This past weekend, I visited HorseNet Horse Rescue in New Windsor, with my sister, Amy, and my niece and nephew. They’ve been volunteering there for the past five months or so and have been bugging me to come check it out.  I’m so glad I did!  I’ve never been a horse-person, so I admit that I couldn’t really relate to what they were doing just from them talking about it.  Once I was there, it didn’t take long to pick up on the different personalities of the horses. They all have their own histories and quirks. HorseNet is a non-profit, 100% volunteer run organization and they specialize in older horses and blind ones, but will take in pretty much any horse in need of a home. I’m going to copy some of their details along with the photos below. Amy got the scoop from some of the folks who run the farms.

This first one pictured is a noisy donkey named Clyde and he is my nephew, Scott’s, favorite. I can’t believe how old this donkey is!

“Clyde–50+yr old burro from a wild herd in the Grand Canyon.”

This is a sad one. Sassy got sick and had to be put down yesterday, so I guess my photos may have been the last ones taken of her. I love how she’s just peeking at me….she stuck her whole head over the fence a few seconds later and almost licked my camera.

“Sassy – registered name “Sibling Rivalry” is a Standardbred, trotter.  I assume she raced in her day, then was used as a broodmare.  She has been with HN for at least 5 years.  As far as we know she is not trained to ride but could pull a cart.  She is in her 20′s.”I really liked this horse. Gobie came right up to me and was sniffing me just like a dog would sniff a new person. That’s my niece, Caroline, in the photo on the right with him.

“Gobie (along with Robie, Blossom, Sweet Pea, Shane and one named Chance) came from a farm in Western Maryland….they were left in a big herd to breed, interbreed and basically run wild – there were like 30 or so of them all together and the Humane Society tried to find homes for all of them….Gobie was adopted for a while, has had a saddle on him and a rider, but that has been a while ago and he was a bit of a nut when the person got on – but he should be trainable for the right person to work with him with patience – not force. He must be 8 or 9.”This next one is my sister’s favorite, Charlotte. Amy is giving her a peppermint candy treat! Just a few months ago, she was emaciated from neglect and didn’t even want people to approach her, but she’s really come along.  Amy told me to be careful if Charlotte puts her ears back as that could mean she’s about to bite you.  I think Amy likes her resilience and the fact that she’s still got some attitude on reserve.

“She was one of the 29 horses rescued from a horrible abuse case in Garrett County. When she arrived she was under weight and infected with intestinal parasites and lice, but after a lot of treatment and care she is finally recovering wonderfully.”
Here’s Scott looking for trouble. I asked Amy to put him in a nice shirt (actually, I just asked for anything but an “ugly t-shirt”) because I knew I’d be taking photos.  It didn’t take him long to dirty it up!The brown horse is blind and named Mercy; The black one is a huge horse named Vice that my niece is especially fond of.

“Mercy was spotted by someone in the front yard of a huge house with expensive cars in the driveway–he was completely emaciated when he was rescued–he was within hours of death–his eyes were badly infected thus the loss of his sight–he is now about 6 yrs old–which means that he was very young when he was being starved.”
Here is Amy with Charlotte again.  

Anyway, I’ll be back to weddings and portraits in my next posts, but thought this would be a nice change!  All the volunteers at HorseNet are wonderful people for taking care of these innocent creatures, and I’m happy to give them a spotlight.

Here’s a little something different for my blog followers and for me!  I donned a hardhat to shoot photos at a few different Habitat for Humanity construction sites and also visited a family who had just moved into their new home.  My friend, Marisa, is the COO of Habitat for Humanity of the Chesapeake and asked if I’d be up for taking some photos for use in new printed materials they’re developing and on their website. Chesapeake Habitat for Humanity and Arundel Habitat for Humanity recently merged, so the organization is growing and changing. I was happy to help out this wonderful non-profit that builds affordable housing for so many people.  Here are just a few of my favorite shots from the day.

I love how this shot of one of the volunteers turned out. He is standing between two of the modular townhomes being built on a formerly vacant lot on East Fayette Street. These 9 homes are almost complete and will be ready for the families to move in by October 17th.

