The something that feels like it took 50 years is my brand new blog design.  Woohoo!  Believe me when I tell you that it took about that long.  I get in to arguments with myself, I change my mind, I get on my own nerves, it is not an easy process.  Those of you who read my blog via RSS or Google reader be sure and stop in and check out the new look!  There are still a few things I need to tweak and add, but for the most part it is good to go!  Leave a note in the comment box and let me know what you think.

So, back to the wonderful couple celebrating 50 fantastic years, Happy Anniversary, here’s to many more wonderful years to come!  How about another 50?

I try to photograph my children every opportunity I get, although I will say that these days they want no part of it.  Sort of how the cobbler’s children don’t have shoes analogy.  However, when I do get the chance to get some candid shots, what happens to those photos?  Are they in a album or on display for everyone to see?  Sadly, no they are not.  They are sitting here on my computer, on a external hard drive or even backed up to my flickr account.

With the digital age I think that most people I know are often guilty of this same exact thing!  I can’t tell you how many non-photographer friends I have that have called me crying because their hard drives crashed and they lost all of the photos of their children (it’s happened to me too, but they were recovered).  Consider the photos that you take as your digital negatives.  Back them up not only on your home computer, but to a private online site such as flickr, smug mug, etc where they are there in case something happens to your computer or home.  The most important thing is to also PRINT THEM OUT.  I certainly need to take my own advice and that’s on my resolution list for next year.

When your kids grow up and they want to see photos of themselves you don’t want to miss out on those fun times flipping through photo albums together!  I know my kids get the biggest kicks out of looking at photos from when they were younger (of the few I actually have printed out).  Can you imagine your son or daughter asking you “Mommy what did I look like when I was a baby?”, then you have to go over to the computer, try and find the files, nope they are on a cd somewhere, go and try and dig up the cd, nope wrong one, it must be somewhere around here right?

You want to be sure to not only have your wonderfully awesome professional portraits to show them (from your friendly neighborhood photographer, say oh me ) but you also need to have those special every day photos to look back on as well.   Children grow up so fast and you don’t want their childhood trapped on your computer do you?  (See how I’m guilting you in to printing your snapshots from your digital camera, is it working?  What if I offer you chocolate?)

I recommend www.mpix.com for consumer printing, Costco even does a great job!

So for your list of New Year’s Resolutions, be sure to add to the list: I (insert name here) promise to let my children’s every day photographs be seen and not trapped on my computer.  I will make sure that I print the photos from my camera often!

See that wasn’t hard now was it?  While I was going down memory lane and uploading old photos of my kids, I came across a few of my youngest that made me giggle.  I haven’t even gotten to the stacks of cds from my son, that could take a while because there are a ton!

I should have known back then that she was going to be one feisty little girl!  These photos are almost four years old and yep you guessed it, have never been printed until today, I uploaded them to my lab and they will be arriving soon!

Now I would love to tell you who I’m voting for and why I think you should vote for that person, but I don’t like to mix my politics with my business.  I just ask that you please vote and choose who is best for you, your values, your beliefs and who you think is best person to lead our country.  Also whoever wins I hope that you will all support our new President, even if it’s not who you voted for.  Now more than ever we need to all join together to come out of this slump that we are in.

Email a photo of you with your “I Voted” sticker to contest@angelacalderon.com and I’ll pick a winner for a itunes gift card!  Entries must be received by Tuesday night at 11:59 eastern standard time. Get out and rock the vote tomorrow!

]]> http://angelacalderon.com/blog/2008/11/03/just-do-it/feed/ 4 http://angelacalderon.com/blog/2008/10/04/hey-los-angeles/ http://angelacalderon.com/blog/2008/10/04/hey-los-angeles/#comments Sat, 04 Oct 2008 22:54:20 +0000 Angela http://angelacalderon.com/blog/?p=334 First I have to confess to being a horrible blogger the past couple of weeks (like you haven’t noticed), I have some wonderful sessions to share and will catch up soon and post them for you to see.  Super cute babies & kids!

I am currently working on my schedule for Los Angeles portrait sessions in November.  Right now it’s looking like the 1st or 2nd week of November.  If you are interested in booking a LA shoot email me and I will give you the info and add you to the list.  Appointments will be given on a first contact first served basis, I already have quite a few of my current clients on the list so be sure and contact me asap if you are interested!

I don’t like to blog without adding a photo, so I’ll share one I took for my Grandmother.  She sent my daughter this dress and wanted me to photograph her in it, so here is the result.  I think I can count on one hand the number of seconds she co-operated with me while trying to do this, little stinker!

Hope you are all having a great weekend!!!

