dance. dance. dance.

Last weekend I photographed dancers at the Yellow Rose Dance spring performance. I’ve been working every day since then to get them all edited. The day I shot these was a sunny day in Portland (very rare lately), and a small beam of sunlight placed itself onto the seamless creating a fair amount of Photoshop work. And... I did a whole lotta clickin’. Over a thousand images.

Here are a few of my favorites...

easy, delicious blackberry cobbler

On cool, rainy spring days, when the berries appear at the local farmer’s markets, I love to bake pies. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I love to bake pies more than almost anything. Almost anything.

More than that root canal I had last week for instance. The one where I had my mouth open so big and wide for an hour and a half that when it was over I tried to talk and couldn’t. I couldn’t talk because I was not able to bring my top and lower jaws together. My mouth was stuck open! I panicked, but fortunately the dentist did not. He massaged my jaw awhile, which brought tears to my eyes, and then I heard a loud crack and all was right with the world again.

I even like baking pies more than going to my new chiropractor. I’m having neck and shoulder pain from all the computer work I do. That computer work... combined with blogging, facebooking, online shopping... has taken its toll on the connective soft tissues in my neck and shoulders. I’m sure it also contributes to creating soft areas on my body that shouldn’t be soft. I never knew my neck could make such interesting noises. More loud cracking sounds. That was amazing! He also showed me a few exercises to do, and told me that it’s essential to take a short break every 20 minutes. My thought was, “I won’t get anything done.” Actually, a quick 10-15 second walk around my office and a change in position isn’t as hard as it initially sounded.

Which brings me to why I haven’t had a lot of time for pie baking on these cool, rainy spring days. So, when I found this blackberry cobbler recipe on The Pioneer Woman’s site, I whipped it up pronto.



Fresh, local blackberries were $8 for a teeny tiny container at my local grocery store, so I picked up some fresh, local frozen blackberries.



Melted some butter



Poured in some sugar



Found some of this self-rising flour in the back of my cupboard



Whisked together all these ingredients along with some milk. Poured that mixture into this pie dish. Sprinkled more sugar on top. Put it in the oven and waited for an hour.



And it looked like this when it came out. It was soft in the middle and just slightly crunchy on the edges. Perfect! It doesn’t get much easier than that.

While it was still warm, we spooned out generous servings of it and added a scoop of ice-cream on the side.

Yum. Yum.

Thanks Ree!

Quick. Easy. Delicious.


Here’s the official recipe:

The Pioneer Woman’s Blackberry Cobbler #1
(this must mean there’s another blackberry cobbler recipe coming soon?)

Ingredients:
1 stick Butter
1-¼ cup Sugar
1 cup Self-Rising Flour
1 cup Milk
2 cups Blackberries (frozen Or Fresh)

Preparation Instructions:
Melt butter in a microwavable dish. Pour 1 cup of sugar and flour into a mixing bowl, whisking in milk. Mix well. Then, pour in melted butter and whisk it all well together. Butter a baking dish.

Now rinse and pat dry the blackberries. Pour the batter into the buttered baking dish. Sprinkle blackberries over the top of the batter; distributing evenly. Sprinkle ¼ cup sugar over the top.

Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 1 hour, or until golden and bubbly. If you desire, sprinkle an additional teaspoon of sugar over the cobbler 10 minutes before it’s done.

Enjoy!

jumpology

One. Two. Three. JUMP!

Photographing these dance students is a blast! I’ve photographed two of their performances in the past year (with a third one coming up this weekend). I’m also getting requests for other sessions. A father/daughter dance, a golf tournament, high school graduation portraits.

I set up a mini-studio on location and shoot around a thousand images in about three hours.

Coming up with unique poses for several hundred dancers can be quite challenging. I’m all for letting them choose their poses, but I also give lots of direction when those poses aren’t working or I visualize something that will work better.

What does it look like if I asked them to jump? I started to get fresh, interesting shots. The energy suddenly changed around me. Everyone seemed to be having fun. And it showed in their faces. Some incorporated their dance moves with jumping. Others simply jumped.

I thought this approach was so original until I did some online research and was reminded that there is no such thing as an original idea. In my research, I came across this man’s work... Philipe Halsman.. also known as the Father of Jumpology.




This one is from the Father/Daughter dance.













Some kids are natural hams in front of a camera. A few find the whole process somewhat intimidating. All the common inhibitions that come with being in front of a camera quickly melt away when they’re jumping. They focus on the jump and a smile forms across their face, and before you know it, I can’t get them off the background paper.

Try it. You’ll be surprised at how much fun it is.

Hooray for jumpology!

wake me when spring gets here

The older girls have been hanging out in the coop all day. No eggs this week. No eggs last week. The weather is nasty, to say the least. Rain. Hail. Wind. Cold.

