies and dress sizes, nevertheless could not have been more on the money with this one. This girl and this dress were made for each other.

It was a last minute proposition, only one day could work, but girlfriend was game. She actually had some housecleaning to do with her non-evil, non-step mother, but in an act of sheer brilliance, the lovely young lady volunteered her little sister for the job, so all was well. (Except perhaps as far as the little sister was concerned.)

So, off they went.


Now, it just so happens that this particular location is one that FGP (tired of typing out fairy-godmother-photographer) has been dying, and I mean dying, to shoot at. She had even seriously considered ignoring the no-trespassing signs, but so far had been a good girl and was now being rewarded for that good behavior because the non-evil, non-step parents of the lovely young lady just so happened to know who to call to get permission.

Score.


After being drug around this awesome location and leaning against pokey, prickly old barns and walking barefoot in places that were a case of tetanus just waiting to happen, the lovely young lady took a little break in the hopes that Prince Charming would come and rescue her.


Waiting.

Waiting.


PC was a no show, so the lovely young lady had no choice but to go with FGP to location number two.


FGP is torn between loving the contrast of the lovely young lady in the dilapidated setting, and the lovely young lady in this more formal, beautiful setting.


FGP is also extremely impressed at the lovely young lady's willingness to toss leaves in the air repeatedly and even twirl whilst tossing leaves even though FGP and her camera were not able to master the art of capturing twirling girl/falling leaves/blah blah blah.

So sad.

The lovely young lady also repeatedly ran up these stairs until FGP was able to finally capture this shot, quite possibly her favorite of the day.


But alas, all good things must come to an end and the lovely young lady's carriage was turning into a pumpkin right before their eyes, so they had to call it a day. If it was up to FGP, they'd still be out there taking pictures.

She has a little problem with knowing when to quit.

But, the story of the lovely young lady in the vintage prom dress will live happily ever after on the internet for ever and ever.

The End.

back in the saddle

So, when one takes a three and a half week long, totally unintended blog break, does one need to make the first post after returning from said blog break earth shattering, mountain moving and rivetingly interesting?

If the answer to that question is yes, then we are all in big trouble.

The longer I stayed away, the harder it got to jump back in. I started several different posts, one of which was about cantaloupe and another that in a very round about way told you how I used to have a lavender kitchen. Neither seemed publish worthy, so I just continued to give the blogger dashboard the cold shoulder.


I will say the blog break included a road trip, on which I listened to the audio version of The Help. Fabulous book and the CD's give you the added benefit of having three different actresses read the parts and they did an absolutely amazing job.

Good book.


On my blog break I also went to Costco....hungry. Have you every gone to Costco on an empty stomach? Don't do it. It results in buyers remorse over a cart full of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, Costco cinnamon rolls and quite possibly a few other items I'm not willing to share on the internet. I know better, and I'm pretty sure it cost me at least an additional $100.00. At least. I already have issues the second I walk through the Costco door, such as the panicky feeling that if I don't buy the 48 pack of cream of mushroom soup and the jumbo 487,000 square foot box of plastic wrap, the world as we know it may very well come to an end.

Is it just me, or does everybody get Costco Fever? I have a suspicion I'm not alone.

(And here I was thinking this post was going to lean toward the boring side....who could be bored reading about my trip to Costco? This post is already screaming Pulitzer and I'm not even done yet.)


My blog break included lots and lots and lots of pictures. Brand new Baby Harlee paid me a visit....


She's about as precious as it gets.


I also had a date with this handsome fella.....


....and a batch of puppies. What a great combination! These were the final four of a litter of ten. Cutest things ever.


Do you think he'll be this happy to rake leaves when he's sixteen and it's one of his chores?


Fall is still doing its glorious thing around here. Crisp mornings, beautifully sunny days and shiny liquid gold leaves everywhere you look.


I just need to take the time to stop and smell the roses while I still can.

good news/bad news

The good news....my favorite model came over to my house last week for some practice shots. It was a beautiful evening, the light was gorgeous and I couldn't be happier with how the pictures turned out. I had spray painted a cruddy old bike earlier this summer and finally found the perfect opportunity to sneak it into a photo shoot.

