I had the opportunity to spend a few days in San Diego, learning from some first-class newborn photographers (baby folding class, I’ve been calling it). I’m so, so excited to come back and get to work on some Minneapolis newborns. Below are just a few of the photos I took while in San Diego.

Photographer Chase Jarvis has been espousing the idea that the best camera is the one you have with you and earlier this year, he released a book and iPhone app under the same phrase. I haven’t seen the book and overall find the app to be mediocre but I’ve been trying to adopt the philosophy myself.

I carry my dSLR with me frequently but it’s kind of a beast so I don’t tend to have it for day-to-day activities. I generally carry a point-and-shoot in my bag (was a Canon SD700 until my Mom permanently borrowed it, now it’s a Canon Powershot G9) but the camera I always have with me is the one in my iPhone. It aint much in terms of cameras – it’s a dinky 2 megapixels, pretty close in count to the first digital camera I had 90 years ago when even entry level cameras were $600 and were big and bulky like a Fisher Price construct. It doesn’t zoom, it does poorly in low light and it has no controls other than “push the button” (which can be difficult enough to do on its own). But it’s there. So I’ve been trying to use it more.

These were all taken, edited and uploaded using my iPhone. They won’t be gracing my walls any time soon and there are folks out there doing a lot more amazing things with the iPhone camera than this, but I’ve been having fun.

fall scenes near my house

The Rock Bottom Brewery in Minneapolis

Driving home from my session at Home For Life Animal Sanctuary

A scene I was viewing while sick on the couch

Trip to Lutsen (next 3)

(I think below is my favorite iPhone photo so far)

A tattoo parlor near my house. No, I didn’t get one.

Watching the Holidazzle with photographer friends from the delicious Zelo Restaurant.

Ice on my bathroom window

In the bathroom stall at the Bryant Lake Bowl

Some witch’s house, forget where I took this.

View of downtown Minneapolis from the 50th floor of the IDS Tower

And, of course, the best use for the iPhone camera…millions of cat photos! I have so many…I’ll save those for another entry. :)

I know Evan’s parents have been anxiously awaiting their blog update and today I was chastised by my mother for lack of blog updates so here we go! The days are just moving by too quickly and there’s so much going on!

When I stepped in the door to Evan’s house, he smiled and he kept smiling throughout the whole session. What a happy little guy! It’s not hard to see why either, he’s obviously quite adored. :)

He was also just discovering his tongue and the joys of sticking it out.

I have to say, I’m kind of appreciating the dreary weather because it’s making it much easier to stay inside and edit away. Sneaking up some August pics for this post…

Anyone who knows me knows I have a big soft spot for animals and especially for kitties so when I heard Dan was going to lose his feline friend to spinal cancer, my heart hurt. He’d done a good job of documenting Mooch’s life but I went over to get a few last images of them together. I was glad I could do it but man, it was tough. The emotions in the shots below almost killed me but at the same time, I was happy to be able to capture them. That’s a cat who’s had a good life.

Dan wrote a touching goodbye tribute to Mooch on his site.

(And while it obviously won’t fix things, I bet it wouldn’t hurt if you wanted to buy one of his fonts.)

For some reason, the majority of my clients lately seem to be little ladies so it was a nice change to hang out with Mr. L for awhile! I headed out to his home in Plymouth over the weekend and we spent some time in different areas of his family’s home.

Favorite teddy. :)

To this little man, the most amusing thing that happened during our session was one of the dogs taking off down into the neighbor’s yard and Dad running after him. That brought plenty of smiles. :)

And aforementioned doggie, with doggie brother, enjoying the newly laid sod in the backyard.

Thanks for having me out to play, guys!