You Can Lead A Horse To Water…

I had the pleasure of photographing Jasmine and her Paint horse, Cadberry.  He is a gorgeous black and white horse who reminded me of an antique carrousel horse. There was a regal quality about his every movement until… we reached the lawn!  Less regal was his penchant for snacking on the lawn every time I asked Jasmine to lean forward to hug his neck.  After a few attempts, Jasmine dismounted and we captured some images with her safely on the ground.  Sometimes, you can’t reason with a 1000+lb horse when he wants a snack.  
~ Jerry 

Our Mission? Photo Assault in Rome!

Kathi and I only had 2 days in Rome on our way to Naples and the Isle of Capri.  I was determined to make the most of it by staying at a hotel within walking distance of the Coliseum and Palantine Hill.   These were the two areas besides Pompeii and Capri that I really wanted to photograph.

On our day walk to the Coliseum I was disappointed, awed and appalled all at once.  I was disappointed by the ugly gray patina of the coliseum in daylight; I was awed at its size and the magnificent architecture; and I was appalled at the number of the tourists already there in the morning! There were six tour buses there and more arriving every five minutes! So, what did we do?  We played tourist!  We looked at everything around the coliseum and made plans to come back for a nighttime photo—assault on the old stone ring.

Walking the six blocks at 11:30 at night was a little scary carrying all of our photo gear; we were alone; there was nobody out there; there was no traffic and no noise!  At least when it started to rain, we had our umbrella handy!

All of our concerns melted away when we looked down the street and The Coliseum was aglow, internally lit by hundreds of incandescent lamps looking like a huge four layer wedding cake, spanning the end of the street in front of us!  It was truly stunning and the closer we got to it the more impressive and powerful was its affect on me.  I thought, “How am I going to create an image that does this massive structure justice?  It’s just too big!”  Then I saw the image in my head.  A vertical slice of the building showing some of the road, just narrow the vision a bit, tilt the camera so you could see the mass of the walls and the sparkle of the lights.  And there is “The” image!  What seemed impossible became an image that I’ll always cherish!

~Jerry

Guardian Angel

A short time ago our son’s girlfriend, Alisha, came home with a gift from a client of hers.  It was a statue of a beautiful angel holding a puppy.  It seems that Alisha, who works as a pet groomer, noticed something unusual about 13 year-old Chardonnay and advised Cathy Luckinbill, her owner, to take her to the vets to be checked out.  They found that Chardonnay had breast cancer.  The vet told Cathy that Alisha’s early detection gave Chardonnay a few more good years with the family. After Chardonnay’s recovery from surgery, we invited Cathy to bring Chardonnay into the studio for a session.

She is such a sweet dainty little thing and Cathy couldn’t thank us enough. She said, “I will now always have Chardonnay with me!” We were so excited to know that this beautiful papillon is a breast cancer survivor! 

~ Kathi

My Search For A Hairdresser Led Me To These Three!

If you’ve ever moved to another part of the country, you know how traumatic finding someone new to do your hair can be!  After using the same hairdresser for all of my adult life, selecting someone to do my hair here in Idaho became a quest for the right personality, skill set and a location that would make me feel warm and welcome. You know…just like I had in San Jose…a tall order to fill!

I finally found Barbara Z at Eagle Salon & Spa in Eagle.  We hit it off right from the start and as most grand parents do, Barbara bragged about her 3 cute granddaughters. 

I invited her to bring them into the studio for one of our model sessions and we scheduled a session for the next week. The day of the session came and in bounced 3 excited beaming young ladies. I immediately knew this was going to be a really fun session.  Emma, who is 7, was definitely the big sister to Sophia and Ava who are almost 5 and twins.  These young ladies weren’t just cute they were just as beautiful and precious as they could be. We have so many terrific images of these girls it was really hard to pick just one to share with you, so I didn’t…Barbara has every right to brag about these 3…it was our pleasure to spend some time to get to know them and we look forward to having them visit soon. 

~ Kathi