The bad news....Kayla and I aren't the only ones who have been enjoying this pretty spot lately.

It would seem we have a bear on the farm. I won't go into details, but I found the evidence, and The Farmer in all his outdoorsy wisdom confirmed, that a bear is indeed hanging out under the apple tree in the background of these pictures.

Now yes, we do live in the country, but not that far out in the country. It's not like we back up to a national wilderness or Jellystone Park. We have deer by the bushel, coyotes, foxes, and on one occasion, a moose. But never a bear....that I know of anyway.

Normally, my gut reaction to this type of situation would involve villagers, torches and pitchforks, but I'm trying not to over react. My hubby claims Yogi will run away if he hears me coming.

Um, hello? Meadowbrook Farmer? Have we met? That's not going to be good enough to get me out in the woods again.

Actually, there's a small, very small, part of me that wouldn't mind a glimpse of him...from a distance of course.

But for now, I'll just hope my hubby is available to chaperone any future photo shoots, and I'll also be keeping my doors locked.

Because everyone knows...bears can open doors.


And Kayla? I don't know about you, but I think these pictures were worth the risk.

You're gorgeous, girl!

i am have an island

Have I ever told you we have an island?

Well, we have an island.

Not a private Caribbean island like Johnny Depp, but an island is an island, right?

I'll let you decide that for yourself in just a minute.

But first, when I posted this photo....


I got some questions on how I captured the shot, so I thought I'd give you a few more details.

The bright blue sky combined with floaty areas of fog got me outside early that morning. It was really pretty, but I could tell the first couple pictures I took just didn't do it justice. If I exposed for the sun rays, the herb garden was very, very dark, and if I exposed for the garden, the sky was no longer pretty at all.


Not very impressive, right?

I turned around to snap the alfalfa field....again, much prettier in real life, but it didn't really make for a spectacular photo either.


When I turned back around, it was as though the heavens had opened up and amazingly enough, I was able to capture it fairly well.


Having the sun behind the tree helped me expose better for the whole scene than in the first picture above where the sun was straight ahead, and the sun was now starting to hit the flowers in the foreground which also evened out the lighting situation a bit.

It was purely a case of right place, right time.

I wandered around and snapped a few more, but nothing compared to that one shot.



I also wandered over to our island.

We usually refer to it as Eyesore Island - here it is last spring.


Lovely, yes?

In the past, I have tried in vain to turn it into something a little more easy on the eyes. Like the year I painstakingly sprayed all the weeds, watered and sprayed again and again, and then planted thousands and thousands of poppy seeds I had collected. It was going to be a pink and red and white oasis in the middle of the pond.

Poppy Island....a place where magic happens.

Well, the only magic that happened was the lightning speed at which the weeds took over once again. It was a complete failure and the poor flowers never had a chance.

This year, The Meadowbrook Farmer had the brilliant idea to cover it with landscape fabric to keep the weeds down, and plant the whole thing with pumpkins and gourds.


Voila - Pumpkin Island was born.

We are really happy with how the plants are doing.

So are the muskrats, or raccoons, or skunks or whatever nocturnal animal is eating all the pumpkins and gourds that are growing on the island.

Dear Eyesore/Poppy-not!/Pumpkin Island,

You are annoying.

Sincerely,

Teresa

the post that wasn't

When I flew to Indiana last week, I spent quite a bit of time in airports. Knowing I would have lots of time to kill, I had great plans to do a blog post while I waited.

I was going to show some photos I'd taken in the past month....


I was going to tell you how I brought an extra pair of socks so I could throw away the ones I wore through security. I hate walking sock-footed through security and then having to put my shoes back on.

And then I was going to tell you I was not as grossed out by my small town airport's flooring condition as I thought I would be, and I was brave and kept my socks.

However, as a follow up, I should probably tell you that I came home and washed my shoes, because they did have a little bit of airport security scunge in them.

I could feel it.