This is a fisheye shot of the whole row of houses from the back alley:

Here is a Habitat staff  member exhibiting the positive attitude that everyone seems to have on these sites:

This hardworking volunteer is still managing to look glam in a hardhat and toolbelt:

Volunteers from Verizon doing some painting:

Here’s a happy volunteer from a local high school at an almost-completed home in Brooklyn:

Here are two happy new homeowners taking a break from painting.  All homeowners contribute at least 350 hours of time to the construction of their homes – Habitat calls these “sweat equity” hours.

Here is another house from the same block that is a bit earlier in the construction stage.  It’s amazing how Habitat can take these shells and turn them into wonderful homes.

Towanda and Tyrone just moved into their new home and were nice enough to let us stop by. Tyrone actually proposed to Towanda at the celebration where the keys were handed over to them, so we were joking that these would be their engagement photos. You can read their story here.

Sweetie-pie in the new house:

Check out the Habitat for Humanity of the Chesapeake website if you’d be interested in volunteering or donating.  No skills required!

Art with a Heart had its annual fundraiser party last weekend at Silo Point in Baltimore (Locust Point).  There was yummy food, great music from The Motorettes, a silent auction, and art activities that everyone could get involved in.  I was helping guests work on decorating a kid-sized table and chairs to be put in the House of Ruth shelter in Baltimore, which is a wonderful resource for battered women and children.  Art with a Heart provides art classes at the shelter in addition to tons of other locations around the city including group homes, homeless shelters, community centers, public schools, and more.

Silo Point was an amazing location for this event.  It is a new condo community and has a huge lobby and cool outdoor space, not to mention a stunning view of the harbor.  I brought my camera to just take a few pics and was wishing I had brought some other lenses with me!  No wide shots of the space, but I think you can still get a feel for the atmosphere.  Hopefully I can shoot some engagement portraits there sometime.

Here is the sign out front.  You can see part of the rustic original silo behind it:

I couldn’t decide which of the following two pics of The Motorettes lead singer to include, so here are both!

Here is the table I mentioned.  We were covering it with pieces of colored stickers which is easy to do, but still makes a dramatic statement.

Playing with my 50mm lens at 1.4.

Sweet looking cake!

There is a killer sky lounge on the 19th floor.  It has two levels and is very swanky….would be a perfect place for a smaller private event.

More sky lounge shots:

I’m so excited to finally share that ABC2 aired a story on Now I Lay me Down to Sleep last night. A producer contacted me in early August to see if I could help with the story. They came to my house to interview me and I referred them to two of the families I have worked with who I thought would be great contributors to the story. Here is the link to the story (the video is to the right of the article/transcript): http://www.abc2news.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=46d2dae8-f4fb-4c8a-ba81-286da7bd77cc

You may have seen my earlier posts on these amazing families:

C, J, Baby J, and his angel little brother (newborn, 8 weeks, 4 months)

Baby Jack (maternity & 4 months, 8 months)

I actually just saw Jack, James & Vicki again this past weekend. They invited me over for a lovely lunch outside on the deck and I also took the opportunity to get a few shots of the big boy. He just turned one recently and is on the verge of walking any day now. I’m just so amazed by this miracle baby!

Look out behind you Jack!

This was a false alarm face. He actually didn’t cry even once the whole time I was there…he’s just not digging the comb apparently.

Look at that smile!  He loves clapping…too cute…

Goofball Jack with Mom and Dad.

Oops…I had this post saved as a draft and neglected to publish it until now. Artscape was July 17-19th this year.  As usual, it was stinkin’ hot outside so I didn’t actually see too much of it.  I volunteered at the Art with a Heart booth for a couple hours on that Friday.  The first pic below is of some of the handiwork being sold. 

I am so proud of the students for pulling all this work together to sell, especially considering that they had a major setback the Tuesday before Artscape.  There was a fire at Dunbar Middle School in the room where many of the kids in AWAH’s summer job program had been working for three weeks on creating art to sell.  This is a program for students in which they create marketable art to raise money for their community, while also being taught workplace protocols and job skills.  They lost a lot of work in the fire, but pulled together to recreate some of it in time for Artscape.

I visited my friend, Janet, who was working at the beer truck behind Mount Royal Tavern. We used to work at MICA together and she is a fabulous artist. She has one arm in a sling, so this job was a bit of a challenge for her this year.  I suggested that she turn the beer tap off with her forehead, but I don’t think she went for that idea.

