It’s been a long time coming, but we’d had an idea to do a Katy Perry inspired photoshoot. Becca was my perfect model, and she gave me full creative liberty with her makeup. She brought her own clothing (hello, shoes!!!), but I decided to go full out with blue and pink and GLITTER, which I’m usually opposed to in photoshoots. But since I was the one shooting it, I knew how to apply it to make it look good.

Here’s a tip, though: if you do use glitter in your photos, make sure it’s not the kind that you just “dust” over your face. In real life it’s pretty. In photos, it looks like you’re sweating.

We used a top secret rooftop location for shooting, and did it at the absolute wrong time of day, but it worked out, and we got the shots.

Enjoy! Because WE DID!

Links to the Italy Blog Series:

Italy Part 1: Venice and Trento
Italy part 2: Pisa and Lucca
Italy part 3: Cinque Terre (post 1 of 2)
Italy part 4: Cinque Terre (post 2 of 2)

Halfway through our trip, we headed away from the Cinque Terre toward Naples (or Napoli, as the Italians say) via train. (A side note- since I posted the last 2 blogs on the Cinque Terre, they had a disastrous flood which basically wiped out the town of Vernazza (the one we hiked to that had the pretty rocks). It will take 50 million Euro for the town to be inhabitable again, but the other cities are doing what they can to keep tourism alive to help the recovery relief of the towns that were damaged. If you go to Italy, please don’t miss the Cinque Terre.)

It was a LOOOOOOOONG day of riding trains. We had originally thought at some point we might check out Florence, but just didn’t have enough time this trip. You’ll recall that the statue of David by Michelangelo is in Florence, and the city itself is known for the amazing renaissance art that came from it. But we didn’t see it, so you get no photos of it. I thought it was funny that the newspaper had something about Warren Buffett. All the way in Italy, and it’s the front of the paper sitting across from us in the train.

I will add this video here: the hat Mike got in Lucca (you’ve seen it since my 2nd blog post of Italy) was blown off of his head when we were headed back to drop off the boat. He yelled “WILSON!” and jumped in after it. Here is one photo of the lonely hat floating in the Mediterranean (it’s in the left side of the photo), and the ensuing swim to get the hat after we turned the boat around to get closer.

I’m adding this next photo just for my brother, who used to have an orange tree named Bob that was like a pet. I found Bob’s Italian family.  Yes, those are oranges, though they’re still green.

Through my friend Jules (who, if you remember did my wedding makeup- she also did Shazi’s makeup), I was introduced to Shazi and Drew who are expecting their daughter London on February 10 (which, ironically, happens to be my daughter’s birthday!). Drew and Shazi work locally as personal trainers in their gym, and have trained tv personalities Ruby and Paula Deen in addition to the many other clients they have. You can find more information on their gym at trainme247.com. What was really fun about Shazi and Drew was how relaxed and happy they were together. Drew is a joke-a-minute guy, and Shazi keeps laughing at his jokes, though you have the sense that she’s probably already heard them 20 times before. I loved hanging out with the two of them.

Fortunately for me, this was an extremely attractive couple, so they did most of the work for me! Shazi decided that she wanted to have a non-traditional winter maternity shoot, so she decided that we should shoot downtown Savannah (they got married at the Lucas Theatre) and then head out to Tybee Island. Keep in mind, it’s December. Even in Savannah the beach isn’t terribly warm in December. But Shazi and Drew were troopers and even took off their shoes to walk in the wet (cold!) sand.

I can’t wait til London is born! Here are some of my favorites from their shoot:

After working with baby Hines in Statesboro a few months ago, I got an email from Wendy and Alan, asking if I wouldn’t mind taking the trek back out to “the ‘Boro” to do some Christmas photos of their family. We met out on the Georgia Southern “Sweetheart Circle” in front of the school.  The babies were seven-month old twins, Madison and Jackson.  They were SOOOOO sweet (and decked out in their holiday best), and if it weren’t for the runny noses and the occasional cough, you’d have never known they had recently gotten sick. They sure didn’t act like it!

As is the case with so many twins, they had completely different personalities. It’s hard not to say things like “well, she does that ’cause she’s a girl, and he’s SUCH a boy”, but when Madison wouldn’t go on the grass and Jackson kept trying to eat it… well… it sure did fit the stereotypes. Happily, they stayed in a good mood for most of the shoot, and Wendy and Alan brought a laundry basket full of props (literally). Here are a few of my favorites from the shoot.

I had the last minute opportunity to travel to Charleston, SC for a wedding. The groom is good friends with my former roommate, Vann, so I knew the crowd would be fun.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to stay for the whole wedding, but luckily I had a friend who is trying to break into the photography world, and this gave him the perfect opportunity to try it out without the weight of an entire wedding on his shoulders as his first project!!! So first of all: thanks Travis for getting the reception and groom shots! I don’t have those photos here on my blog, but he did a great job.

