Photo Session Blog: Growth

June 26, 2013January 14, 20164 Comments

I have finally wrapped up my biggest session yet that involved both the growth of a lovely family, as well as growth in terms of myself as a photographer, and I’d love to share.

What started with a grandmother-to-be of a friend asking me to take some candid baby shower photos, this ‘session’ turned into a several months-long photography journey for me, following the family from the baby shower through to photos of twin boys at a few months old. Basically a total of five separate sessions, which covered the shower, a maternity session, a couple’s session and two separate baby sessions of twin boys. And among all that I also took photos of their 4 cats and their dog!! The journey allowed me to explore my strengths as a photographer and presented me with new challenges and types of photography that I had hoped to explore. I also discovered the areas where I need to learn more and improve. Ultimately I feel so grateful to have had this opportunity, and I feel so proud to now have all the prints and products to turn over to the new parents.

When a photographer is invited in to take photos during times like this, it’s not just an experience for the client or family, it is also a journey for the photog. I’ve seen (and personally experienced) the joy and hope that comes with expecting a baby; it was enlightening to see it all from the outside, as I documented it all. I still regret not having my own maternity photos done when I was expecting (or a proper newborn session), so this story unfolding gave me much to reflect on, and it became very important to me to make sure I treated it with the same care and hope as if it were my own photos being done. When I went through my own pregnancy and labor/delivery, I also didn’t have the fortune of having family here, so I was also in awe of this loving, supportive family being a part of it all (and thank goodness, since it’s twin boys!).

A few things that I think are worth sharing:

Having maternity photos done is an intimate experience, and one where you are asking the expectant mama to share herself with you and the camera, to capture a time in her life that may only happen one time. I found it to be more fulfilling than I expected, and I appreciated the openness of someone willing to let me in to experience that. It’s a time when you feel vulnerable but there is something so beautiful and amazing about it, it’s just hard for that beauty to not show through in the photos. Plus this was the part where all the animals ended up being models too!! Their intuition about the changes to come was pretty obvious!
Taking photos of a loving happy couple about to have a baby (wait, two!!) brings an infectious enthusiasm for life and was a reminder to me of how precious that time is for a couple together before babies take over! The love they have for each other just shone through. Being that I have sadly few couple’s photos of my own (pre-baby and otherwise), I can’t think of a better time to capture that connection and excitement and love on camera.
Taking photos of twins babies is quite the bigger challenge than taking them of one, but can be twice as cute. Quite predictably, when one baby was asleep, the other was wide awake, crying or feeding (and then repeat with other baby!). This also was partly why I scheduled two sessions to do baby photos (with one being about a month later) so as to get enough of each twin being a happy, quiet, sleeping baby as opposed to being crying and fussy. As you know, we do like to pretend that they are always quiet little angels and preserve our memories of them like that! The twins are fraternal, so this also means they look different and are quite feasibly running on separate clock, and they also conspired to have ‘baby acne’ at different times to make my editing work ‘interesting’. It made for long sessions and required a lot of patience, but hearing mama ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ over the proofs has already made it worth it. Just wait until she sees her finished prints, wraps and large collage standouts for their walls! Patches (the dog) made sure he continued to be in the baby photos…as if they could possibly show him up, eh?!
Extra notes: thank goodness the internet makes global communication easy these days. We were able to stay in constant contact about editing and ordering choices while I was overseas in England. Although the process may have gone quicker without a vacation, illness, indecision over which images are favorites, being busy with the twins now that they were born (that’s a lot of work!), but since hundreds of photos were taken over all these sessions, I think extra time made the anticipation greater, my work more thorough, and I think I feel more accomplished with the results.

So tomorrow I get to hand deliver prints, a gallery wrap, a flash drive of images, a couple of 10×20 triptych standouts, two 16×20 collage standouts, plus a few surprises, all in some fun hot pink wrapping and I am just so excited. I have learned so much from this, both personally and professionally (and photographically), and I am grateful. Many many thanks to the Piha/Amato family! I can’t wait to hopefully take more images of the beautiful family again.