Wanna come out today Wynonna?



Maybe... if you give me some cracked corn.



Sweet Nelly hasn’t left this spot for a week.

Feeling a little broody Nelly?



A little cracked corn might cheer me up.

And maybe a bowl of yogurt?

Could you put some currants on that too?

And some lettuce?

Thank you.



Did someone say corn?

You’re too little to know what that is.



These rhodies bloomed before the weather turned crappy. They’re providing a bright spot today.

a wonderful gift

Look what arrived on my front porch today...



This was inside...



I love the simplicity of the background.

I love the intricacies of Wynonna’s feathered pattern...



... and the quick brushstrokes that provide depth.



I love that it was painted in a cozy little house in the French countryside.

It was created by Bruce Anderson, who captured Wynonna perfectly!



Bruce Anderson and his wife, Alisa Rosseter are artists I met blogging. You can read about their adventures here. They did something most of us only dream about. They left already seemingly perfect lives behind in Los Angeles, California, and spent a year living, teaching, bicycling, hiking, eating, drinking wine, having fun, meeting new people, in France. The year went by oh so quickly, as you can imagine, so they’ve managed to find a way to live the dream full-time when they move back to France this winter. They’ll be providing art education to kids and teens who will travel to study with them. You can read about their plans here.

Now I’m trying to figure out how I can pass for a teenage girl.



I like Wynonna so much as an oil painting! She’s beautiful. There’s no poop to clean up. No ornery attitude to contend with. She can’t run away when I approach her. She can’t boss her coop mates around. She can’t plop herself in the middle of my potted flowers. She can’t trample through or eat my newly planted vegetable garden. No food or water needed. She’s perfect!

garden solutions

Look at that gorgeous basil! It smells amazing too. More about that later.

We’ve been racking our brains to come up with a good solution for keeping the chickens out of our raised beds since last year. That’s when we covered them with netting that got caught in the lawn mower and tangled into a frustrating mess every time I uncovered the beds to maintain the contents or harvest the fruits (or veggies) of our labor.

Our chickens love doing this in the raised beds on warm spring days...



Which is all good and fine as long as there isn’t anything planted in their midst. But we just can’t have them scratching and destroying the newly planted starts and seeds.

So here’s what we came up with...









We built six of these wire cages in about three hours yesterday. All you need is a roll of wire fencing, a good wire cutting tool and some pliers to create these. Today my hands are covered with cuts and feeling a bit numb, but I think these are going to do the trick, at least for getting several veggies started, like lettuce, carrots, potatoes, radishes, cilantro. I don't mind sharing with the girls, but when they dig up seeds and starts... grrrrr.

If you live anywhere near a Trader Joe’s, you must get there right away and pick up some of these basil plants. They’re only $2.99 and each pot contains 6 (six) plants! And these are not small, immature plants... they’re already a foot high!



Thank you to my friend Theresa for letting me know about this great deal.

Happy spring!

I’m dreaming of a house at the beach...

Happy Mother’s Day! A few days late, I know, but I’ve just returned from our annual beach adventure. Every Mother’s Day for the last ten years, my Mother, Iz and I have escaped to a small motel located in the heart of Cannon Beach, a quaint town on the northern Oregon coast. This year I mixed things up a bit and reserved a lovely house in Lincoln City. The house is less than a year old and has none of those issues related to an old 1927 house like ours. I could get used to this!

The house is located in a new housing development. The construction company decided to build custom homes here after the economy went sour, so there are just a few new houses in the development and many available lots for sale. Needless to say, the neighborhood was eerie quiet. We arrived late Friday afternoon and stayed until yesterday, and during that time a handful of cars drove by (one of which was a census taker who stopped by). I told him I lived there with my 20 cats and he slipped quietly away. I kept expecting people to arrive at the nearby homes for the weekend, but that never happened.

Here’s a little tour of this fabulous house. I didn’t bring the right lens to get it all in, but you’ll get the idea. After you enter through the front door, there’s a hallway that leads to a laundry room and three bedrooms (each with its own bathroom!) Mine also had its own deck.

A staircase (with 18 stairs) takes you up to the great room...



The great room includes a gourmet kitchen...



Notice how small my Mom looks in this kitchen? Everything is oversized. The counters were quite high, the sink very deep, and the cupboards out of reach.



Check out the concrete counters. They look great, but I’m not ready to have them in my house. If you leave any liquids on them, they stain.

Living room with a gas fireplace and an ocean view...



Library...



Deck with an ocean view... (or a view of the woods, depending on which direction you look)



TV room... name that movie



And, of course, another bathroom (that makes a total of four!)

We actually did a little shopping in the nearby town.





Yum, chocolate!

We found it difficult to spend too much of our precious time hanging out with the crowds when we had the quiet house luring us back.