2008 Annual Photo Show

The New Canaan Society for the Arts has a photography exhibit each year. It is a juried exhibition, and has become a large, well respected venue. Last year two thirds of the entrants were turned away, and I saw some really inspiring artwork that did not make the cut. This will be my third year entering this show. The first year that I participated, Harvey Stein was the juror. He has a long list of credentials and is widely collected and published. Much to my thrill, I won first prize in the professional color photography category that year. Today was drop off day for artwork and we have to wait until Friday before we know if we made the cut. Anticipation is high and frankly out of the two pieces that I submitted, I'd be thrilled just to get one in.

Here are the pieces that I chose.

"Casey's Hairdo"

"The Wedding Night"

And one that I decided not to submit.

I guess the outcome will come soon enough, I'll keep you posted.

Catherine & Anthony Engagement

Catherine and Anthony are native to South Africa. Catherine has been living here in the states for the past two years, being Au Pair extrordinare to my sister and her two little girls. We've spent many family vacations together and she is at every holiday gathering. In short, she feels like a permanent fixture around here but she is returning to South Africa at the end of next week.

Her boyfriend came to visit the states over Christmas, and did he have a surprise for Catherine! An engagement ring! They are over the top excited to be starting a new journey in life together. I have to selfishly admit that we will miss Catherine terribly. She has become a trusted friend, Mommy mentor (she doesn't even have kids yet) and regular hang for me because we always get the kids together. Luckily we all feel as great about Anthony as her biological parents do. He actually asked for their blessing before coming.

So, we had to do their engagement shoot ASAP! It was a chilly day and these guys were willing to hang out and just shoot like crazy. Anthony knows a thing or two about photography and Catherine has a future in Art Direction (or anything else she fancies for that matter). They were a blast to work with and it was a nice way to get to know Anthony and to spend what little time we have left together before Catherine departs.

They have not set the date for their wedding yet, but a trip to South Africa in the future is not out of the question. I was born with the travel bug.

I'm sending blessings and all my love to both these guys. I know that they will be very happy together. I'm just not looking forward to the final goodbye, I'm not great with that, but how lucky am I to have met new friends from the other side of the world that sincerely touched my life.

Here are a few images from our day!

My New Web Page is Close to Going Live

I have been working my butt off, editing images, and working on the design of my new web site. I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and hoping to go live with it by next week sometime. I'm soooo excited. One of my dilemma's is the music. I really want it to feel like the imagery, but my musical taste varies from "The Sex Pistols" all the way to Frank Sinatra and every genre imbetween. If you have any good ideas or opinions about music on flash sites, I'd love for you to leave me a comment.

Here's a teaser screen capture.


We are also beyond past due for a blogger face lift. I have a friend who will hopefully be able to assist me with it since I'm no pro in dealing with HTML code.

Once the site is live, I will be posting some cool new services that I offer and perhaps be having some contest fun with prizes to be announced. Stay tuned.

Our New Year is off with a wild side

It feels too late to say "Happy New Year", and my New Year has started off as a wild one, literally. Our new cat recently discovered a flying squirrel in the house and had a skirmish with it. Being the animal lover that I am, I separated the two somehow, calmed my hysterical son and got him to bed assuring him that the squirrel was gone. Ha! I checked behind the washer where I had last seen this critter run to, and he was in fact gone. So I decided to watch the cat knowing his radar would be on the animals whereabouts. Sure enough these two bulgy little eyes were peering at me from atop my kitchen drapes. Of course this happened on a night when my husband was out of town, typical, but I figured that I could probably handle it better anyway. I was able to scoop this little creature into a mason jar on the first attempt (because he was behind drapes). I covered the jar with a box top and released the squirrel in my woods. He didn't appear to be hurt, and I felt relieved to have him out of my house. I later felt a sense of doom realizing that maybe I should not have let him go. We've had two incidents with rabid animals in the area in just two years. Those are the ones that we know about. Long story short, because my cat is indoors only and still just a kitten, he had not been vaccinated against the rabies virus. Rabies is highly transmittable through saliva and my cat had this guy in his mouth and played with him a bit as cats will do. After making phone calls to Pediatricians, our family doctor and finally the animal control center, I was told to vaccinate my cat IMMEDIATELY, and, to keep him in quarantine for at least a month. The scary part is that no one could tell me straight up that we were safe from having contracted the virus. My son even got scratched by our cat a day after the incident. So here we are on round two of rabies shots today with 3 more sessions to go. They are nothing like they used to be. The anticipatory anxiety and having to put my son through this was the worst of it all. Just a blink in life time to insure our safety. To add insult to injury, if you have one flying squirrel in your house, you've got the whole family too. We located a nesting spot for them on a top shelf in a built in closet. We are sealing up holes (a total joke in a 1897 house) and trying to find where they are coming in from. Next step is placing baited have a heart traps, and relocating them ten miles away. That's right, the little guy I rescued is probably back in my closet, munching on my cashmere sweaters and defecating at the same time. Yuck!!! Not to mention that they love to chew and can cause an electrical fire. I am over it already. I know some people actually have these as pets. I think I prefer to stick with a good mouser of a house cat. All I can say is that after doing some reading up on the fatal disease called rabies, and seeing some all to graphic images on the internet, that I'm going to cover my ass and get those suckers back in the wild where they belong ASAP!


Would you want this nocturnal guy stalking you in your own home?