The most amazing thing about this wedding was that EVERYONE helped out. Sometimes that means that the decor and food isn’t as good, but in this case it made everything BETTER. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought they hired a wedding coordinator and caterer! Every detail was just perfect, down to the cake and fried chicken!

Without further ado: Congrats Morgan and Rachel! Here are my favorite shots from your wedding!

Links to the Italy Blog Series:
Italy part 1: Venice and Trento
Italy part 2: Pisa and Lucca
Italy part 3: Cinque Terre (post 1 of 2)
Italy part 5: Naples and Capri 
Our second day in the Cinque Terre (Monterosso) we woke up pretty sweaty, as our hotel room didn’t get much air circulation, but we headed down to the Tourist Information to find our next hotel room for the night. We were pleasantly surprised to “move into” Meuble’ Agavi. We ended up with a beautiful view of the sea, and though there was still no a/c, we were happy to enjoy the sound of the water lapping at the shore. It was SOOOOO much nicer than the hotel the night before, and we weren’t at all saddened that we hadn’t made reservations prior to arriving at the Cinque Terre. (Please note our sarcasm in the video below: we really did LOVE this hotel and the owners!)

Please note: the further that we got into the Italy vacation, the more his shirt became unbuttoned. He felt very free in Italy, as they really dig guys with chest hair. Our hotel owner asked us if he was Italian.

After we got settled in, we met up with Timon and Becky down at the beach. We had decided the day before that we all wanted to go kayaking. A last minute change of plans had us renting one kayak, one paddleboat, and some snorkel gear. We jumped into the cold water and went in search of a fun place to snorkel. I did not bring my camera, as I was worried about the choppiness of the water. I was glad for it, because I was horrid at kayaking (my arms are weak apparently) and I was also horrid at the paddle boat, though we decided nobody can be really GOOD at it, since it went soooo sloooow.

Here are a few photos of our snorkel trip courtesy of Timon and Becky, who brought their point and shoot with them.

We decided to head to one of the other towns in the Cinque: Riomaggiore. We got there a bit late in the day, but it ended up being perfect to walk the Via Dell’Amore, or “The Lover’s Walk” which was the path between Riomaggiore and Manorolo. It was nothing compared to the hike we had taken the day before. This one was so nice that you could have taken a wheelchair down it! (That’s not sarcasm, as much as it may sound like it).

Here’s the thing: you know it’s going to be pretty. But you never realize it’s going to be THIS nice.

At this point near the end of the walk, there was a bar. It was situated over the edge of a cliff (there is a photo below of my seat looking down). We stopped to enjoy the sunset, and I grabbed a glass of iced coffee (which, btw, is rare to find in Italy). It was amazing, though the service was quite slow. Cinque Terre seems to have it’s own sense of time, so we weren’t upset.

If you’ve missed the first part of our trip you can find it here:
Part 1: Venice and Trento
Part 2: Pisa and Lucca
Part 4: Cinque Terre (day 2 of 2) 
Part 5: Naples and Capri 

Day 3:  We got up early and headed to the Lucca train station, to deal with an “issue” that we had with the tickets. It was only one of less than a handful of times that we had an language barrier problem. The guy had accidentally printed up tickets that would have us leave the Cinque Terre a day later than planned. Long story short, we couldn’t fix it, and (in retrospect) were THRILLED that we got to stay for an extra night.

The Cinque Terre is so named because there are 5 villages (the word translates to “Five Lands”) that are so close you can literally hike through all 5 cities in a day. Most of them are fishing villages, many of them grow grapes for wine, and we discovered our FAVORITE wine of all time while we were there.

I’ll add here, Cinque Terre is known for inventing focaccia and pesto. It has been accessible by train for about 100 years or so, and has only recently (about 20 years) had roads that you can drive into the city from. That’s impressive to me, since we have focaccia bread and pesto everywhere! Clearly the secret was too good to just keep local!

We decided to stay in Monterosso while we were there. It’s known having the best sunbathing beach and as being the most “resorty” of the cities, but we realized that word didn’t mean much when you are talking about the 5Terre. Nothing was exactly resort-like, except for the view. That being said, it’s exactly what we hoped it would be. It was Italy, unplugged.

Our very first view of the Cinque Terre was at the train station in Vernazza, the most picturesque of the 5 towns.

We had to use the toilet when we arrived, and  unfortunately this was the one that was at the train station. I have no idea how a woman is supposed to use this, as it was on the floor, so I just held it in. You can see why.

We headed off to Monterosso to find a hotel. We didn’t have reservations, but our guidebook (Rick Steves’ Guide to Italy- you should get it if you go there!) told us to head down to the Tourist Information booth and ask what was open. We ended up with a B&B called Raggi di Sole, a 30 second walk to the water. The hotel wasn’t what we were used to staying in from the past 2 nights, and for 90 euro we were a little disappointed, but it was a clean room with a toilet and shower (and, as we were already accustomed, no a/c). But Monterosso itself was quite beautiful.

