Miss Venezuela

And this is my alternative blip one of the mums from school in the style of Seaurchin. I know many of us feel the same about her ethereal work - I've no idea how she does it but I had a guess anyway.

So this is Miss Venezuela. Well almost. Miss Miriam, one of Reuben's lovely special ed teachers at the UCLA Early Intervention Program (I have to get used to writing Program and not Programme, or do I? I mean what happens when my boys start saying you say tomARto and we say tomAYto or you spell it colour and we spell it color. Or if when I pop back to the UK in May I sound a little more American than I did when I first moved to the US 7 years ago). I've always thought Miriam looks great in this green top which is far more vibrant than suggests here (fessing up to LR), so when I saw her today in it, the heavens were aligned for me and my Canon.

I feel I've set myself a big challenge for graduation next Thursday (parents traditionally buy little gifts for the kids and teachers) to photo all 5 teachers and 10 school friends and their families and typical me, I have to take 50 pics of all and do my editing. So only 15 shoots between now and then (including the ones done this week, see yesterday's). But it's been enjoyable, even if it's meant grabbing the mums, dads, nanas and grandads and having the following conversations:
"Can I take your pics please as my gift to you from Reuben."
"But it's not sunny today".
"Exactly, that's perfect."

So I did 3 teachers and 2 families today quickly after school.

If anyone has any great ideas on what I should do from here (I think I've said Arts & Crafts aren't my forte and there are plenty of greatly crafty folk here who may have some better ideas), gift them the CDs (that's 15 CDs) and a few 4x6s (developing: I'm crap at getting that done as I insist on getting pro shots not mass produced store ones), along with the online ones they can dowload high resolution from my site, or what else, ideas on a postcard please.

The project as it grows. No I really don't anticipate anyone looking but it helps me to keep a record from Blip to my Smugmug. They're almost all SOOC but for each family I've tried to do a few edits. All the families have been through such challenges in every conceivable area of development and medicine and now my boy Reuben is the biggest boy (if not in height, in age), in the class.

Doing my first engagement shoot this Friday with the hope that I'll shoot their wedding in the summer. I proposed it as an idea: this way I can get to know them better, they can see my work as relates to them and we can work on a brief that exactly fits their expectations and not what I, Would be Photographer Dreamer, wants them to have. I have a postgrad in Marketing so I'll start thinking back to all the briefs I'd do to get my business brain back again after it's been Mama Muffled.

Final note: I've never used so much parenthesis in prose before in my life. It feels lazy grammatically but I guess I'm not in a literary competition, only a photographic. (It is, isn't it?).