The Dentist...... Open wide she said sweetly!!!!!

Forget the old adage of never working with kids or animals.... give them gadgets or cool things to play with, especially things that they will usually be told not to touch.....and they'll have a ball and grin and skin! And its all fun on the shoot!

But when I just want a nice pic at home and its "smile nah please?".... All I get is one of those scary grimaces or running away shouting "Nooooooooooo!"

Time for a little more sugar!

We did this picture to depict a kiddie food photographer
and show one of the huge number of professions open to our kids these days.

To some it may seem an obscure one, but to someone like me who is addicted to food blogs, and ok, I am a photographer too, its really just work.   :o)

I mean, just check out a few of my favorite blogs for amazing food and pictures like  Breakfast Lunch Dinner and Punch, Sancoche, Tartelette and Mattbites!

So this was my homage to kiddie food and photography, even if it was really only one food group....SUGAR!!
And, I know, as a mom this is not our favorite ingredient BUT......

We made the fake cake from styrotex shapes covered in Royal icing, all manner of sweets, sprinkles and marshmallows. All collected and assembled with great delight!

How much fun was this!

Projects working with kids!

After a long, fun summer off, September has been a really busy month, which is a great way to start the new term with our kids back at school . 

A couple of the great projects to do with kids that I have been working with are the YMCA's 'Shoot 2 Live'  and more recently Growing Leaders.

'Shoot 2 Live' is a photography project I have been working with over the past year that works along side the YMCA's Mentouring project. We have been working with a group of young boys between 11 and 16 years old and they have been learning life skills and photography. 

Some of the fantastic images they have created over the past year are currently exhibiting in the San Fernando and St. James NALIS libraries, moving to the Diego Martin and Arima libraries next week for 2 weeks and then to the POS downtown library.

You can see some of their pics in the Facebook Shoot 2 Live online gallery at Shoot-2-Live.

Another great project that I am happy to be getting involved with is the Growing Leaders Foundation.

Take a look at what they are starting to do at in classrooms at primary schools around the country

and also get more info from their web page. More on their projects soon!

I guess for a lot of people, when we reach a certain age or start having kids, we start wanting to give back to the community that our kids are going to grow up in. 

If you can find any time to give, why not get involved, in even a little way with a project you like and help some kids get inspired!

A crescent moon with my baby...

Sitting on the step after dinner with munchkin on my lap as she takes pictures of her crescent moon!

Sometimes life just doesn't get better than this!

The only thing missing were fireflies....
I remember them way back when, but I can't tell you the last time I saw any.

Where have they gone to?
Does anyone see them anymore?
Maybe they have just moved to the country!

PIzza!!!!!

Ok, so my pizza making has evolved past my very early star and moon shaped pizza-toasties to proper yeasty dough. All thanks to inspiration from Sasha and Jaimie Olivers foolproof pizza-dough recipe.
Yes, Sasha makes bread, pizza, pittas and all sorts of magical stuff, how come I have so many friends who are great cooks?
So I went shopping for all the kinds of yummy Pizza Express toppings I used to sooooo love in London, proscuitto, mozzarella, basil, black olives...... yumm scrumm!
We tried it, it worked, and we loved it!
Sods law, the pictures I loved best were the raw ones before they went in the oven, drizzled in olive oil, a dusting of flour and generous handfuls of cheesy goodness.

A new way to look at your Bellibabies pics....

Yayyyyyyy!!! I am loving my new online gallery.
I signed up for Smugmug galleries after seeing my friend Graeme Ottley's great pages for his wedding photography Fotograe there.
Its sooooo much easier for all of you to see your pictures online, each with your own private gallery and password. So cool!
Much better than having to come back to the studio to collect a CD and then browse through them on your own computers' photobrowser which can be sooooo tedious.
This way, I just email you the link and password, click, and you can see them whenever, wherever, even at friends and familys houses!
That's if you really want them to see all your shots!
You can view each pic full size or browse through the pages of thumbnails and I get to upload options of colour or black and white for different shots.
If you wanna get an idea of how it works you can go to smugmug and take a look around. The current Bellibabies galleries are locked but you will get an idea.
I promise I will upload a sample gallery of belly and baby shots soon, but not tomorrow.... its gonna be playtime with my waterbaby!!

Reminds me of my childhood...

warm quiet sunday afternoons..

lounging barefoot on the couch......

hand-me-down bentwood rockers.....

the amazing caribbean colours of beckett ......

living rooms with lots of light and plants.... 

lost in a world of scribbles and colouring....