The Perfume Factory

2011-08-27T14:32:00.000-04:00

My toddler, Liliana, celebrating her first birthday with a visit to her namesake Grandma Lillian in Arizona.

2011-08-27T14:23:00.000-04:00

The College Camp summer puppeteers.

2011-04-28T13:59:00.000-04:00

Absolute proof that even experienced professional portrait photographers are able to frame bad images
at any of life's perfect moments, and most especially with the ones you love.
My daughter, Liliana, out to Arizona celebrating her first year birthday with what came to be the last visit with her beloved namesake grandma, Lillian.

2011-04-28T13:48:00.000-04:00

Author Dr. Sherry Turkel: read her now! "Alone Together"

http://bit.ly/k5ocYx

One major, yet infrequent perk of being a fashion photographer is the rare opportunity of spending a few relatively intimate hours with extremely bright individuals, then preserving the memory, and sometimes the friendship, happily ever after. Sherry is the best and the brightest, to borrow a Boston poltical phrase, making singular place amongst my other home-town favorite sitting subjects, Kerry Kennedy and Joe Kennedy. Waiting for books from those two.

2011-04-28T12:50:00.000-04:00

Snapshot of friend Olya, now more or less trapped in Minsk by love or politics, and the total dissolution of family. The Beyorussian silence isn't informational. Sweet one, she makes a good portrait, unself-consciously attracting, in her shy way. The tree is Arizona Dells, close-by to the family home.

2011-04-26T19:05:00.000-04:00

One of us is the real 60's thing, the other isn't. Jimi is real. The other wasn't even born then. The real one did the 60's in SoCal, LaJolla.

2011-03-20T12:35:00.002-04:00

Westminster Choir College is the location of Liliana's January 30th, 2011, piano recital. It is the school of her beloved great-uncle, historian Howard Hopkins, the college's Dean, fifty years ago.

Lili's teachers gracefully flank their talented protege. Founders of the "The Music Place" in Princeton, Angelina & Nicholas Schidlovsky represent a uniquely effective, old/new hybrid technique, based on the centuries of established, traditional Russian musical excellence.

What a joy it was to attend the performances, each and every performer worthy of a recording contract! Worth mentioning are the excellent acoustics of the Westminster Chapel.

As the cobbler's son has no shoes, the photographer's daughter no longer willingly faces the camera: center second row. Class portait by Douglas Hopkins, with an Apple iTouch, in lieu of Nikon failure. Lili's unicorn artwork, off camera right, illustratively accompanied her piece.

2011-01-08T15:53:00.000-05:00

Oksana in the courtyard of our German friend's familial home, the oldest, most well-preserved castle in Europe. Note the cross and prayer, from circa 1000 years ago.

2010-12-12T17:16:00.000-05:00

Chef-in-training, Mama's assistant. Gingerbread men. That is non-alcoholic apple cider in the background, and the greenest bananas I've ever seen. And our whole-grain, flour-making grinder on the left.

2010-12-12T16:58:00.000-05:00

It is that time of year where we mall merge. And I am told to please stop taking pictures as it is a copyright set. And the wife, in Christmas child passion, pays $55 for nothing better than the above. Sue me, Santa! And don't forget my 2010 chimney fee; $75. Just kidding. I didn't smell any alcohol, so Santa is cool, and this is Lili's first year not terrified, no crying.

2010-11-24T15:44:00.000-05:00

T-Day countdown started couple of days ago; me cleaning house. Dyson is my witness. Fresh hot cornbread & homemade cranberry sauce for breakfast this morning. Wife has ten page dinner preparation script, works perfectly every year. (Yes, that's my piano poster on the right.)

2010-11-04T21:13:00.000-04:00

Stage mother? Upstaged kitty owner? Passer-by? Snapshot or studio shot?

2010-11-04T12:41:00.000-04:00

The future speaks with clarity?

2010-11-04T12:39:00.000-04:00

Halloween arises in 2010 with an increase in "sophistication awareness". Pieces must match...maybe over-match; the price of a fashion photographer's daughter.

2010-10-12T12:22:00.000-04:00

Liliana opens a branch of Macys, including a bakery.

2010-10-11T13:49:00.000-04:00

Lili hosts a front-yard picnic, oblivious to our BP grossly misplaced solar array. After two years. the New Jersey Attorny General recently ruled against Home Depot and BP for their egregiously careless project management of over 25 violations. The final result was $8500 per week (!) fines on us from the local municipality. The BP Spill in my front yard.

2010-10-11T13:10:00.001-04:00

Venice Canal, Place of the Three Roman Bridges. Evening, winter.

2010-10-11T12:59:00.000-04:00

My offspring. Just the one in the foreground.

2010-10-10T19:14:00.001-04:00

Mother and daughter prepare for piano duet debut. Look for it on YouTube.

2010-08-18T15:43:00.001-04:00

My eBook contest workbook. Purchase to enter a poetry re-write competition.

UPDATE: Scribd has found a major upload damage problem & working on it, so publication sale is on hold until the problem causing some extremely light pages is solved. Start Here.

2010-08-18T15:36:00.000-04:00

The ballet school portait. The hand is good. Leaps next year? Her first make-up, six.

2010-08-11T19:26:00.001-04:00

This is the only remains, the possible cover photo of my once-proposed children's book, "A Trip in the Trunk" (Copyright 2010 Douglas Hopkins).

It, and almost everything else to that point in my life, was destroyed in a house fire of my reputedly haunted home, 1 Avon Place, Cambridge. The 14 room recluse had a long history, even serving as a 19th century girl's school, a stone's throw from Radcliffe. The house is exactly, and fittingly, reproduced in "Altered States". When I finally saw the film, the house was in ruins. The black coda to my Cambridge days.

This front porch is in Ranch Santa Fe, California. It is one of the five most desirable homes I have photographed.

"When the children opened the trunk, they found a stairway descending...."

2010-08-11T19:11:00.000-04:00

The Hopkins Family. My grandfather, Charles; father, Cleveland; Aunt Winifred, & Uncle Howard, author. 18 May 1942.

2010-08-09T11:53:00.000-04:00

Actress Phoebe Cates and her photographer, Douglas Hopkins. From the studio archives.
Look forward to the forthcoming book, "Real Views: Mastering the Snapshot, Learning to See."
Copyright 2010

2010-08-09T11:18:00.000-04:00

Why it is OK to have a blurry photograph. Because it still feels good. And it gets even better in a large blowup.