Whew! For the first time, I feel like I’m able to plan ahead a bit. Yesterday I sent out this year’s holiday card designs. This is always a big deal around here because people always ask for prices and info and I’m never ready! How embarrassing. Well, not this year Pal. No sir! We’re doing gorgeous contemporary holiday cards and we’re getting the word out early. Check them out…

View this photo  and View this photo  and View this photo  and there’s more!  So if you’re a 2006 client and you’ve got a favorite image you’d like to use this holiday season, email me! I’ll send you the prices and a complete set of the designs (from a local artist) from which to choose your annual HELLO to the world.  I love holiday cards because it gives me an excuse to re-connect with people. I really have very little to say to most of them but I don’t want to lose touch. It’s just a hihowareya? And believe it or not, (watch out for the dripping sarcasm here) some people don’t think of email as warm and personal. Can you believe it?

And, of course, there will be a few people who wait until December 10th and call me for family portraits –but that’s always going to happen, isn’t it?  Now that the studio overlooks the park and the duck pond I feel I can be a little more spontaneous. If it rains, we run inside. If Jr. has to go potty, we go inside. If someone is too antsy to sit still in the studio, we go out! A flock of Canadian geese stopped by for a couple of days on their way to Mexico. They made our local ducks look like midgets they were so big and majestic. Later that afternoon I saw children feeding them bread. Their necks were so long they were eye to eye with the kids. Darn! Why didn’t I have a camera in my hand? Even more amazing because this is Texas! The only wildlife we ever see around here is the occasional armadillo on it’s back on the side of the road. But I’m rambling…

We’re planning on doing fall portraits at the arboretum again this year. Looks like Saturday, October 21st is the day! As of today we’ve got two time slots open. That’s when they have the pumpkin patch — and the arboretum is fall in full bloom. So let’s see, we’ve covered fall and holiday cards and geese and ducks …yup, that’s all for now!

For the last year I’ve been looking for a children’s charity that I can work with. I photograph so many kids and it just seems to make sense to promote a charity that benefits children. Alot of photographers work with Operation Smile; a organization that helps pay for much needed plastic surgery for kids with cleft palates and facial disformities. But I wanted to do something different –and I think I may have found it!

First Book is an international nonprofit organization with a single mission: to give
children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their
first new books. Here in Dallas, the person to go to for information is Linda Williamson. Her email is: dallas_tx@firstbook.org. On the national level it’s staff@firstbook.org  the toll-free number, is 866-393-1222.

Computers are very cool and all of the wonderful technologies that have sprung up in the last 20 years, but nothing replaces a really good book.

I think what they do is awesome! I lovingly remember my first book –and the thousands that followed it–as one of the brightest spots in my childhood. Ding Dong Bell is still on my shelf. Very worn and loved. It also brings back memories of my grandmother, who did more than anyone else to nurture my love of reading.  So, I’m planning a couple of photography projects to benefit First Book. Maybe a calendar?? Let me know if you have any ideas!