. . . that’s right . . . THIS baby is already here!  I didn’t even get a chance to blog their maternity session and he decided to make an early appearance!  Glad we scheduled when we did!  This Mom & Dad (no longer M & D to-be) have done a beautiful job renovating their home in Baltimore, so we tried to incorporate a little “city” as well as some of the unique features of their home, in their images.  I can’t wait to meet the new addition, and I know they are also eagerly waiting having him home!

I’m not sure if she’s smiling in this shot because of the baby, or because SHE created that beautiful work of art behind her!  There was NO way I was leaving without incorporating that into the gallery, but let me tell you, what it took to make this happen was NOT easy :-O

hc | maryland photographer 

. . . like this every night! Pleeeeease! I feel like I have been so lucky with the weather lately (she says as she watches the weather report for this crummy weekend-to-be); evenings have been so mild, with the most beautiful glowy, dreamy light. Combine the bronze light of a setting sun, with a beautiful family on the beach, and the results are spectacular. I had a great time with these kiddos! And for my clients who are always asking “but what do we wear?”….I think this Mom hit a home run!

do I hear the theme song from High School Musical in the background?

hc | maryland photographer

. . . the timing of my Wednesday evening date with my husband couldn’t have been better, to coincide with my 80’s flashbacks from last weekend’s reunion. Months ago my brother-in-law (thanks Kunka) got us tickets to see…are you ready…Cheap Trick, Heart, and Journey. Can you say “rock concert?” Make that, “incredibly loud rock concert,” to be accurate. It was great. Now, if you didn’t learn to type in high school on an ACTUAL typewriter, you never had a cassette player in your car, and you don’t know what a slam book is, then stop reading, because you’re probably too young for this to be of interest, but, if you coveted your acid washed jeans and had bangs that were a “work of art” (thank you Brittany), then read on

We were REALLY late (beltway traffic=nightmare) so sadly we missed Cheap Trick, but did catch the middle of Heart. Those Wilson sisters STILL know how to Rock & Roll! My gosh, their voices are incredible. But the headliner of course were the fellas from San Francisco and they were fantastic. When we first got our tickets, we heard that there was a new lead singer (gasp, for real? is that possible? do we still want to go?) BUT, the music started and a young energizer bunny from the Philippines jumped off of an amp, opened his mouth, and Steve Perry’s voice came crying out! John and I seriously looked at each other in disbelief because it sounded just. like. him. If you don’t know the story…he was apparently discovered on U-TUBE by Neil Schon…livin’ the dream to say the least.

Anyway, they opened with Only the Young…(remember from Vision Quest?) and it was great…followed by some favorites and then of course they sneak in some songs from their new album. They were perfectly fine songs but BRING ON THE SONGS WE KNOW…that’s why we’re here! Always the case isn’t it? So, I’ll stop talking now. Here is a pic of my girlfriends from last Saturday…I am still lamenting not posting ALL of their prom pictures (because you know I have them) but as I am short on time and they have professional lives, I decided against it. hee hee. I’m sure E doesn’t want to be jetting from convention to convention this week and being asked how she and her boyfriend/prom date ended up with the same hairdo.

Enjoy the tunes…and as always, I dare you not to sing along, and in this case play air drums, or air guitar. Lord knows Audra is…right girls?

. . . I bet these two share lots of secrets…it was easy to see that they have a lot of fun together! It’s hard to believe, but it’s back to school and I was lucky to spend a morning with this sweet family just before the big day. I hope they enjoyed our time together as much as I did. Fortunately, we started early before it got hot, but a hard workout of running and playing, ultimately meant Dad lost the lunch he packed for work, to a hungry little sister! I’m nearly finished with their gallery and can’t wait for them to see their final images!

hc | annapolis photographer

. . . this session was a lot of fun because while I don’t shoot many large groups, this one brought a few generations together!  We ended up getting great shots of the wee ones with grandma & grandpa, the entire family together, and then some really wonderful shots of the middle generations with their kids.  All in all, a great evening on the beach with some fun images to show for it!  Do these girls have beautiful blue eyes or what? (They get them from their MOM!)

hc | maryland photographer 

. . . a couple of photos from a recent session at the beach. You’d probably quickly identify which beach, if these shots were a little wider, because the Wednesday night race series was just wrapping up in the background. We planned this family’s session to coincide with that, and many of their images have the colorful boats behind them! My goodness if only I could have beautiful light like this every day for portrait sessions! I’m always blessed with beautiful families, but light like this really makes me swoon!

More to come from some of the other members of the family!

So glad I caught this lovely Mom walking along the beach…I’m not even sure she knew I took this…

hc | maryland photographer

. . . what Manolo’s are to Carrie Bradshaw, this car is to me. Well, not exactly this car -I would really prefer a 2-seater convertible, but one has to be “practical,” right? So, keeping with that thought, this one is much more a Mom car, than the 2 seater. What, you say? Not practical? Ok, practical schmactal…can’t we just for a second forget about the crunched cheerios on the floor, the missed “hand-off” of partially empty (or partially full, depending on your perspective) juice box in the attempt to make it from the back seat to front seat (because my girl does not like to hold it when she’s “all done”), and the white dog hair that sprinkles off of my Jack Russell when he’s along for the ride? Can’t we just NOT think about those things for a minute, and instead be enveloped by the softest leather you’ve ever felt, run our hands across the baseball stitching and crank up the Bose surround system to something other than the Wiggles? I neeeeeed 290+ horsepower to get the grocery store after all, sometimes merging can be tough!

So, the bottom line, just let a girl dream. And for the rest of you dreamers…heaven has arrived in Annapolis….

You can read all about it in this morning’s Capital 

And thanks for those who played along with my little guessing game - some of the responses were quite funny You can see here that the horizontal lines were in fact, a part of the Porsche Logo.

ok, so maybe 405+ horsepower is a bit more than I need…

Scott, Frank and the rest of the staff…I had a great time working with you and will see you again soon!

hc | annapolis photographer

any thoughts?

hc | maryland photographer

. . . (insert sarcasm)…no really, I’m having a great time.

So it’s clear that there were moments early on where might not have been going in the direction that we had hoped, but that QUICKLY changed when we found green grass and the opportunity to run, and we turned things around in a hurry.  I must add that while I don’t subscribe to bribery, I think we all know how to make kids of ANY age (little and big) pretty happy on a VERY hot day!

hc | annapolis photographer

. . . since I roamed the halls of high school, hair in a ponytail (A LOT of hair, I might add), wearing a lacrosse kilt with boxers underneath, anchoring Mrs. Boothby’s cookie defense. My gosh we were cool, weren’t we? This weekend I am going to see (hopefully) lots of my SRS classmates as we get together to celebrate (I think?) the 20 years that have passed since our graduation. I SO badly wanted to include lots of pictures from way back when, but I am swamped and just HAVE to get my work done. You people want to see pictures of YOUR kids, not me in my parachute pants or outback red henley sweaters.

BUT, that being said, I have just one to post (of me, sweet Mrs. Brown and a girl who is still one of my best buds today and will get some good “after” shots this weekend and skip the “before’s” all together. And, because it’s Friday (and I’ve missed a couple of weeks) some 80’s tunes to make your work day wiz by