We are doing it again!!! Farm Flower Photos at Windrush Farm with Chloris Floral, this Saturday March 10th. We’d love for you and yours to come play with flowers and lambs with us. To sign up CLICK HERE.
ps: the flower of this year is tulip and it’s going to be beautiful!
…so you don’t hear the whining and fighting from the 5.75 and 3 year-old boys who were tagging along on our last-minute Fourth of July escape to Mendocino County.
My hope is that these peaceful and calm photos (with my patented no whining kid filter) will eventually reshape our memories, so we remember ourselves as the perfect family, and we will remember this trip as the perfect summer getaway with the right balance of culture and quiet… 
If anyone has tips on how to travel successfully with children, so instead of whining they sweetly thank you for the enrichment you are providing their lives, I would love to hear them.
In case you are curious to learn more about the places in the photos above, this is where we went:
Elk:
Private Cabin
Elk Creek Beach perfect for fort building.
Mendocino:
Flynn Creek Circus we were not as in love with the fighting theme this year, but still a talented bunch of people and fun to see what some people can do with their bodies.
Point Arena:
Fourth of July Parade such a sweet small town parade with quite a diverse population.
Manchester State Park Beach long walk to get to the beach, but worth it.
Fort Bragg:
Skunk Train heaven for kids, especially the model train museum, and you can bring your dogs on the train too!
Glass Beach very crowded, but still neat to discover glass treasures and explore tide pools.
Willits:
Frontier Days very authentic look at life outside of the Bay Area bubble… my kids now want to be cowboys.
Roots of Motive Power neat free activity that is great for all ages.
Last year I offered Farm Family Photo Shoots at Windrush Farm and  we had so much fun…
That we are doing it again this year. 
Sessions are 45 minutes and include 10 high resolution digital files of your choice.Â
Additional images will be available for purchase.
We recommend wearing clothes & shoes you don’t mind getting dirty…
And bringing a colorful blanket to spread out in the grass.
While we will do our best to take photos with baby animals…
They are baby animals, so we can not guarantee they will always cooperate…
But we can guarantee that we’ll have lots of fun on the farm…
And you’ll have lots of cute photos to prove it.
Farm Family Photo Sessions Dates:
March 30th-April 2nd
April 6th-April 9th
To register click here:
http://my.setmore.com/bookingpage/c2369b83-d535-4dfc-bd12-b96aa13ecb9e/bookappointment
If you asked me how my home birth was, you would not hear me say, “My home birth was beautiful.”
Instead I very honestly would tell you, “It was extremely long, incredibly painful and very, very messy. I can understand why drugs were invented and why people take them.”
Between endless hours of back-breaking contractions, I kept repeating, “This is ridiculous. How can there be 7 billion people on the planet.”
I couldn’t see why anyone would voluntarily choose to do this more than once in their lifetime, let alone 7 billion times.
People told me eventually I would forget and the hormones would win again, but I refused to believe that I could ever forget what that day felt like. And I announced that I was quite happy with one.
Yet here I am, one year and 5 months later, just like everyone said, wondering… if, maybe, should we?
So I was excited when Rose sent me an email asking if I would photograph the birth of their second baby girl, who would be born at home some time in March. It would be a good test. How would it feel to see someone else go through labor? And what was a home birth like the second time around?
I was also excited because I have never seen a human being born. I have seen cows, sheep, and dogs… but not a human (I had my eyes closed the whole time during HAH’s birth.)
And I got a small taste of what it must feel like for doctors and midwives. For once in my life, I had my cell phone almost always charged and I almost always knew where it was. And at gatherings with friends, I would announce, “I can’t drink tonight, I’m on call.”
But then it didn’t happen. The due date came and went. I started filling up my calendar. I had photo shoots scheduled every day. Arann got sick, so I was working all day and on solo parenting duty at night. Until finally at the end of day two of photographing flowers in SF, I got the texts:
4:12pm “I think we are in early labor, midwife is coming over. Will text again.”
4:57 “Come now!!”
I was in San Francisco.
The family was in Oakland.
For those of you not from the Bay Area, 5pm on a Thursday means… Fat chance.
I only had to drive 10.5 miles.
It took me one hour.
When I finally arrived at the house, Rose’s mother let me in and said, “The baby was just born, come on in.”