On September 11, 2001 I remember exactly where I was.  I was 36 weeks pregnant with my son Spencer, I was at home on bedrest and I was asleep.  My husband called me and asked me if I had heard what happened, and he told me to turn on the television.  I was horrified at what I saw and I was so confused and couldn’t believe what was happening.  Things like that weren’t supposed to happen here, I think I must have cried a million times that day.  My husband’s office was in Hollywood in a high security building about 35 miles from our home.  Shortly after the first plane hit the World Trade Center there were bomb threats to his office and they had to evacuate the building.  He came home and we had to go to the hospital for stress tests on the baby.

As we sat in the hospital while I was hooked up to the fetal monitors I kept thinking to myself, please please little one do not be born today.  I must admit I was very afraid, I was wondering if Los Angeles would be the next target.  I also didn’t want my son to be born on a day of such sadness.  He wasn’t born that day, he waited 8 days and arrived on 9/19.

I cannot believe it’s been seven years since this happened to out country.  I hope today you will all remember to give your loved ones extra hugs and kisses and be grateful for them and for the time you have with them.  We often forget how precious time is and how quickly our lives can change.

I took this photo in 1999 on my last trip to New York prior to 9/11.  I was still using film back then and it was such a windy day that I couldn’t hold the camera still and my hair kept flying in front of the lens.  We were on the boat to go out to the Statue of Liberty.

Today I traveled to Griffith Park to photograph three beautiful sisters.  They are surprising their Mom with these photos, so today they are going to show her this blog entry and surprise her with a few sneak peeks from today’s session.

Ok seriously, it is not fair to be this gorgeous!  Not fair not fair not fair!  But on top of being so beautiful, they were so very sweet and kind to me too.  I’m often asked if I photograph adults, yes I sure do, I just have children on my site for now, I need to add the adults to my site, it’s on my never ending list.  The best part about photographing adults, you don’t have to chase or bribe them!  Nice!

Here are a few sneak peeks just for their Mom.  I hope that all of you have a wonderful Mother’s Day!!!!!

I’m a bad photographer, when I go to Disneyland I usually just take my little point and shoot camera and throw it in the backpack. The few times that I took my DSLRs I regretted it because I was constantly worried about them getting broken, bumped or stolen. With my point and shoot it’s just so much easier, although I think everyone else had their nice DSLRs with them, not so many point and shoots being carried anymore.

My kids would rather eat dirt than have me try and photograph them, so out of the 6 hours we were there today I took a grand total of 8 photos and three little video clips. So I’ll share two of the photos and one of the clips. I hope you all had a great weekend!

PS – It’s ok if my voice gets on your nerves in this video, it gets on mine too, at least you don’t have to live with it and hear it 24 hours a day!

I call this video “When Giant Hands Attack!

One of my friends IM’d me the other day and said: “Hey you are a bad parent”, I said thanks and so are you!   She said no really you are and then linked me to the story with my photo.  So apparently Babble has a series where all of the articles are in a group called Bad Parent and it’s about parents who do things that they shouldnt – like let their children watch too much tv, etc.  I haven’t read the articles, I just saw the titles.

So now I’ve been labeled as a bad parent for my $1 bribe (not really, it’s just funny that is the title on my photo).  Oh well, if that’s the charge then I’m guilty.  But let me tell you these people must not know of that crazy illness called PKS aka Photographers Kid Syndrome.  Oh we photographers struggle with this, many of us have even thought of asking our clients if we could hang photos of their children in our homes because, well, our clients children typically cooperate much more than our own children.  I get big sighs, I get “put the camera away” comments, they run, yep my kids avoid the camera at all costs.  So this bad parent has to resort to bribing.

Here’s my label photo below, I have many labels for myself, but for today it’s Bad Parent.  Look my happy little bribees (is that a new word?).

NKOTB, New Kids on the Block. I know that all you girls out there in your early to mid-thirties probably won’t even admit to it, but I bet ya $1 that you were a closet New Kids on the Block fan. Which one did you like? I of course had planned on marrying Jordan or Jon Knight or maybe even Joey MacIntyre. This week on The Today Show they announced a reunion tour that will kick off in May. Who wants to go with me? I think my husband would never let me live it down if I went.

Enjoy a stroll down memory lane and watch this video for The Right Stuff. Oh oh ah oh oh, oh oh ah oh…..  Don’t tell anyone but I was jealous of those girls in the video, I wanted to hang out with them and drive around in a convertible.   Check out Donnie Wahlberg rockin’ the mullet in the video.  Ok I have to go and dance now while no one is watching.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72RtOvN0Cl8[/youtube]

Here are a few photos from our time together…

I think he was trying to figure out why he was naked and on the floor.

I loved these polka dots on their guest bedroom pillows

I don’t know about you but babies in jeans = cutest thing ever!

Of course we had to get a quick shot of the boys in their Notre Dame gear.