"Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope." ~Bill Cosby

Cradle Song

From groves of spice,
O'er fields of rice,
Athwart the lotus-stream,
I bring for you,
Aglint with dew,
A little lovely dream.

Sweet, shut your eyes,
The wild fire-flies
Dance through the fairy neem;
From the poppy-bole
For you I stole
A little lovely dream.

Dear eyes, good night,
In golden light
The stars around you gleam;
On you I Press
With soft caress
A little lovely dream.

- Sarojini Naidu

images of my brother and his son.
summer 2010

"Presence is more than just being there." ~Malcolm S. Forbes

If trees could scream,
would we be so cavalier
about cutting them down?
We might,
if they screamed all the time,
for no good reason.
~Jack Handey

Sea View Park,

Dennisport, Cape Cod

"If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older." ~Tom Stoppard

Meeting our new nephew

for the very first time.

"I think I've discovered the secret of life - you just hang around until you get used to it."
~Charles Schulz

"There is no blue without yellow and without orange." ~Vincent Van Gogh

"I found that I could say things with color and shapes
that I couldn't say any other way...
things 
I had no words for."
 
~Georgia O'Keefe

"Faith is like radar that sees through the fog."~Corrie Ten Boom

I came across these images in my archives while I was backing up my work the other day and they reminded me of how much I have missed my photography over this summer. David, my youngest and often the subject of many of my favorite images on this blog, was recently diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. For David, this means that he needs to receive daily therapies to help him learn to speak and catch up in the other areas in which he is delayed. For me, it means my life has come to a screeching halt. I write about it HERE.

David is making incredible progress so far and his outlook is very good. I've been assured that adjusting to this new schedule will get easier as well. Sadly and until that adjustment happens, I'm going to have to hang up my camera and use any spare time I have to sort through my archives and put together a new portfolio. I'm actually looking forward to seeing what I have hiding in them...but even more so to taking photos once again!

Images taken on the Brewster flats,

Cape Cod Bay

"Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero."~Marc Brown

"There is always 
one moment in childhood 
when the door 
opens 
and lets 
the future in."
 
~Deepak Chopra

Boy, n.: a noise with dirt on it. ~Not Your Average Dictionary

sunday
jumping
contest.

"A child is a curly dimpled lunatic."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are."~e.e. cummings

 

David
dances
with
leaves.

“What a nice night for an evening.” ~Steven Wright

"As I have practiced it, photography
produces pleasure by simplicity.
I see something special
and show it to the camera.
A picture is produced. The moment is
held until someone sees it.
Then it is theirs."
~Sam Abell

Images taken on Cape Cod Bay,
Wellfleet

“It doesn't matter if the water is cold or warm if you're going to have to wade through it anyway”~Teilhard de Chardin

"You have to leave the city
of your comfort
and go into the 
wilderness
of your intuition.
What you'll discover
will be
wonderful.
What you'll discover
is yourself."

~Alan Alda

Images taken at Point of Rocks Beach
on a gorgeous October afternoon.
Cape Cod Bay, Brewster.

"I owe my solitude to other people."~Alan Watts

September has everything that I love about the fall. The amazing incandescent light, of course. Solitude. Cool, crisp days and their chilly star strewn nights. Subtle changes in the colors of the leaves as they start to turn. And life in general starts moving just a little bit slower. I think everybody could use a little more September in their lives.

September light at Stage Harbor,

Chatham, Cape Cod

"What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit." ~John Updike

Some of my favorite moments of my day are when I'm working on my photography with one (or all three) of my boys. David, my youngest, who's still far too young to care about having his photo taken on a daily basis, is a terrific model when I'm working to fine tune my portrait photography.

Taking beautiful candid photographs is fairly easy if you take a couple of things into consideration first. Lighting in crucial, but don't let that scare you. Natural sunlight is your best friend. Don't be afraid to play around with it at different points in the day. You're eventually going to find that time of the day that you know you'll be the most comfortable with. After a while, you'll be an expert at positioning your subject in the light in just the perfect way as to bring out their own natural beauty like a pro.

Another trick is to work on your composition. It's one of the key factor's when deciding a really stand out shot from just an average, ordinary one. For example, when I'm shooting landscapes, the sky and clouds are always my main focus, not the actual subject itself. It's sounds weird I know, but having a great background takes the shot to a whole other level. Really, anything can become a part of your composition, the point is to fine tune that and incorporate it into your work. A good way to practice is by using unique angles and positioning. Just by changing the perspective a little bit here and there (point your camera above the subject instead of straight at him) can create a whole other composition altogether. It makes a boring old portrait fresh and interesting. This is also going to help you to define your individual style.

Finally, just have fun with it. If you're going to be overly stressed about capturing the "perfect" shot, it's never going to happen. The most perfect shots only ever happen unintentionally anyway.

"Flowers are words which even a babe may understand."~Bishop Arthur Cleveland Coxe

"They must often change,
who would be constant in happiness
or wisdom."

~Confucius

David Andrew and black eyed susans.
Brewster, Cape Cod.

"What is joy? A sunbeam between two clouds."~Dorthee DeLuzy

"Cheerfulness
keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind,
filling it with a steady
and perpetual
serenity."

~Joseph Addison

Images taken at Linnell Landing, Brewster.
Cape Cod.

Summer 2008.

"There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million." ~Walt Streightiff

"The end of childhood
is when things cease to astonish us.
When the world
seems familiar,
when one has got used to existence,
one has become an adult."

~Eugene Ionesco

Images taken at Linnell Landing,
Brewster, Cape Cod.
Joanna Vaughan Photography