xo ~ K

“Growth is the only evidence of life.” ~ John Henry Newman

Maid in England | Reflections

May 12, 2013January 14, 2016Leave a comment

I’ve been back in my home country of England for ten days now, and we have hit our half way mark already. We make it over from Seattle only about once every two years and then 2-3 weeks go by in a flash. Half way means that my man has just gone back to Seattle (so he can get back to work), and it means that the rest of my time will evaporate way too fast…
I’ve been living in the States for just about 19 years now, from exchange student, to college student, to movie-maker, and now mama and photog. That’s a long time, a long history. But I’m always homesick for England, as much as I love my adopted city of Seattle. So when I come back here, I start wondering what my life would’ve been like had I stayed, how it could be if we moved back, and I appreciate the little things so much more.
I love how so much stays the same, how the countryside is still pristine, how London still speeds ahead in the midst of all that culture and with its historical landmarks all intact, how I can feel at home as soon as I land.
They say you don’t appreciate something (somewhere?) until it’s gone; I suppose my absence from the UK has made my love for it grow. I can hear now the echoes of those who say ‘well, why don’t you just move back then?’. That’s a big move and it’s not easy. There’s a lot to consider when you make a huge move, and this time I have a family to consider, animals who would have to sit in quarantine, belongings to ship, new immigration dealios to contend with…the list is long.
I don’t travel much anymore, alas, and while these may be akin to someone’s vacation/holiday photos, they hold more sentimentality for me. They aren’t just travel photos or a documentation of ‘been there, done that’; they are pieces of me, things that I hold in my heart.
When you adopt a new country as your home, you still hold pieces of other places you have lived close to you. Born in England, but raised chiefly in Hong Kong, those countries are a part of me. And I’ve been in the Pacific Northwest for close to 20 years now, longer than anywhere, so then I wonder how I might feel should we move back across the pond at some point.
This is the first trip back here to the UK where I have been struggling with emotions that are saying I wish I could stay, if only it weren’t for some friends back in the States, my beloved animals and a slice of the amazing Seattle. I see the excitement in my 5 year old of being surrounded by family here (family on both sides are in the South East of the States and in England, so all of them are far).
I had far less fear when I made the move over here when I was 20…I have different fears for myself and my child today. I’m impressed by those who can take the leap of a big move; my parents did that with us when we moved from England to Hong Kong, when I was just 4, and my brother was 2. My life would be very different today if my parents hadn’t been so bold, and I feel so fortunate that they did what they did.
Great changes happen when you make bold decisions and take risks (calculated or otherwise!).
What I must do at the least when I return to Seattle, is have us at least move house, amongst other things. Being away gives me perspective on the things that are to be put on my
‘action’ list, so while a big move back here may not happen just yet, I do now at least have renewed energy for quite a few things…and I plan to go home with a fair amount of English chocolate and sweeties to tide me over…until next time.
Some iPhone moments from me to you…
Cheers from England! Xo ~ K

Kitty Love: another Jeffers Post | Seattle Cat Photography

April 19, 2013January 14, 2016Leave a comment

A little personal cat post today. I’ve had many conversations about cat rescue, adoptions and fostering this week PLUS I had an emotional week with helping my bestie have her baby (yes, all the way through cutting the umbilical cord in the operating room, and holding him first), and this had me in some mushy emotional moments, so here’s my feline one…

If you don’t know by now (how could you not?!) I take a LOT of photos of cats as volunteer photographer for the local cat rescue, Animal Talk, and my boy Jeffers ‘found me’ there. I now take more photos of rescue cats than I get to take of my own these days, but I snap a few whenever I can (even if just on my iPhone instead of on my usual DSLR). I have a deep affinity for every animal that has come into my life, and Jeffers (my latest rescue) is no exception. On one of my first trips to the rescue to get a batch of new photos done, I was taking photos of the adult cats in the small kitty Room 1. This little flirt of a cat Jeffers kept trying to get my attention, pawing me,

First session of Jeffers In Room 1

cocking his head to the side, and literally posing for me. After a few more trips to the rescue and doing photos in that room, with Jeffers wanting my attention badly, I mentioned probably more than a few times that I so wished I could take him home, but the adoption fee was beyond me at that time. I planned to put him on hold and figure out money to do it anyway. But some people/person there, who wanted to stay anonymous, decided to surprise me by paying the fee so I could have him, because of all my photography I was doing there, turning around the rate of adult cat adoptions with it all. It’s easy to get cute little kittens adopted with no photo, let alone a bad one; the adult cats get passed over constantly and they need to get noticed. They have a lot of love to give though and I want that to show.

