Elements Of My Childhood

When I was young, my mom and my nana made a lot of my clothing. My mom sewed and my nana crocheted. A while back, my mom gave me a bag of what remained from my childhood. I carefully washed each piece, but that's as far as I got. Since then I've just been moving them from one area of the house to another, planning to eventually photograph all of them for posterity. Well, I finally got around to it. I went to Joann's and bought some white muslin fabric to use as a backdrop, laid it out on the living room floor, and carefully placed each dress, coat, skirt, and sweater in the middle of the fabric, one at a time, until I had photographed all of them. As I was styling each piece, I realized how much love and care went into making each of them. All of the dresses my mom made had pockets in them. One of them even had a little appliqué turtle sewn on the front, near the collar, like a Lacost alligator. Each button had been carefully selected. Each sweater edge had been expertly finished. Each lining lovingly sewn. Even the dirndls, a traditional German dress, which came from my aunt and uncle in Germany had been sewn with great care (albeit in a factory, but well made none-the-less). No detail was overlooked, from the appliqués to the buttons, to the matching aprons and decorative edging.

And now comes the slightly difficult part, letting them go. I know it's just clothing, but it's also a little piece of my past wrapped up in love and happy memories of feeling special and pretty, as every little girl should feel at some point. But it's time to pass them on. I'm giving them to two very dear college friends so their little girls can feel special and pretty.  Who knew a carefully selected button or a delicately stitched sweater edge could be so powerful. Thanks Mom...Thanks Nana...for making me feel special and pretty.

Longwood Gardens in Winter

I went to Longwood Gardens again the other day. I just love it there. So peaceful and serene. It's a perfect escape from the cold, bareness of winter.

A Longwood Gardens Christmas with Hipstamatic

Last Thursday evening, Zach and I drove down to Kennett Square to check out this year's Christmas displays at Longwood Gardens. It was magical, as always.

Here's some shots I took with my iPhone using the Hipstamatic app:

Show Me Your LOMO

There's been a major surge in the popularity of old Instamatic-type cameras originally designed by Kodak and made popular in the 60s and 70s. A lot of people from my generation seem to be rather nostalgic right now, me included, and we just can't get enough vignetting or solar haze. Happily, there are a plethora of apps, like Hipstamatic and Instagram for the iPhone that allow you to simulate the qualities produced by many of these retro cameras. If you want to take it one step further, you can buy reproductions of some of these cameras (here and here are two good places to start.), like the LOMO LC-A, a camera so popular it inspired the creation of an entire society!

Produced by LOMO PLC in St. Petersburg, Russia starting in 1984, the LC-A produced strongly vignetted images in vivid colors reminiscent of the way Technicolor made everything pop in the movies. Supposedly, back in the 90s, a bunch of people got really excited about the fixed-lens camera, and it has enjoyed a cult following that still carries on today. People just couldn't resist all that vignetting and super-saturated color!

Of course, if you don't have an iPhone or you're not nostalgic enough to drop 225 beans (or more) for a repro, fear not, you can create similar LOMO effects with some photo-editing software, like Photoshop. I stumbled upon this tutorial a few weeks ago and thought it was pretty helpful, so instead of recreating the wheel, I'm just gonna give you the link.

Here's what I ended up with:

If any of you try this tutorial with one of your photos, I'd love to see it. leave a link to it in the comments. Happy LOMO-ing!

Thanks for teaching us to think different Steve Jobs

Inspiration: Kara Layne

Today I watched an interview with lifestyle photographer Kara Layne from the "How'd They Do That?" series on AdoramaTV with Mark Wallace. The piece of advice she shared that really stood out was: "know your equipment." Kara shoots solely in manual mode to really challenge herself to learn and understand all that her camera can do. Here's the interview:

Lifestyle Photographer, Kara Layne: How'd They Do That? from AdoramaTV on Vimeo.