I promised myself I wouldn't post too many family sessions in a row, but it being world breastfeeding week,  can't help myself! Let me explain. While I was in LA for a wedding a couple of weekends ago, I snuck in a quick and casual shoot with one of my FAVORITE little families; Christina, and her wife Patty, and their sweet baby Beatrice. Well- Bea is in this phase where she wants to nurse while being read to. It is kind of adorable. (If a wee bit of a nuisance to her patient mama.) And since we were happy to sit back and let her direct the morning (rather than try and pose a busy toddler), that is what we have a lot of photos of! Which I loooooove. I am so happy to be able to share a positive image of (what our country considers extended) breastfeeding, and I think it is important to be vocal/upfront about breastfeeding. The more people are exposed to it, the more normal it becomes and our society accepting of it, the more woman are likely to be successful in meeting their breastfeeding goals. (Here is some reading on the subject). In other news, how AWESOME is Bea's drum set? Pickin up skills from her  ma! RAD. Thanks guys, for letting me be a part of this morning! PS All Images are totally suitable for work! 

As usual, I am available to photograph YOUR family in Southern California. Email me at desertfete (at) gmail (dot) com.

 

If you guys haven't noticed, things are shifting a lot in my life's focus. I don't mean Henry, but photography. I am still trying to figure out how that works with this space, vs another one dedicated to that pursuit, but until I figure all that out, I hope you don't mind if I keep sharing here. And of course, if you would like ME to photograph YOU, please email me! (desertfete at gmail dot com). I have very reasonable rates. (I live in San Diego, but am often traveling to other parts of California anyways).

One afternoon during our trip in New York (while Ben and Henry were snoozing) I snuck over to the gorgeous Gantry Plaza State Park to take photos of one of my favorite picture taking, blog writing ladies, her adooooooorable baby Harper, and very cute hubby Vivek. I am trying to talk this family into moving to San Diego! Ha! Check out the pictures if you like, below. Thanks Mercie & family!

I have been kind of a bad blogger for some time. I am not referring to the long break, and the sporadic posting, but my general reciprocity. So many of you fine folks have been coming round and leaving delightful comments, and I so rarely have (make?) the time to check out who you are what you are up to. I aim to change that. And I'd like to share some of what I find (hopefully on a semi regular basis), cause you all are pretty rad!

First up is the crazy talented Jasmine. She got my attention when she mentioned that we had the same evening a while back. Well- she left a comment, I left a comment, and a couple of emails later we were chatting over 2 real beers (and one real baby).
Girl is as rad in person as she is skilled with a shutter. Keep up with her well photographed adventures on her (delightfully designed!) blog, the daily frolic!. DEF check out her wedding (photographed by James Moes) and wish that you had been friends with her so that you could have been there, BOTH DAYS.
(top image by James Moes, the rest by Jasmine Fitzwilliam)

We are so lucky to welcome Kate Miss of For Me, For You today. Kate has impeccable taste in style and design, and her Bits of My Weekend photos were one of the few that inspired me to start posting recaps (sometimes) of my weekends. In between her picture perfect weekends and adorable cat Wendy she somehow finds time to make the best jewelry. Kate grew up in Seattle, which I find incredibly cool (having grown up in Las Vegas.) I lived for a stint in Seattle and always love hearing about it, so I asked her to do a little post for us on that!



Although I have not lived there in quite a while, when I think about where home is to me, my gut instinct is to think of Seattle. While it was “the city” to me growing up in the ‘burbs and always seemed so magical to me when I was young, eventually the laid back attitude, very quiet hum and very gentle bustle of the city turned me off and fueled me to get the hell out and over to the insanity of New York City. But the older I get the more I fall back in love with Seattle and crave the quieter hum, the smaller city charm, and just how damn nice and positive everyone is for a place where clouds loom practically half of the year. I also cannot go any further without mentioning how beautiful Seattle is, clouds or not. There are certain parts of California and the deserts of Arizona that take my breath away, but nowhere else does that mossy green and mountain range make my heart beat like Seattle. You don’t even need to leave the city to catch a glimpse of all that beauty either, it’s right there at arms length.



So what should you do if you go for a visit? There are a million things to do, but here is a very quick day plan I like:

- Stay at The Ace. They have pretty affordable shared bathroom rooms that I can attest to being awesome. I do not like shared bathrooms, but the bathrooms are directly outside of your door, and during a summer stay I never once had to wait for someone or see another soul exit it. It’s also in a relatively convenient area in Belltown downtown, you can see the water from some of the windows, and the design of everything is top-notch.

- Visit the Seattle Art Museum, recently renovated and made even more awesome, and also visit the sculpture park on the water. Even if you’re not into the sculptures, the view of the water is really peaceful, and on a clear day you can see the Cascade Mountains.

- You have two choices I cannot decide between: drive/bus to Capitol Hill and eat at Oddfellows, or drive/bus it to Ballard and have Mexican food at La Carta De Oaxaca. If you are super lazy and do not want to leave the 'hood, walk down the Mamas.

- If you chose Capitol Hill, you can walk around Pike and Pine and visit cute shops along those streets. There's so much new stuff since I lived there! If you chose Ballard, walk down Ballard Ave to visit those cute shops. If you were lazy, walk over to Pike Place. Sure, it's touristy, but I still love it.

- Have dinner at Le Pichet, my favorite restaurant in Seattle that has amazing French food and is a close walk from The Ace. It’s fancy without feeling pretentious or too fancy.



I hope you get a chance to visit someday if you haven’t. Stay tuned for my second guest post where I suggest a different itinerary for a day!

i love the brooklyn home of photographer mark borthwick. so simple + sparse. wood, sheepskin, plantlife, musical instruments and lots of light. what else does a palette really need?

photographs by christopher sturman + keetja allard via pachadesign.

More dreamy Texas photos! This time from Abby. (we needed something prettier than all that cold remedy stuff).

I have been loving the beautiful pictures by Texas photographer Lauren McClure on her blog, Snaps and Studies.



Naturally, they reawawaken my urge for a Texas roadtrip.....

Um, yeah. I warned you, right?

We got in pretty early on Saturday, enough to hit a few shops and then check in to our incredibly sexy house, where we had graciously been invited to spend the weekend (you noticed that house, right? Rockreach House? If not, don't worry. I will do a follow up post on it). The house was on whoknowshowmany acres of private land, so after we had soaked in our built environment we went on a little sunset cruise to explore the surrounding natural environment. We collected ditritus (thanks for the vocab, Britty) to help set the next nights' dinner table. Not pictured are epic battles in Taboo and Apples to Apples, and a Saturday night trip to Pappy's where we heard a band called The Country open with a cover of Are You Ready for The Country, which was actually quite cute (so on the fringe of not being cute). Sunday (my birthday!) we tromped around the park, and came home to prepare an amazing meal. Served on Heath dinnerwear. Yep, the house is stocked with Heath. Happy Birthday to me. I might have a group photo to share, except when we asked a man in the park very sweetly "Would you mind snapping a quick photo of us?" with the camera held out, I was answered, with not as much as a glance up, "Not right now." We were so tempted to wait 20 or 30 minutes and walk back by him, "Is now better?" We are pretty sure that was the first time ever in history someone has declined to take a photo for someone else. Oh well. He didn't know it was my birthday.