I do believe Spring is here in full bloom!  The milky white jasmine petals have popped up out of nowhere in our courtyard to fragrance my entire living room.  I have lavender colored blooms where I once only had chives (who knew?) and the best part is the wholesale flower mart has flowers that I covet such as California poppies in my favorite blush tones.  I am over the moon.  I have never seen cut poppies before, I thought because they are so fragile that cutting them was not an option but it seems that the florist adds a little wax at the bottom of each stem and you can enjoy these beauties for  a few beautiful days.  I knew I wanted to get some photo’s up in my office and the color scheme I was considering for the images so the poppies were perfect timing.  I shot them high-key but softened them in post processing to have a ballerina like quality, soft, floaty, dream-like.  I used my kit lens because I seem to have broken my 50mm (it won’t focus), to get the high-key I had to shoot manual, it is at times like these that I am happy that I figured that little photography ‘secret’ out.

I am not sure if these will be going up in the office, the hallway, or the foyer. Should I print one extra large with a glossy white lacquer frame or do a series of tiny squares in unfinished blond wood frames?  When it comes to decisions….What do you think?  Large? Tiny? Lacquer? Natural?

Monday’s should always start with a smooch, wouldn’t it make them so much more inviting?  This is a mother and baby kiss, not all kissing needs to be amorous to be delightful.  I say, why not kiss someone you love this morning? It may make Monday sweeter. Happy May everyone!

After a week of grueling work and intense self-induced stress I thought I would spend a portion of my Saturday unwinding by editing snapshots from my work trip to San Francisco this week.  With my obsessive personality as it is, a couple hours turned into a whole day. This little computer box of mine has me mesmerized and let’s not get started on the siren call that is Photoshop. I can get lost for hours, which I obviously have.  If you are living in San Francisco and have photo block I should flog you, the city is one giant photo-op after another and might I mention that it is so very photogenic. I am going back next week to start another project, I only wish that I was going to have more time to explore.  Note to self, plan a real vacation to visit the ‘Paris of the West’ very soon.

Sigh.  Decision making is not my strong suit. I am great at hemming and hawing but not at ‘pulling the trigger’.  I had a lot of studio inspiration that I collected but to be honest my inspiration worked best with wood floors, preferably stained in a dark lacquer diagonal stripe pattern, I have carpet, I needed a plan B. The inspiration to finally move on my studio makeover came two fold, I had to since I would be working from home and I inherited a bunch of less than perfect furniture.  I knew that refinishing the furniture wasn’t in the budget so I went high-gloss white. I wasn’t planning on going glam but I went coo coo for this neutral gray paint (no blue, brown or violet undertones).

G.G. loves the desk in white.  I know some of you are cringing that I painted a perfectly ugly wood desk, to those individuals I apologize.  I am going to add some silver hoop pulls to the drawers  I need to order on-line, trust me I drove to 50 stores in my state to no avail, patience is not my virtue.

I painted formerly mustard yellow, distressed (in total shambles) low bookshelves in a beautiful bright white gloss, and promptly color-coordinated my books. I read that doing that is passe, but it makes me giddy so I am going with it.

I send out all my printing for clients to a professional printer now so I only need an inexpensive inkjet when I am working on comps in my studio.  This printer is wi-fi so it doesn’t need to be connected to the computer, I am madly in love with technology.

Not all the furniture I inherited was a bust, this vintage chair was in perfect white lacquer and black and white Florence Broadhurst-esque pattern perfection.  Bella loves it.  Click on the photo above to see the ‘before’ photo’s, be prepared they are not pretty. The studio is not complete, I need more storage, to hang some of my photographs, wire assistance and to create a clean inspiration board but it’s better than when I started and I think I will be happy to work here (for now). To be continued…

If the internet was only able to find photo’s of cute animals I would still deem it a huge success. That you can do so much more and find the world’s cutest animals is totally a bonus.  I am not in my City of Angels today, I have a shoot in San Francisco, I am not shooting just supervising which is a little bit of a problem that my photographer has missed his flight and there’s not another one until 6 p.m.  He was already denied two stand-by flights and I am getting pretty nervous about now.  I had to leave the shoot location and find a place to procure extra buttery sourdough toast, find a cute animal to post and try not to run into oncoming traffic.  I don’t have a back up plan.  The Fancy said I should just do the shoot, but I don’t feel confident that I can.  I have never set up lights before but with the trusty ol’ interwebs I just may be able to Google it and see if I can figure it out.  I am not very good at following directions though. Well, we still have the cutest pup ever as a conciliation prize, the day is not a total failure.