Adopting an animal is something I don’t take lightly, and seeing so many animals all the time that I know need homes, I wish I could take them all home. I know that doing my rescue photos (and fostering) is way more valuable and needed than adopting them all.But how could I resist this handsome face? Jeffers and I have developed a strong bond in the last year; I think rescue animals (well, all of mine are!) naturally show their gratitude for human kindness and a warm lap, and I know my boy is happy to be in my life. He has gradually become a cat I can hold (that wasn’t possible when I brought him home), become friends with the rest of my menagerie, and enjoys basking in the window light, snuggling into my arm when I’m editing on my laptop, and hanging out on the shower wall when I take a shower (he’s a looky-loo). I can’t imagine my world without my animal companions; I don’t ‘own’ them but they own my love and a special place in my heart. They don’t talk back, they know when you’ve had a crappy day, and they don’t laugh at you when you sing along to music doing the housework or while in the shower. I wish more people could see and feel the unconditional love and light that comes from having an animal spirit in their world.”

Basking in the light

Looking regal

Looking sexy

Up on the shower wall

Some of me posting this is a reminder for people to think of adopting an adult cat, and some of it represents how much value I see in having photos for myself. Don’t you still want real prints and photos on your wall?

If you haven’t yet, please go and check out my Facebook page . Lots more cats and info and updates on my current work and sessions too!

Kitty love to you xo ~ K

“I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.”
~ Jean Cocteau

Featured on These Moments blog: Moments with Emotion

April 12, 2013January 14, 2016Leave a comment

My photo of a kitty named Edgar is featured over on the These Moments blog today; I really do feel so much emotion and all these souls at the rescue. Particularly here with Edgar, I just imagined him yearning for his new home. I hope he finds one soon; he’s so chill and just seems like he’s a mellow and wise soul, and I think he will bring a great calming presence to whomever lets him be a part of their family. And to think he was actually named ‘Loose Cannon’ before! Edgar is a lot more refined and appropriate…

You can see the post here:

Moments with Emotion by kamoorephoto. Thank you for featuring me again!

Sweet and shy, Edgar (formerly Loose Cannon) will take sometime to adjust to your home, but will be a great companion to you and to other cats you may have.
DOB 10/01/07

Here are a couple of other beauties from the other day; I’ll soon post a pair of senior cats with their story. They’re all looking for homes and have so much love to give! Lots of kitty love xo ~ K

Macy

Rolling into 2013 | Reflections

January 8, 2013January 14, 2016Leave a comment

It’s already a week into 2013 and I have yet to add my two cents to the blogosphere about the passing of the old year to the new…so, Happy New Year!!

I always look forward to the new year, far more than the holidays preceding it. It signifies a new beginning, a fresh start, a chance to move forward on existing goals, and to create new ones. If I didn’t do something right in the previous year as I had wanted to, it’s time to take a look at what I can do better from here on out. I achieved some of my goals for last year and even superseded my own expectations with some things.

But then there are more personal challenges, some that I have to wrestle with others for control of, where I feel I am failing. I have already taken steps to try to pull me/us up out of the proverbial quicksand; it’s just not good to feel as though you are sinking! I’m trying to hold on to my inner strength that has served me well in the past, to get beyond some of the current hurdles. Quite aptly, I came across a picture today with the quote “The worst part about being strong is that no one ever asks if you’re okay”…

As far as my photography goes, I look forward to every day that I can learn more, try new things and challenge myself, help more rescue animals, and add new creative avenues to my work and endeavors. Already this year, I’m moving forward with all sorts of new projects and sessions and it’s exciting (if not exhausting!). I’m grateful to those who have lifted me up so far and inspired me to do more.

When I made a resolution at the start of 2011 to get back to volunteering, and so began my photography venture with Animal Talk Rescue (where I had previously spent hours volunteering cleaning out crates and so forth), it got me back to not just a creative pursuit that ballooned into so much more, but it also filled me up in terms of my spirit. If there’s anything I can suggest to anyone else who has yet to make a resolution for the new year, it’s to give back. Give back and volunteer your time and your energy to something or someone other than yourself. When you look outside of yourself, however fortunate or unfortunate you think you are, it truly does your spirit good. When it comes to animals in particular, there’s always a rescue that could use your help, your donations, a home to foster animals in…something.

I’ll start the New Year as I mean to go on, by posting a photo of a beautiful rescue kitty by the name of Sally, who needs a new home, and also with the same eternal wish for peace, strength and good health. And not just for me either!

xo ~ K

Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties. ~ Helen Keller