I was going to tell you that my goal in life is to avoid ever having to use an airplane restroom.

With three fairly short flights each way, I'm happy to say I achieved that goal.


I was going to tell you that the revolving seat covers in the restrooms in the Chicago airport are highly suspicious.

In case you've never been, the seats have a plastic wrap that revolves when you wave your hand over a sensor. I would imagine it's a great idea, but I (and I'm sure everyone else who has ever used one) really wondered if it just keeps recycling the same old plastic.

Maybe next time I pass through the Windy City, I'll take a sharpie, write my name on the plastic seat cover, and then see how many sensor hand waves it takes for it to come back around.

I'm going to sincerely hope it never comes back around.

So, between the seat cover obsession and the sock story, are you seeing a pattern here?


I was going to tell you that they don't even serve pretzels or peanuts on the airplane anymore. But they do let you buy overpriced snackboxes.

Awesome.


But.....after I'd spent my first two flights putting together the photos for the post, the Chicago airport internet let me down.

It kept telling me it would be back in a second, but it lied.

It's hard to upload photos and draft a post with no internet.


So here we are, almost two weeks later.


Not that it matters, because these faces were worth the wait, don't ya think?

so long summer

Wow. September first - you snuck up on me!

While Fall lovers are rejoicing, Summer lovers, (yours truly), are in a bit of a panic. I know according to the calendar we have several weeks left, but in my book, summer starts June 1st and ends the last day of August.

What better way to say a fond farewell to my favorite season than with ice cream cones and a couple very cute little girls.


Now of course I'm hoping my old friend Indian Summer schedules an extended visit to my neighborhood, but for today, I will say a reluctant goodbye to the long, lazy days that make my heart sing.


p.s. Little fingers adorned with chippy blue polish also make my heart sing.

the homefront

When I moved to Montana ten years ago, it took me a while to get up the gumption to make new friends. I'd left some amazing girls behind when we moved, and I must admit to having a bit of an extended pity party over the five hundred mile distance that now separated us.

As is always the case, the pity party bloom eventually came off the pity party rose, and when I finally gave myself a much needed kick in the pity party pants, Tamsen was one of the very first friends I made. She was funny and fun and had an extremely cool name, and even though she was the busiest mom I had ever met, we still found time to form a friendship. Eventually, her oldest and my youngest became buddies as well and along the way, her whole family has become very special to me.

On Friday, Tamsen's family will start a new chapter in their life. A chapter thousands of other American families are writing right along with them, but a challenging new chapter all the same.

Tomorrow, Tamsen's husband Chris leaves for a year long deployment to Afghanistan.


Chris, the soldier, is excited to go. Excited to do the valuable job he's been trained to do. Excited to serve his country.

Chris, the husband and father, will miss his family more and more as each day goes by. Tamsen has awesome family and friends behind her and will do a fine job holding down the homefront while Chris is gone, but there will certainly be difficult days along the way.


We thought it would be fun to do family pictures before Chris leaves. Just a little something for all of them to hold onto during the next year.

By the way, it was hilarious to watch both the building and the tearing down process of the family pyramid. Very entertaining, but quite painful for the participants - don't let their smiles fool you!


Dear Chris, Tamsen, Kayla, Emily, Zachary and Gracie,
You are a snapshot of all the wonderful families that have willingly offered their service to our country. I don't take lightly the sacrifices your family will make over this next year and I want you to know I appreciate it. I know you...you are my friends, but I extend that thanks to all the American families I don't know that are walking in your same shoes. Families like yours are a huge part of what I love about my country.
And Chris, I want you to know I will be doing my part by keeping Tamsen company as she indulges in shopping and girls lunch out therapy to get her through this challenging time. That's just the kind of friend I am.

little boy blue

Meet Baby Greyson.

Meet Baby Greyson's gorgeous blue eyes.


This handsome little fella is the first workshop model to come back and have a playdate with me.

At eight months old, he is at one of my very favorite baby stages..... so fun to play with, but not yet crawling a hundred miles an hour.

