On Sunday, I photographed the March of Dimes’ March for Babies. Early weather predictions had me a bit nervous as they were calling for rain and storms on Sunday. Then it got colder and colder and snowed on Saturday. Thanks to the craziness that is living in Minnesota, the windchill was below 30 when I was getting ready Sunday morning. But thankfully there was no precipitation of any kind and even a bit of sun here and there.

The St. Paul walk was held at Phalen Park which was quite beautiful despite the colder temps. I arrived at 9 as the volunteers were setting up the registration tables and the sponsors were preparing and the mini-donut truck was smelling oh-so-delicious. (Sadly, I had not brought any cash!) The walkers started arriving around 10, kids and strollers and dogs in tow.

The purpose of the March for Babies is to raise money to fund research to help prevent premature births, birth defects and infant mortality. Many of the families there had heartwarming stories about their NICU graduates and others had heartwrenching stories of little ones that they had lost. This is the daughter of this year’s ambassador family who was born weighing little more than a pound and is now doing quite well.

And a mother who led us in the National Anthem whose daughter had a similar story.

The walk route was around Lake Phalen, 3.1 miles. Most people welcomed the opportunity to warm up. I felt slightly annoyed at the weight of my camera bag until I saw many mothers toting (lugging is probably even a fair word) toddlers in their arms around the lake.

After the walk was more mini-donuts and hot dogs and the hokey pokey and St. Paul Saints mascot Mudonna and lots of playground time. And for me, lots and lots and lots of photos to look through!

Okay, so I’ve made the changes to the rss feed now and hopefully all is right with the world.

So I’ve released a new site called Keep Up, Minnesota! My intention is for it to serve as a central listing place for workshops, events, etc. for photographers in the MN area. There are a few other site features that I’m still working on as time allows but the events are rolling so check it out!

Just a quick note - I know some of you follow the blog using an rss reader. I’m going to be modifying the feed a bit today. In theory, nothing should change for you. In practice, however…? I’ll be posting an entry later today after modifying the feed. If the feed doesn’t deliver any more posts, I’d love it if you could pop in and let me know. Thanks!

A local Flickr group planned a Flickr walk (a photo meetup) for last Sunday and I’d been toying with the idea of attending all week. When the weekend rolled around, I wasn’t really feeling interested in taking photos but the weather was getting nicer and nicer and I was afraid if I didn’t go, I’d spend the day inside working.

Generally when I go on these photo walks, I overpack (just like I do every time I go on a trip). I’m never sure what lenses I’ll want to use and I don’t want to miss anything (!!) so I bring too much. I’ve been getting better over the months, partly dictated by the fact that the weight of camera gear adds up quickly and, many times, an hour or two into the walks, my bag has become just annoyingly heavy. Because I wasn’t really excited about taking photos this past weekend, I decided to go a different route and just brought two lenses - sort of specialty lenses - a Lensbaby and a 100mm macro.

A Lensbaby is a selective focus lens meaning that it has a very specific point of focus and lots of blur. It’s a pretty unique little gizmo and certainly not for everyone. When I first got my Lensbaby and was experimenting with it last year, I took some of the images to camera club and scored about as low as possible. I actually used to be in the “hate it” camp as well until I saw this gallery of images and fell in instant love. I haven’t really mastered the use of the Lensbaby yet because I don’t use it often but I do like some of the results.

So I headed off and met up with quite a group of other photographers. We started at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, home of the iconic Spoonbridge and Cherry.

Walked around and saw some interesting sculptures (I don’t know what this one was titled but if it were mine, I called it “Lost My Mind”).

And perhaps most excitingly, saw a few flowers blooming! Minnesota really doesn’t seem to be into that transitional period that most areas experience between snow and 75 degree weather.

Then we reconvened and headed over the Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge which connects the Sculpture Garden and Loring Park. The bridge is decorated with lines from a John Ashbery poem, making it a unique crossing of 16 lanes of traffic.

Also boasts something of a view of the Basilica of St. Mary.

Loring Park was idyllic. Beautiful weather, everyone was out, the ducks were happy to have somewhere liquid to park their rears and even though I still wasn’t really feeling the photos, it was just nice to be out. We eventually ended up all watching a rather large group of boys stunt riding on bikes in painfully impressive ways.

My overall photo haul from this walk was significantly smaller than usual. I probably took about a 1/3 the number of photos that I usually take and didn’t like most of them but I plan on making an effort to do more shooting on my own in the near future.

It’s live! I finally have something more than a temporary landing page on my website. Go take a peek…especially if you’re a client or someone I’ve shot with, you might see a face or two that you recognize.

Glimpses of Soul Photography - candid portraiture for newborns, children and families

Tiny little Stella wasn’t too happy during our session…turns out she had a bit of acid reflux…but she still managed to be pretty darn cute.

They had this awesome animal print stool that caught my eye immediately.

Now how about some Spring up here, hmm?

I am happy and honored to say that Family and Children’s Service selected me as their Volunteer of the Month for April and profiled me in their newsletter and on their website. You can see the article here.

I’m equally happy to offer a 20% discount off both the session fee AND the print/product prices for employees and regular volunteers of FCS. Just contact me and let me know and we’ll set something up!

And if you’re in the Twin Cities area and looking to volunteer, check out their current opportunities!