Meredith and Scott on the Bride's Cafe

Meredith and Scott's wedding is featured on The Bride's Cafe! I love blogger Janie's sense of style and how frequently she updates with new pretty pictures... today there are lots of cupcakes, something I can always stand to see (and eat) more of.







So funny that one of my most popular weddings wasn't even one I was officially hired for! I think it's because I am lucky enough to have wonderfully talented (and cute!) friends who have cool weddings. And I have clients who fit that bill as well - I often can't believe how good I have it with this job! :)



Tomorrow I'm shooting a fabulous wedding that is going to be a big hit, I can already tell. And the planner working on that with me is none other than Jess Flood, good friend and planner/ helper to Meredith. Small world!



Have a wonderful weekend.

PDN Photo Annual 2009!

I'm so excited to have another stock shot make it into PDN (Photo District News Magazine)'s 2009 Photo Annual! This is the second year in a row, as a series of backyard bbq stock shots made the cut last year. This year, I entered a series of 6 shots of kids and babies, and one of my favorite shots of the last year made it. This is my friend Jude's daughter, Dixie, lying in the grass in her backyard. Simple but so pretty and (I think) poignant in capturing that moment of pre-adolescence. If I do say so myself!





Here are the other shots from the series. I love looking at them because so many of these kids and babies are friends of me, and each image here gives me a glimpse into how they see the world, and how they're exploring and interacting with everything around them as they learn about, well, everything, as they grow. Cuties!











You can see my PDN Photo Annual 2008 series here. I guess they like my stock series!

You can see the full winner's gallery here. There are hundreds of amazing photographers in the PDN Photo Annual, so it is really an honor to be a part of in any way. I've gotten some sweet notes from photographer friends before I even had time to post it here, so thanks everyone!

finally - some garden photos!

Happy Memorial Weekend! I'm shooting a fabulous wedding at a very cool location in Berkeley today, more on that when the photos are ready to share...



In the meantime, I know that everyone is simply dying to ask the question, "Jessamyn, Jessamyn (quite contrary?), how does your garden grow?". I don't have silver bells or cockle shells, but we are now happily eating lots of spinach, radishes, strawberries, and lettuces, and we expect many more great things popping up. From early spring we've also had some beautiful flowers (some of which I planted, many that were here sleeping underground to surprise us!), including lavender, the sweetest-smelling jasmine I've ever had, geraniums, daisies, peonies, little pansies, freesias, and lots more (including a single red tulip that bloomed and was never heard from again).



I've been asked for photos of our gardening endeavors, and I've been taking LOTS of photos. But other things always seem more urgent to share. Here are some haphazard shots to give you a sense of what's blooming:

























Here are our scrawny tomato shoots after the bugs started wiping them out, right after we released some ladybugs to help with those bugs. They (the tomato plants) are much bigger and stronger these days!



Here is a different tomato plant now - growing visibly every day:



Back to the ladybugs:





Little bugs eat leaves and shoots, bigger bugs eat little bugs, kitty eats bigger bugs... everyone enjoys the tasty lettuce! Which is why we had to put bird netting over everything...



Little ladybug highway:



Little lettuces and spinach sprouts after we first planted them:





And now (we are eating them every night!):





There are lots more veggies coming up. The trouble is that I didn't mark things, so some are going to be surprises (exciting!):





Oh, yeah, we have lilies and irises too:



We have a huge bottlebrush tree:





And a lovely pomegranate tree:







And a mystery stone fruit tree (I'm hoping for peach, but I'm betting on apricot):



I love fresh, ripe tomatoes - so maybe I went a little overboard:







And I planted radishes because they're easy to grow, but I'm finding I really love them in a salad or sandwich. We're going to have to replant again already!





Gardenia, dahlia, hibiscus:





Nasturtiums (one of my favorites!):







I'm not really posting these photos in order - they were all taken on different days, so there are lots of different stages of growth:









And a sad apple tree:









Little pomegranate life cycle study (see the decaying one, and the new babies?):



I hate crabgrass:



Now, there was lots done when we moved in, but to give you a sense of how far the garden's come just this spring, here are some photos I shot in February:

Where the veggie beds are now, there used to be horrible, hard-to-remove, dead sod:



The blossoms of the mystery stone fruit tree (which later got this weird curly leaf thing - we'll see what happens!):



I cut the roses WAY back and they are crazy huge now. I'm not that into the roses that came with the house so I may rip them out and replace them with better ones...



The neighbor's palm tree occasionally bestows these huge, prehistoric-seeming fronds on our yard. What I didn't realize is that those suckers are SHARP! They basically have teeth along their stem things. Crazy.





That's a sad note to end on, so I'll post these beautiful flowers, which all came from our garden. I am really loving photographing the growth and blooms coming up, and I have some photos of our first harvest (a radish still life study) to share soon.



Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend with lots of beauty and tasty veggies!