…you just need to know where to look.
I decided to put the math books aside and take the kids on a hike for school today. Math and I have never really been on good terms, so it didn’t take much to convince me. It didn’t take much to convince the kids either. 
So, we loaded into the car and headed to our favorite hiking spot, The Santa Rosa Plateaus. Since it is getting dark earlier, it put us hiking right in the middle of the golden hour. You should have seen the sunlight on the grass. Oh my. Usually, we hike much earlier in the day. So changing that from here on out. Only leaving my house during the Golden Hour ever maybe. Maybe not. Um, I’m rambling, aren’t I? Can’t help myself sometimes. Happens a lot, actually. Just saying. Now I should probably just quit while I am ahead and move onto to the images from today. Check out the awesome light.
Sophia took this shot of me.
Another Sophia shot, in my favorite road.
This little lady is probably starting to look pretty familiar. I got to see her at 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, and now….she is one year old!! She went from, pretty much just laying there…to sitting up….to crawling for the first time ever, at our session…and now walking!
And she did most of her walking, at this session, in red classic Vans. Sweet.
Darby had just had her birthday party, and her favorite gifts were books. How cool is that? She spent a huge part of the session reading…..
….and reading…….
….and reading……
…aaaaaaand……reading………
She ended her session with a piece of birthday cake…..which is awesome. I am a firm believer that all of my sessions should end with dessert.
Neil and Brenda…It has been an honor to watch Darby grow over this past year. I don’t know what I am going to do when three months passes, and I have no Darby session scheduled. You may just come home and find me sitting on your porch. I am kidding, of course. That would be creepy….wouldn’t it? Yeah, ok…..creepy. Ok, email updates it is. But I have heard that 15 month sessions are all the rage these days…..just saying.
As I mentioned, there are a lot of changes going on…and change can bring some chaos with it. In that chaos, things can get lost in the shuffle. I realized, when I took those last images of my daughter, that it had been a long, long time since I had used my camera to take any images for myself. Shooting sessions is awesome, don’t get me wrong…..but I miss shooting for myself too. Just for the love of photography. I could make some goal to shoot something for myself every day, but I know I would never keep it up. What I am going to do, is make a conscious effort to use my camera like I used to. As an outlet….a release…and something just plain fun to do. So..along with this brain dump, you get a camera dump too. These are some random personal images off of my camera this week.
The kids doing school work. You can’t even tell that they were bickering like a couple of rabid squirrels, can you?
A settings adjustment shot. Yes, I adjust my settings by taking shots of my shoes. I have a lot of these. I always delete them. I decided to let this one live.
A sky shot. Duh. But…look at the puffy clouds….And! It is actually blue! In Southern California that is not something to be taken for granted. Not sure where all of the smog decided to go on this particular day.
My daughter and the neighbor girls…all squeezing on one rocking cow toy. They had quite the system going to make sure everyone fit…and got a turn in each spot.
Sophia…in a moment of drama, I am sure. Almost all of her moments are moments of drama.