And this is what I saw…
While I was disappointed to have missed the birth, it was probably for the best because I got to experience all of the joy and none of the work. Which means I can confidently say that it was the most beautiful home birth, I almost saw.
Thank you, Rose and Jonathan, for inviting me to be a part of this amazing moment in your lives. It was such an incredible honor and I am so excited for your family. And, as Rose said to me after the birth of HAH, “Have fun falling in love.”
Seana first contacted me on November 10th about family photos. We had three or four scheduled dates to meet but each time it just didn’t work out… thanks to conflicting holiday schedules, bad weather, the flu, and even an epic battle with poison oak. But we didn’t give up. We waited until schedules calmed down, the weather was just right, the poison oak went away and everyone one was feeling healthy, relaxed and ready to play…
Thank you for not giving up, Seana.
It was so worth the wait.
This was the third year in a row that I photographed Jasmine and her parents…
…which, I learned, makes for a very comfortable and very action-packed photo shoot.
No warm-up time necessary this year, Little Miss Jasmine was ready to go…
And so was I… after spending 72 continuous hours working on getting our new house ready for us to move in to it this week! It is totally chaotic and insane what we are trying to do in such a short amount of time… so this one hour photo shoot, in this perfect location (which happens to be conveniently in my new backyard,) with these ready and willing models… was exactly the boost I needed tonight to keep me going.
And hopefully the next blog post I write will be from my desk, in my new office, in our very own house! Eeeeeeeeeee….. wish us luck!
It has been awhile since my last post, so I thought I’d at least share what we are working on…
In addition to learning how to grab our toes, roll-over, fly, drool, and laugh… we are also working on my new website.
Because now that we have this parenting thing figured out (as demonstrated in photo above)…
…it is time to get back to work again. New website link coming soon.
Last year I was lucky to photograph this cute family…
And that cute family showed their photos to this cute family…
And that cute family showed their photos to this cute family…
And to this cute family…
And because all of these cute families live on the same cute street in the East Bay, this year one of the mothers offered to help organize schedules so I could come back and photograph all of the cute families on the same day.
So that is what we did.
And here are some of my favorites from our marathon photography day on that sunny Saturday in November…
Thank you, Rachel, for suggesting the Clover Drive photography day. And thank you, Kim, for coordinating all of the schedules. I had lots of fun with each of your families and I really hope to see you all again next year.
(click on the photo for a closer look)
A year ago in May, I received this email from Abby:
Paige – we love your work! It would be awesome to have you document lil’ Margaux.
We were thinking of doing three short photo sessions spaced out through the year. We want to get some nice shots of her as she grows. (Everyday is something new!). I’d like to do the first session after she can hold her head up (3 mos or so) as she’ll be a more sensational model at that point. And we’d like to do this outside, earth baby style.
Thanks!
Abby
I was excited about the opportunity to document a little one’s first year of life, and so over the next 16 months I was able to photograph Margaux at…
…3 months…
…7 months…
…and 19 months.
Each time I arrived at their house, it was fun to see (and experience) the differences a few months can have on a little person. And I learned a lot from Margaux about how to be better prepared to photograph the very different stages. These are the valuable lessons that lil’ Margaux taught me about photographing a child’s first year:
At three months you have to work really fast before your model falls asleep… again.
Seven months is so dreamy… a few funny noises and a mirror is all it takes to get a good smile.
And 19 months… watch out. You better have eaten a good lunch, done some stretching and have a bunny up your sleeve, because not only do you have to move fast to keep up with your model, but you also have to have some tricks to keep her entertained. Ladders, chairs, agile parents, and using your body as a blockade works too…
But as I looked back to compare the photos from each of our photo shoots, I was pleased to discover some similarities as well…
Thank you, Abby, Nate and Margaux, for letting me document your first year together and for teaching me how to be a better photographer for all ages.
And I can’t wait to see what lessons Margaux has to share after lil’ Margaux becomes big sister Margaux.
…I would live on a street where all of my best friends lived in the houses around me…
…and we would get to do all of this…
… all of the time.
But until my wish comes true…
…I am so grateful for airplanes that bring me to my favorite people who live too far away…
…And guess I’ll settle for a perfect vacation instead.
Thank you Nici, Andy, Margot, Ruby, Alice, Olive and my favorite black cat, Sam. We had an amazing adventure and we can not wait to do it again soon.
somewhere between a handshake and two kisses 
