You know how you just know that a shot is going to be good… well this is the one I was hoping would make me feel better about the eggs in a field craziness last week. The minute I took it, I had all my fingers and toes crossed that it would come out the way I wanted it to… and it is pretty darn close.
I am super excited to have a new website… almost.
I still have to work on the order of the photos, the galleries and the other pages… but right now I am interested to see what people think of the design.
If you are curious…. click here: http://www.paigegreenphotography.com.temp.livebooks.com/
And then please give me your feedback below… thanks!
Today was SO fun! Three photographers… Jude, Jessamyn and I decided to have a stock photography play date. We each picked a place, a theme for outfits, divided up the day and then we started shooting.
Jessamyn wanted a natural lifestyle photo shoot, so she picked a cafe where Jude and I laughed, talked and ate cupcakes (photo link soon to come.) Jude wanted a conceptual photo shoot, based around the green movement, so her shoot involved Jessamyn dressed head-to-toe in green clothes and playing in a green field.
And for my shoot, I chose complete and utter randomness: local salvage yard and sun-dresses.
There was no greater meaning or significance to my choice, other than I discovered this incredible place last week during my search for a bathtub, and I was completely amazed as I wandered through the 7 acres of rows and rows of forgotten metal ghosts.
The potential for fun was endless.
Luckily the owner was completely fine with us wandering and playing… his only rule was “no climbing” and that rule was only briefly bent, very slightly, once.
Funny enough, he didn’t tell us not to remove clothing, and the fabulous stack of bathtubs just happened to be tucked way far in the back of the 7 acres, so we were able to dive in deep when no one was looking. Yay for amazing and beautiful Jessamyn.
I have no idea if any of these photos are stock potential, but to be honest I can’t say that I care much if they are… I just loved the process so much and now I love the photos, so as far as I am concerned, the day was a fantastic success.
My friend Kelly saw that I needed an idea for Jude and Paige’s Adventures in Stock project, so she called me up with her vision: bathtub, full of eggs, with her, cowboy boots and a bird’s nest in her hair. I said, “Perfect! I’ll get the tub and eggs.”
I have been wanting a tub in a field shot for a long time….but the eggs part was all Kelly. So I spent the day running around, gathering and hard boiling. I quickly realized that the 3 cartons of 5 dozen eggs (180 eggs), although it sounds like a lot, is not much when you want to fill a bathtub. So I put in the call for Kelly to buy more eggs.
So she bought 3 more cartons of 5 dozen eggs, which we didn’t have time to hard boil, but even filling the tub with blankets and covers, 360 eggs were still not enough.
Another problem was that we had two very different and competing visions… one wanted wild and mysteriously arty, and the other wanted tame stock…. so 360 eggs later, I am disappointed to say that I don’t think either of the visions felt very satisfied with the results.
But as always, we learned lots of lessons: more eggs, one vision, less cooks and try and mark the hard boiled ones because trying to find out which ones are raw, by spinning and shaking, is very time consuming…. and can lead to broken eggs in your ear if you shake too hard.
I have a fabulous young photography student, who I have been working with for probably a year if you add it all up. And today our task was to photograph one object in as many different ways as we could. So we played with one of her dolls, who was most agreeable, even when she was dropped on her head.
This cute doll, called “Girl in a Bear Suit” was made by a talented artist, Heidi Iverson, who sells her felted artwork at Knitterly in Petaluma. She was so cute that I couldn’t resist taking my own. It was a great lesson in product photography and finding good light.
Meet Rebecca and Kevin. They are my friends, in fact, they were the first two friends I made when I moved to California in 2001. One reason I like them is because when I say, “Let’s do a photo shoot,” they say, “OK, we’ll wear these hats.” And then we went to the thrift store….
and I bought this hat for $13. That was a good Thursday.
First I have to say, I am so excited because last week I received two emails from mothers who saw my work on the internet and wanted to hire me to take photos of their families. Yay for the internet, and yay for internet savy mothers.
Now back to this week, these photos are from the photo shoot I did this morning, for one of those mothers. Growing up as the baby of her family, she wanted to be sure her own baby had the same amount of photos as his big sister. So we decided the earlier in the day the shoot was, the better, because having two young nappers, it is hard to coordinate happy moods later in the day. Since my favorite time of day, the late afternoon, was out of the question, I was worried, because to get good sunlight in the morning, you have to start really early, and there was no way any of us wanted to think about photos before 7 am, so we decided on 7:30…. which for those of you who know me, that’s still very early.
But I managed to get there, with even enough time to look around for a good outdoor spot… which happened to be the dirt bike course near their house. So we played in the shade there for awhile, and then we came home and played downstairs for a bit…. and right before I left I decided, just one more… just one more spot…. and so we all went back to bed.
And as a kid, there is nothing better than cuddling with your parents in their big comfy bed… so it is not surprising that these are a few of my favorite photos of the day…. although it was really hard to choose.
Pony rides, a petting zoo, a cotton candy machine, Ben and Jerry’s professional scoopers, a paint station, a knock the fish through the wall station, and 32 of his closest toddler friends all came to Sonoma to be a part of Matias’s 2nd Birthday Party. His mother wanted to give him the party she never got to have, and lucky for me, I got to document it all….
…right up until nap time.
Besides seeing how much sugar could be consumed in one day, the most amazing aspect for me was being surrounded by toddlers who spoke two or more languages. It was incredible to see how their little brains switched back and forth so easily. While I, and my linguistically handicapped tongue, couldn’t even remember the basic Spanish I once knew. And the few times I attempted to speak, I ended up tripping over my words so miserably that I gave up and assumed my role as the silent observer. Needless to say, I was in awe and inspired to get back into my Spanish classes.
Just wanted to add the Rollei photos from my baby shoot last week…. film is expensive, the camera is slow, the negatives have to be processed, scanned, de-dusted…. meaning the whole process is much more expensive and labor intensive…. but I love it!
These portraits are for Jonah Raskin’s book about his experiences on Sonoma County farms over the past year. He spent most of his time at Oak Hill Farm and wanted some portraits of the people behind the fresh organic food that he fell in love with.
I arrived at the farm at 7 am with the intentions to beat the sun and to capture the best light… but even at 7 am I was too late. But besides the bright sun overhead and my sensitivity towards their eagerness to be done with photos and back to work, I think it was a good start.
Although, not everything came out as well as I expected….
somewhere between a handshake and two kisses 
