While we were in North Carolina we noticed that there sure were a lot of dogs.  Everyone seemed to have a dog or two (or three). The couple we were staying with had two dogs, two cats and a nine month old, a full house to be sure. My husband loves dogs and dogs love him. This giant puppy was a 115 lb. deaf Great Dane that thought she was a lap dog. Really.  I would walk into the den to find her as close to huddled on my husband’s lap as she could get. He was a great sport about it and tried to accommodate her as best as possible.  I can tell you that he never let’s me sit in his lap.

I guess what you really want to know is if we finally chose a place to re-locate.  We have narrowed it down to two locations–Napa Valley or White Chapel, North Carolina.  They are actually quite a lot alike, both rural but a stone’s throw from ‘civilization’. In Napa you are an hour drive to San Francisco (my favorite American city), in North Carolina you are an hour by plane from New York City or Miami, a mere six hours from Europe.  Of course the whole idea of moving is to be able to buy a house and have a great place to raise our (hopefully) future kids. With our budget we could afford a modest house in Napa Valley, but it would be a house in Napa Valley. In North Carolina, well that’s a game changer, we could get a beautiful house with acres of land (which means I could have my miniature animal farm!) it would still be modest, but I could have my mini farm plus my own studio space, both of these sound very attractive to me. In North Carolina, I do fear that it could feel a little isolated being that I am a City girl.  Now we live a block from one of the busiest streets in Los Angeles (not a plus mind you) but convenient to everything. We are going to be doing some more number crunching this evening, we do know that May 1st is our deadline so we don’t have a lot of time to be hemming and hawing.  Any advice, suggestions, questions? 

I can not express how good it felt to finally sleep in my own bed.  It was so good that I convinced my husband to stay in bed all day Sunday.  We have never done that, unless we were on vacation (these recent trips have so not been vacation) and it felt so decadent, the little things. We watched movies, ate chocolate for lunch and watched more movies. It was blissful. I have been plagued with allergies this last week, so I was due for a day of bed rest. I don’t think it helped one bit when we were in Georgia it was the the worse pollen ridden day in history (parked cars were yellow with pollen dust, or whatever it is they call it). I thought I would die, no joke. My head felt like it was going to implode, I had blown my nose so much I had callouses on my nostrils, my eyes were practically swollen shut and breathing was out of the question. I was in a bad way. The allergies didn’t let up when we landed in the City of Angels, in fact the added pollution may have exacerbated them even more. So if you were wondering if being in bed all Sunday was code for something else I can assure you it was not (besides this is a G rated blog).  Have a happy Monday!

P.S. These photographs were taken early morning after sunrise on the airplane. The woman next to me asked me if I minded putting the shade down. I am usually very polite, but yes, I did mind. If you see light like this you have to pretend you don’t understand what language your seat mate is speaking when they spout such crazy talk. Trust me I am never up near sunrise and certainly don’t often have the opportunity to capture beautiful soft golden sunlight reflecting off of billowy white clouds, creating the most gorgeous pink light you ever did see. In those situations, feel free to be a little selfish, the light is fleeting so ignoring the request for a wee bit is just fine.

 

This was a quick snapshot from the car when we were touring around Durham, North Carolina. I have much to say about my trip, but not a lot of time right now to write about it.  I missed you though, so I decided to stop by and say a quick hello. Durham is darling, did you know that they did a test ‘Empire State’ building there? I love that fact. The big industry used to be tobacco, but now I hear it’s piggies.  I didn’t ask for further details.  I don’t want to know about piggy commerce. We’re flying back tomorrow, I am thrilled to be able to sleep in my own bed.

We are leaving for North Carolina tomorrow morning, early tomorrow morning. 4:30 a.m. to be exact. I am not looking forward to getting up at 4:00 a.m., that just sounds like a bit of torture. I am excited though to be able to fly during the day so I can photograph lots and lots of clouds. I love the view from way above the world, well, my world. George my 3lb dog will be my traveling companion, my husband is on another flight. My baby Bella will staying at home, because of her smooshed face I wasn’t too keen on bringing her on the airplane. She will be in good hands and her ‘baby’ sitter has promised me that we can Skype every night. I know I am a crazy dog lady, that’s a fact. I am slowly continuing to add edits.  I am not behind in doing them, just behind in adding them. I hope that the internet situation won’t be as bad as our last trip. This trip is extra exciting since we will be making up our mind about where we are going to re-locate when we get back, possibly even on the airplane (we are flying together on the way back). The decision is going to be fast.  I hope the move will be too.  I feel a little in limbo right now and can’t wait to settle into our future home.

We had a tidal wave of inquiries asking when the next Souvenir Foto School session was going to start.  We knew we wanted to take a month off from our last class, since shooting every day for a month is not easy. I think everyone that finished the class felt a huge sense of accomplishment and we saw improvement in spades. Souvenir Foto School was created to focus on creative captures and all of our classes have revolved around that concept, but we really felt though that we should teach a class that helped you become a better photographer.  We are not a photo 101, but we know that if we taught these principles in an accessible way that we could help you take better photos in one lesson.  How do we know that?  We have watched as students in our classes took our feedback and started applying it to their photographs, there was immediate improvement and instead of it feeling restricting to utilize these principles it lent itself to more creativity.  Both myself and my co-professor Michelle never cease to be amazed by the talent that is revealed in these classes.  We plan to add many testimonials and ‘before’ and ‘afters’ for you to peruse if you are considering making the investment into the next class. I thought I would leave a link for you with a ‘before’ and ‘after’ from one of our former students, her improvement blew us away. We have encouraged her to sell the images from her last class (and we sure hope she takes our unsolicited advice!). If you want to learn more about the April session come visit us here.