Here is Janet’s friend unknowingly posing for me:

I bought a print from artist, Catia Chen, who had a booth at Artscape.  I can’t really afford original paintings, so I like when I can get an affordable print of the original. This one just spoke to me…I see myself in it I guess. I actually ordered two other prints from her online store later that week and am excited to receive them and get those bad boys framed.

There was a story tonight on Baltimore’s own WJZ about Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep (NILMDTS), the bereavement photography organization I volunteer with. Check it out here, but be forewarned that it is sad. I was happy to see that the photographer featured was Maureen Porto, who is one of our local coordinators for NILMDTS.  It is stories like this that help us recruit new volunteers while also getting the word out to the community that this service exists. 

I had the pleasure of speaking with many potential volunteer photographers this past Friday night at Sandy Puc’s Bellies & Babies seminar. Sandy (also known as “Sam”) has a crazy successful portrait business in Colorado and is also one of the founders of NILMDTS. The seminar was about marketing and photography tips for us small business owners, but she did get in some heartfelt words about the organization towards the end. There was a NILMDTS trade show table that I helped with before and after the seminar and during the breaks. I think all the new volunteers start off very nervously and don’t know what to expect, so I’m glad to be able to share my experiences and talk about how rewarding it can be.

Sorry, no pics with this post but I’ll get something up soon!

Hey. I wanted to post some additional photos of Baby Jack and newborn Baby J plus some other fun stuff before I post what I’m shooting this weekend. I had a fun engagement shoot yesterday in Georgetown and am meeting a family in Ellicott City later today.

As promised in my earlier post, here are a couple more of Baby J:

More Baby Jack!

Proud daddy:

Here are a couple shots from an Art with a Heart art class I assisted with recently. I hadn’t seen these kids in a couple years so it was crazy to see how much they’ve grown. I was at this group home every Monday night for about two years before I was switched to another house that needed a teacher.

This is the sweetest kid. He’s writing a memoir now!

Just for fun….here are my niece and nephew as giants:

Wow, I had a really nice and full weekend! Friday night I hung with some friends at Golden West and then Holy Frijoles, both of which are walking distance to my house. On Saturday, I went to my first Access Sailing day of the season with the Downtown Sailing Center. The weather was absolutely perfect! I hit Starbucks on the way home for a decaf Java Chip Frappuccino…there’s a new one on Charles Street in Mount Vernon (consider that a PSA). It was too nice to go inside when I got home, so I wandered down to The Avenue and checked out some of the shops. I ran into a couple friends along the way…that’s “Smalltimore” for ya. I picked up a supercute T-shirt at Hanging on a Whim that says “single and not settling” really tiny on the front. I just had to have it.

Today I got to hang out with baby Jack and his family for a yummy crab cake lunch and a photo session. If you haven’t read my past blog entries or haven’t heard me mention him a hundred times, read about him here. Technically, I invited myself over because I couldn’t wait to see him again, but it was James and Vicki’s idea to do lunch as well. They are so sweet and make me feel so welcome…check out an awesome comment Vicki left on my blog here. Jack is about 8 months old now and doing fantastic! Here are a few pics…

Open mouth, insert foot:

Haha…he looks like he’s explaining something:

He’s still a bit off-balance trying to sit up, but as you can tell, he doesn’t seem to mind:

This cracks me up…he seems to be texting someone on his “cell” and is oblivious to his nakedness and the fact that I’m photographing him:

Stinkin’ cute!

A few weeks ago I was honored to meet and photograph this sweet family in DC. This was my first time working with Community Hospices which is an organization that provides amazing support and services for terminally ill patients and their families. To protect their privacy I’m not going to mention any names, but it was important for “S” to have some photos taken with her son for him to remember her by. You can’t even tell she is sick in these photos, but I know that it took an incredible amount of strength to get herself together for this photo session. She is so close with her son and her mother, so it was easy to get them to snuggle up and laugh together.

It’s hard to see, but her bracelet is engraved with the word “faith.”

There was a really nice story on Now I Lay me Down to Sleep (www.nilmdts.org) on NBC’s Today Show this morning. It’s about 5 minutes long: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540…81435#23481435

In case you haven’t heard of this organization, it is a network of volunteer photographers who shoot portraits for parents experiencing an infant loss. I think sometimes people don’t understand how the photographers can handle such an emotional situation…this video helps explain how important this can be for the families and why it is so rewarding for the volunteers.