kid fashion – melbourne

i started shooting a campaign today that will take me with work right up until i get on the plane to head to the states in june. it is exciting to think that the next big thing for me is the long awaited trip “home” and that it is pretty much right around the corner. i am happy to have work to keep me busy or i swear that my suitcases would be packed and waiting by the front door already.

we had a lot of fun at my home studio this morning…i love being able to get back into working with all kinds of lights. there is a wonderful quality to window/natural light, but i always say i am an available light photographer…i use whatever light is available to me. today it was flash.

i have had a lot of interest from people who want to learn how to make flash look like window light and how to work with strobes…maybe i will put together a one day little workshop when i am back in australia.

here is just a few from today…the rest will just have to wait for the release later in the year.

tiny is a little prick

pardon my language, but he really is.

all of a sudden, all over our neighborhood, tiny has tagged his stupid name. i mean, it really is a horrible tag.

back home we had tags with some oomph to them. VDIMX3 for one, were frequent decorators of our garage door. ok, so that does not really sound bad, but after the police told me what the letters stood for i knew they meant business. i could bet on that. but tiny? tiny has nothing. i mean, he even uses a purpley-blue spray paint.

wait, maybe tiny is a girl.

girl or boy, tiny is getting on my nerves. everywhere i walked with the twins today, tiny was there like a little bored and over privileged teenage pebble in my shoe. we moved to get away from the graffiti covered playground. at least i understood it in los angeles. gang culture is some serious and scary stuff. i am going to take a wild bet that if tiny lives in the neighborhood, tiny can’t even begin to imagine the issues that those los angeles taggers were dealing with. let alone share any.*

so these kids keep smashing the bus shelter. and you know what, today i looked and guess who had their name all over it…

so this is my open letter to tiny

(she he must have had a ladder for that one)

cut it out

*i know that it does not matter what kind of neighborhood one lives in, crap happens everywhere, but really, tiny is not a member of the Play Boy Gangster Crips who were also fond of our garage door in los angeles.

a little bit of magic

i got a sewing machine for mother’s day
i threaded it this morning for the very first time
an hour later i am half way to clover’s first tutu dress
no pattern
just an idea, an old t-shirt, some left over curtains from our california house and remnant tulle from gemma’s craft bin…*

now it is a skirt and top and hopefully will become a dress for our trip to california. just need to figure out how to measure the little model… magic.

*you can’t really see the stitching so you will have to take my word for it that it is nice and straight and the layers are all sewn together (except for one side of the tulle as i may throw in some fabric flower petals first.

melbourne kid fashion sale

who does not love a bargain…especially a cute and stylish bargain????

some brands that i have been shooting (images coming soon!) and i can tell you…it is all great stuff! if you are in melbourne, try to swing by and pick up a deal!

i am a “mum” now…

last year she still called me mom and i require it at home, but today, this morning…i was proudly her mum.

stopped in the corner coffee shop on the way to school for my mother’s day spa treatments in gemma’s classroom…

the lights were all out and candles were lit…i was presented my gifts and then i got a back rub and hand massage…heavy on the lotion.

just so special…all of it. i am glad i took my camera, because i don’t have the words to describe the day. i just love my big girl.

and home i went..a mum.

free range chicken

the (no longer) angry chicken gets a new nickname.

update in may

it has been a great week, kieran got his top 2 front teeth, clover has decided that sleeping is the best thing ever and gemma, proud of her new spelling skills, stops to read every sign on our walks. there are swimming lessons for gemma now. we are preparing for our winter/summer in the U.S. and i have my iPod touch counting down the days until we leave (there’s an app for that!). i can’t believe i will be packing for a “trip” to the states…it still seems so backwards. it is hard to explain the moments when i have them, but i feel like i am not really living anywhere. just tonight i saw the weather map on the news and did a double take…that is not america on the screen…i live in australia. all of a sudden the familiar felt foreign, like when you say a word and it sounds wrong so you have to say it over and over…all the while still sounding different than it usually does.

things are going well though. i booked a cool commercial gig, had a few shoots and best of all, got myself a photography rep (a little ironic since she is in los angeles, but hey, photography is a worldwide industry.) between all that and the editing that goes with it, i have had no time for posting. juicy details soon though, i promise.

my absence is all good. i swear.

different

blonde, brunette, blue eyes and brown. girl. boy. they are as different as any two siblings could be, but they are growing up together. sharing the same day of birth. apparently that one little fact makes it so that people assume they should be the same person. strangers stop me to compare my babies. telling me what they should be doing and how. what those folks can’t see, don’t see, won’t see… is that they are perfect. perfectly clover and perfectly kieran. they are just as they should be.

yesterday we found out that kieran has an issue with his muscles. it is called hypotonia of infancy and at this point, that is all we know. but it is an answer to the questions i get asked all the time…”is he crawling?” no he is not.
and he can’t right now. and maybe he will never crawl.
“how about standing like clover?” he is not standing yet either, but that will come. it will be a lot later than his sister, but my baby boy is doing things in his own time, just like my baby girl.
the same, but different.
he will catch up and run one day, but for now, he sits and claps and laughs and charms the pants off anyone who meets him.

so for the moment, i only have one baby torturing the cat and scaling the furniture.