Images from a headshot portrait session with violist Lauren Burns.

I really enjoyed my visit with the W family during my trip to Ohio. I wanted to document the family at this particular stage in their lives — settling into their new house and building up gardens… the young children and crazy dog, and the sense of pride at working hard and playing well.

I know you need formal portraits every once in awhile, but HOW FUN ARE THESE? I think everyone should have a batch of fun, realistic, and hilarious photos every year, because these are the candid-like photos your grandchildren are going to love someday- they show your sense of humor and personality. They show the lethargic way your daughter looks every afternoon (!!) or the 2 seconds of attention you have before your son zooms off on his next great adventure. Real life is beautiful and messy and HILARIOUS.

Svetli is a 7-year old boy who lives in Bulgaria. He was my little buddy when we went to Bulgaria to photograph Anna and Ali’s wedding last year. His grin makes me feel like a million bucks!

The Rizi Family asked me to make some formal family portraits of them together before their youngest son Bijan headed out to college. Both Anita and Suzy were married this year, a few months apart, so it was the perfect opportunity to document them all together one last time before all of the kids head off in different directions. The family home in Palos Verdes, California made a fantastic backdrop.

The past month we have been traveling nonstop – every weekend a new location and a new event! I’ve done weddings in Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Maine, Massachusetts, and California recently. This weekend we’re headed out to Chicago to be guests at a wedding and then we’re off to eastern Europe!

I’ll be back in the office on Monday and Tuesday (July 27 and 28) doing minimal administrative work and finishing the proofing of recent portrait sessions while packing for Europe, then from Wednesday, July 29 through Friday, August 7 I will be offline and having adventures abroad in Bulgaria. Any print orders placed during this time will have an inadvertent extra 7 day delay in fulfillment.

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Now for the really fun part…. a contest! I really enjoyed the “love shoot” promo from February over on the wedding site,  so I wanted to open up another contest for a new england couple.

casting call – calling all adult couples…. { DETAILS HERE!!! }

My girl Sufi had her 3rd birthday this weekend. I had to laugh as I was importing my photos and saw this bed head photo from Sunday morning with the biggest Persian afro I have ever seen…

Sometimes I enjoy taking a step back from technology and kicking it old school with film and a toy camera that does the basics. Success with this type of venture requires an eye for composition, lots of light, and a good deal of luck. Here are a few images from a roll of film that sat on my camera from some travel in January 2009 through a recent wedding in June 2009. I’m still learning how to use this medium to its fullest.

See some holga images from the wedding here.

We recently visited Phoenix en masse with my husband’s family to celebrate my sister Maryam’s graduation from med school.

Most of all I love hanging out with Ali’s four little cousins who are best friends despite living apart in LA and San Francisco. Every family event is an opportunity for them to hang out together and giggle a lot. They’re hilarious!

A fun, laid-back weekend in sunny Phoenix was a nice change from all of this gloomy Boston weather.

(( more photos here ))

I’ve always loved saguaro cactus (pronounced “suh-war-o”). They’re found only in the Sonoran Desert (s Arizona, se California, nw Mexico). According to the WHEREguestbook:

“The iconic plant starts out slowly, growing a mere inch or two in its first eight years, but eventually leaps skyward and, between 50 and 70 years, starts sprouting ‘arms’ — the things that look like they’re waving or saluting passerby.”

Cool, huh?

(x-posted at mergeweddings and decenturbanlifestyle)

On our recent trip to Los Angeles to photograph a Persian wedding celebration, we were also celebrating my 30th birthday. We decided to spend the afternoon at the Getty Villa near Malibu, a site that is v. different from the Getty Museum in LA (free with reservation; $10 parking). The Villa is Getty’s old estate, and the original house to his vast collection. The dude built the grounds to recreate Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, an ancient Roman town. The Greek and Roman artifacts and reproductions Getty collected make a stunning display, and I think we had more fun walking around the grounds with the fountains and lawns and sculpture parks than touring the inside. I have a thing for that architecture.

I usually assign myself a photographic project when I visit a museum that allows photography; the last time I visited Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts I took a picture of the ceiling in every room.  For the Villa, I was noticing the trend to use white marble within a darker piece to give the eyes a more “realistic” setting, which ends up just looking a little creepy. So, my personal amusement on this afternoon was to only photograph creepy things.  Here are my favorites.