Come to think of it, pretty much every baby stage is my favorite baby stage!

Greyson's mama let me know that he enjoys bath time, so we got out my latest antiquing find, a double galvanized (leaky) wash tub.


What a cutie!

Thanks for coming over for a visit, Greyson. I had so much fun taking your picture!

workshop two

Workshop two is over and workshop three starts tonight and before I know it - poof - it will all be over.

What will I do with myself then?


I broke out my camera for this one and got a few shots I really like. I'm playing around a bit with my processing and I'm really curious what style I'll eventually end up making my own.

I like too much. There are just so many fun, different ways to go....vintage, color pop, soft and dreamy, clear and crisp and on and on. So, for now it's a little of this and a little of that and we'll just have to see where I end up.


Once again the workshop was fabulous. It's been great meeting new friends from all around the country and getting to see so many amazing photographers at work.

My little niece, who is modeling for all three workshops, is getting a bit of a paparazzi complex. I'm not sure what she'll do when she no longer has the click of fifteen cameras chasing her two year old little self around on a regular basis. It's going to be a let down for all of us when this is over!

Okay....I'll be back soon with more pictures.

Have a happy Monday!

g'day mates!

The first workshop is over, and it was truly wonderful. Barb is an absolutely amazing teacher, and I've already learned so much my head is about to explode. I can't wait to get out and put it all into practice. If you're a photographer and ever get a chance to go to a JinkyArt workshop.....GO! You'll be so glad you did.

My camera stayed in its bag for most of the time on this first go round, but it will definitely be making an appearance for the next one. The workshop participants were all so very talented and nice, the weather cooperated (my biggest worry), and the models were absolutely adorable and very photogenic. I don't think it could have gone better.

One down, two to go.


I have had so much fun getting to know my new friends from Down Under. Barb is traveling with her lovely family and two friends/Girl Fridays extraordinaire. They are good people - lots and lots of fun and so very, very nice. (So fun and so nice I had to double the adverbs, or modifiers or whatever "lots" and "very" are, in order to do them justice.)


As you can see by my post title, I'm trying desperately to get my Aussie on, but I think I've got a bit to go. My favorite new vocabulary word is grotty, which perfectly describes the bag of garbage I went through today (from last Friday), (that's four day old garbage in case you're keeping track), (and it's been in the 90's), (yum), in order to try and find the fork (borrowed from my mother-in-law) that went missing after our first dinner. Fortunately, the wayward utensil was toward the top.

The next workshop starts Wednesday, so I should be back soon with some fun photos to share.

See you soon!

Update! Barb has just posted insanely gorgeous workshop photos on her blog. You must check them out!

baby tyler

This darling baby boy came to my house last week. At exactly one week old, (one week!! A brand new little person - always blows my mind), this little fella was so easy and fun to play with.


Tyler was so very, very sweet, totally laid back and mellow.

Mell-o.

The only rise we got out of him was during the much despised diaper change, but as soon as that nonsense was over, he quickly returned to his happy place.

Side note: Spent eons, seriously...days almost, trying to arrange the laundry basket to look casual and finally resorted to just tossing the blankets in willy nilly, which gave me the best result. I think I need a stylist. And maybe a therapist. And okay, maybe I didn't spend eons or almost days arranging the basket, but it seemed like it.

Side note #2: A baby in a plain white onesie...be still my heart.


Tyler's grandma and I have been friends for a while now, and when I heard she had a grandbaby on the way, I was quick to reserve a date with the little guy as soon as he arrived.


What a sweetie, totally sacked out.


Once again, I learned a lot from this little session. Things I'll do differently next time, and things that worked well. Thank you so much to mom and grandma for letting me experiment and for being such good sports with all my crazy prop ideas. (We had more, just didn't get to them!)

We had so much fun. I could do this all day long. Every day.


Dear Baby Tyler,
Welcome to the world, little fella!
You were the ultimate good sport - don't forget to take me up on my ice cream offer when you're ready for dairy products.
I miss you already little buddy.....come back and visit anytime!
Your friend,
Teresa