somewhere between a handshake and two kisses

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about

Paige Green is a documentary and portrait photographer, whose storytelling approach to photography frequently addresses issues involving agriculture, land use, and food. Her work is featured in nine books and has been published in Glamour, National Geographic Traveler, New York Times Magazine, Conde Nast Traveler, GQ, Country Living, House Beautiful, and Culture. Paige lives in Petaluma, CA with a house full of boys.

  • What’s in a Name… (please vote)

    Dear Readers,

    My stock photography partner, Jude Mooney, and I are in the process of choosing a name for our business. Can you please help us by voting on your favorite name listed below. The competition closes Monday evening at 7pm EST… so please contribute your votes before then. Thanks!!

    • Hazel
    • Jane Photo
    • Jane Harper Photo
    • Green & Greene
    • Sweet Pea & Ragamuffin
    • Rusty Thimble Photo
    • The Greens
    • Hazel Jane
    • Hazel and Jane

    The idea behind the some of these names (hazel & jane) is that we are creating an alias- a
    mysterious female character.

  • Sarah and Zach… a quick peek…

    This is just a glimpse of a few favorites from the wedding I photographed two weekends ago in Greenville, South Carolina, the town where I mostly grew up. The wedding was for my best friend from high school, Ann’s, little brother, Zach, also known as Baby Zach, which is how I remember him… so the idea that he was getting married was hard to get over.

    The timing was perfect, I was coming home for my annual family reunion beach trip and Zach was getting married the Saturday after I arrived, so I just stayed in Greenville an extra night and joined my family the next day.

    I met Zach’s soon to be bride, Sarah, the night of their rehearsal and was very excited to find that she was down to earth, fun and beautiful… the perfect kind of bride, and wife for my best friend’s little brother. And the two of them have a heart wrenching love story that started after high school and grew stronger through Sarah’s cancer that was discovered a few years after they started dating.

    It was amazing how openly her cancer was discussed throughout the events, and without the fear that normally surrounds the C-word, but needless to say the tears were not far from everyone’s eyes during their vows to care for each other through sickness and health.

    I felt honored to be there and to help document their day for them… and it is not often, as a California based photographer, that I get to photograph in a big fancy traditional church… which proved to be a challenge and a fun creative tool.

    I loved the contrast between the two preparation rooms…

    I didn’t intend this photo to show off Sarah’s left shoulder where she had her cancer, instead I noticed it during my editing. It is one of my favorites because I think it has a calm and beautifully strong feel to it and I hope she feels the same way.


    I wish I could say I planned this photo to look this way, but I didn’t and it was quite a fun editing surprise… although it has a surreal dream feel to it that may not appeal to everyone, so luckily I have normal ones as well.

    The Presbyterian Church had a rule about not photographing during the ceremony, which in some ways was nice because it meant I had to be more creative.

    And there is so much more to come… but the editing is a lot slower since I am on the road…. so stay tuned for more of Sarah and Zach.

    And here is Ann again… I love friends who love being photographed… it is so much fun… this was entirely her idea.

  • Another Kelly-ism…

    This is only the surface of my latest Kelly, Messy Monkey Founder, photo shoot (you may remember her in the bathtub with eggs)… there is so much more to come from this shoot, but unfortunately we photographed right before I flew away on my current Eastern Adventure… so I haven’t had time to scan the negatives yet or process the digital… but I managed to sneak one negative in before Arann dragged me out the door so I wouldn’t miss my flight.

    Kelly has an amazing collection of old-school granny night gowns and she wanted to play in the yard wearing them, and we have this great old horn in our house, which she was excited to play with. It brought her back to her days as drum major in her high school band… her marching form is excellent!

    Stay tuned for more Kelly photo shoots.

  • Another Cute One…

    I am back in South Carolina for the week and have been catching up with old friends and their new little humans. This is my friend Katie’s son, Mac, with the cutest blue eyes and absolutely no fear. He continuously tests his mom’s reflexes as he hucks himself down the slide, the stairs and whatever else he can climb on. Amazing that my friends, can create such incredible little people.


  • Ann and her girls….

    This is one of my best friends from high school, Ann, and all her girls…

    First came Susie…. and you can see her several times on my websites…

    And then came Allie….

    We wanted to make sure Allie, the second child, has as many baby photos as her well documented big sister… so when Susie took her nap today, we had an “Allie Exclusive” photo shoot.


    Well, it was an “Allie Exclusive” photo shoot except for poor Luna, Ann’s first baby girl, who has moved into a lowly third place, but with a little love, all is forgiven.

  • project HERE… with John Crowley

    This is John Crowley, he is the definition of community in Petaluma.

    About 7 years ago, this Irishman decided he was tired of sitting alone in his Petaluma home, watching TV on Saturday nights… and he realized he was probably not the only one who felt that way, so he decided to make a change. He started with a simple pub-crawl with a theme: bring a book that changed your life and share it with people you meet. And as people started emerging from their homes and back into the community, the pub-crawls turned into conversation cafes, drum circles, open-mic nights, movie nights and more. Now Crowley has his own cafe where he can hold as many different kinds of community events as he wants and the people of Petaluma don’t have any excuses to sit at home alone anymore.

    The reason I photographed John Crowley is for. Project HERE.

    Project HERE is a cool community project started by Tyler Young. He is trying to pump up the community spirit in Petaluma by profiling inspiring people like John Crowley. The goal is to create a poster of each person with quotes about why it is so great to live HERE in Petaluma. And when we have enough posters at the end of the summer, we will have a show.

    So, me, the photographer obsessed with the concept of community, I was psyched when Tyler called and asked me to help out. I am working on editing my interview with John Crowley now, but first I wanted to share my portrait of him.

    I had a vision of John in the street with thousands of people behind him… but my vision came to me on Friday and the notice was posted on Saturday… so the fact that we got 30 people to come on a random Monday night, with only two days notice and without offering anything free… makes me pretty happy.

    And in conclusion, I like my portrait of John Crowley and I am super grateful to the people who came out and I really hope it will work for the campaign.

  • My Muse…

    …Who may not always be amused to stop for a photo, but in the end he always does, and that is so nice for me. And most importantly he always encourages me on during the roller coaster flips and turns of photography, I recommend everyone have their own cheerleader, even if they prefer sunflowers to pompoms

  • Taking Time to Play….

    As a “professional” photographer, it can get overwhelming photographing all the time… and sometimes the last thing you want to do is take photos during your free time because taking photos means editing photos and that means more time in front of the computer… but playing with your camera is the best way to keep photography fun. So this summer, I tried really hard to balance my computer editing time with my playing time… and what’s better than a cartwheel competition.  Although another important lesson to remember as a photographer… put down the camera and do cartwheels too, or if you can take a photo while you cartwheel, that’s cool, I just haven’t figured out how to do that with the Rollei.

  • Looking East…

    Hello All,

    I am about to embark on another adventure… this time I am heading East. First I will be in Greenville, South Carolina, then over to the North Carolina coast, then up to Philadelphia, and finally to New York.

    I would love to add some cute families or fun portraits to my itinerary, so if you have a loved one you want photographed, who is somewhere close to one of those places, then please send me an email and I will try and fit you in.

    paigephotography@yahoo.com

    Thanks and I hope to see you soon!

    Sincerely,

    Paige

    http://www.paigegreenphotography.com

  • The Rollei’s first Pregnancy Photo Shoot

    Just catching up on editing before I go away again… and so I wanted to add some Rollei shots from my photo shoot with Tauni and Dan a couple of weeks ago. They’re just so cute.