A Pacific Northwest morning at the beach

I know people say that a picture never can never truly captivate just how beautiful a scene is. But, as a photographer I have to disagree. A couple weeks ago I had the privilege of spending a morning with Katy and her beautiful girls. As I drove up to Edmonds the weather progressively began to get worse. So needless to say the girls were not extremely excited to be in their sweet summer dresses posing in the rain on a beach. I spent the next hour trying to win over these two little people; knowing it was the only way to save this photo shoot. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Baby Matteo

A month or so ago I enjoyed a great afternoon with Adriana, Paulo and Sophia. We spent a couple hours wondering around the Outdoor Sculpture Garden and nearby waterfront snapping some really fun pictures. The photo shoot felt so comfortable and casual and this allowed me to capture beautiful pictures of the three of them. I really enjoyed seeing how much these two loved each other and how excited they were for their future baby.

Weeks later I came over to photograph and meet their new son. As evidenced by the photos, the time I spent with them was just as precious. What a beautifully sweet family! Baby Matteo was alert the entire time I was there, which is not a surprise, considering how much fire and spunk his parents have. I am so excited for all of them. In Matteo's bedroom they hung a picture with the quote "We are all in the together," and this is evident every time I am with this amazing little family.

Baby Mayson

It has been a lot of fun watching this little girl grow and change over the last six months. It seemed like just yesterday that I was visiting her at the hospital and taking her photo. Her smile is so contagious and lights up her entire face. I'm glad this little lady is in my life!

Today my friend Stacy and I thought we would just play around with a couple of Mayson Bea's new outfits. It was late in the day and Mayson was getting pretty tired. But, she was still a great sport. From a Tutu to a Kimono she allowed us to dress her up like a little doll and snap her photo.

Multi Medium Independent Art Projects

As the end of the year is engulfing Cascade somehow my artists are still completely engaged in their work. Each of them had to pick a message they wanted to convey and illustrate it in three mediums of their choice. Paint, glue, stickers, glitter, paper and pencils have been everywhere and I don't even mind cleaning it up everyday. I really have begun to understand the importance of art in these student's lives. It doesn't happen everyday or for everyone... but on most days you will find most of my students lost in their art. Today one of my students said to me "I love this class, it feels so peaceful."

Bubble Relief

Our students are currently taking the state MSP test and taking it really seriously! With 97% of our student body showing up each morning to take these hard tests; you can only imagine what our afternoons were like. So, it seemed like the perfect time to buy a bunch of bubbles and take them out on the field. They had a blast! Everyone was blowing bubbles and chasing them as they blew everywhere. And the photos they took were very impressive!

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Photographer's Pride

Tonight we had Student Led conferences and I have never felt so proud. My photography students filtered into the room bubbling with excitement to show their parents their blogs and their photos. My favorite qoute of the night was when one of my students said to his father--"Life is art. I love this class because it feels like family and I get to be surrounded by amazing artists. I mean, look around the room at all of this beautiful art. There is so much talent in here." Thanks Eric for making a really long day worth every minute of it! It's a pretty great feeling when you get to hear your students talk about something you are passionate about. Hearing your students discuss to their parents the lighting in a picture or how a photo was composed is a pretty great feeling. I'm looking forward to expanding this program next year!

Mosaic

The colors that had been popping up all over the city inspired me to have my students create beautiful Mosaics of their own. We started with lessons on the color wheel and on analyzing complimentary colors. After I felt like they had a good sense of what colors looked nice together we took on what was to become a massive project. My student's designed their images and then created intensive color plans before they began snapping photos. Once we set out on campus to snap our images students knew how many items of each color they had to photograph. I think they had a great time scavenging the campus with their cameras to find that perfect item for their collage. It was really fun to see how they all turned out. They were all so uniquely different--but as you can see from the images a labor of love.















By Maria Sardella

By Wendy Nunez

Stop Motion

I had the pleasure of visiting the MOMA a couple weeks back and seeing Edward Muybridge's locomotion series. It was really amazing. If you are not familiar Muybridge used a series of large cameras that used glass plates placed in a line, each one being triggered by a thread as the horse passed. Later a clockwork device was used. The images were copied in the form of silhouettes onto a disc and viewed in a machine called a Zoöpractiscope. This, in fact became an intermediate stage towards motion pictures or cinematography. If you have ever seen a movie at the Majestic Bay in Ballard you can see this before the previews. This exhibit inspired my next unit with my students and I have been loving every minute of it.

We have been having a lot of fun with stop motion photography. It has given me a great appreciation for Nick Park and his creation of Wallace and Gromit. It's absolutely mind boggling how patient you have to be to create such a body of work. My Photography classes were very focused on created their mini me characters and then a script to go along with it. I loved watching how intently and carefully they would move each limb to create the effect of motion.

Pin Hole Cameras

My students spent the last two days making pinhole cameras out of Pringles cans. I had such a great time helping them create their little masterpieces. I have Alexandra Knight to thank for teaching me how to make these fun little contraptions. Please take a moment to check out her fabulous pinhole collection on her website:

http://alexandraknightart.com/Pinhole.aspx

This semester has started off on an exciting note. I am now teaching two classes of photography and I can't believe how lucky I am to be surrounded by such a great group of middle schoolers. They all worked really hard in creating these cameras. They enjoyed emptying the chips out of the cans as much as they did painting the insides and creating the camera. I am so excited to see the exciting photos we develop tomorrow!

A year of photos...

It has been a great year of picture taking. I have enjoyed every moment and have learned so much from my clients. I just wanted to take a moment to post some of my favorites.