We decided, after a brief swim in the ice cold salty sea, to hike the trail to Vernazza.

It was supposed to be relatively easy; a 90 minute trail. Apparently, the 90 minute easy trail was closed, which we didn’t find out until 30 minutes in, and our 90 minutes turned into 3 hours. Of mostly stairs. Still, it was beautiful, and we met 2 Americans on the trail: Becky and Timon who were also on their honeymoon.

In the video below, you can better see the grotto area where we swam the following day.

Since we knew we wouldn’t get to go to Florence on this trip, Mike ripped out the Florence section of our book to give to them. Becky was horrified.

Mike and I went back to Monterosso and had a nice meal on the main road by the water.

Mike, always unlucky with foreign dishes, got the grilled sea bass-sear marks on the fish with the head still attached! Not my thing, but I guess at least you know that it’s fresh? The photo below was taken with Mike’s phone at dinner, as there were a few times I didn’t bring my camera along.

But we sampled the local dessert wine (Sciacchetrà) with some biscotti. It was the highlight of all of the wines we drank the ENTIRE time we spent in Italy. If we had realized we could only get this wine in the 5Terre, we would have sent it home for ourselves.

Stay tuned, part 2 of the Cinque Terre is next, along with kayaking, snorkeling, a lover’s walk, and ANCHOVIES!

For Haylee’s first birthday, her parents decided to do a photoshoot of her downtown Savannah at Forsyth park. While initially worried about the weather and the possibility of rain, it turned out that it was “perfectly cloudy”, so Haylee could open her BIG BLUE eyes and take some fun pictures. We had fun (her mom, dad, and grandmother came along) watching Haylee try to “avoid” the grass when we set her on it, talk to the dogs in the park, and love on her stuffed animals. She is truly a happy girl who knows how to work the camera! Here are some of my favorite shots from that day:

I drove out to Statesboro this past week to shoot Hines who was turning 6 months old (literally that day!). He apparently is sort of grumpy at the time of day that I came out, but you’d have never known it from his HUGE smile that he gave for much of the photoshoot. You can tell that his good attitude comes from his parents who were so calm with him, and so NORMAL. Or else they are really good at acting like it for a couple of hours at a time!!! Here are some of my favorite shots from that day:

Other Parts of the Italy Trip:
Part 1: Venice and Trento
Italy part 3: Cinque Terre (post 1 of 2)
Italy part 4: Cinque Terre (post 2 of 2)
Italy part 5: Naples and Capri

Day 2:  We boarded the train from Trento, headed to Lucca (via Pisa), and were still in awe of the countryside. I took this shot from our train. This was the first time that we upgraded to First Class train seats, and it was totally worth it. We really just slept most of the ride, but there were people to come by and give you food and drinks the whole time included in the fee of the ticket. It was awesome.

Since our route would have made a connection in Pisa, we decided to disembark there to view the sights first. In all honesty, I wasn’t really looking that forward to seeing the leaning tower. I was like “what’s the big fuss? It’s just a tower that wasn’t built right.”

I didn’t expect to LIKE it.

We took a taxi from the train station to the “Piazza del Duomo”, and it was a hilarious and kind of frightening ride! But when we got there, I started to giggle. One thing really struck me about the leaning tower: it looked like a photobomber.

For those of you that don’t know what a photobomber is, it’s that person who happens to make that silly face in the back of your completely normal picture. It’s the one that someone says “Oh, it would have been a PERFECT picture if not for So-and-So in the background!”. THAT’S a photobomber. I just imagined the tower saying “Hi Guys!!!” I was imitating the tower in the above photo.

Of course, we did the obligatory shots: Mike leaned on the tower, I tried to “plank” it for my friend Courtney (didn’t quite work), using the tower for an armrest, and squishing the tower.

Mike’s favorite feature is this: The tower was started in 1173, but due to wars with local countries, they had to halt building the tower, and during that time, the half-finished building settled unevenly into the ground. So in 1272 they started to build the upper half, and “in an effort to compensate for the tilt, the engineers built upper floors with one side taller than the other. Because of this, the tower is actually curved.” You can see the curve around the 3rd story in this photo:

Making sure we had a meal in Pisa, we did enjoy a fine meal from a food vendor, set up outside of the piazza (by the way, “When in Rome” was our motto for the trip):

We boarded the bus to Lucca, excited to see the next cool city on our list. Here is a brief (albeit slightly biased) historical story, that may or may not be entirely accurate: Lucca has a HUGE wall that surrounds the city. That part is 100% accurate. The wall is TALL and WIDE- so wide, in fact, that it’s a tourist attraction to bike around the city wall.

If you recall from the Pisa comment I made earlier, there were a lot of fights going on back then between nearby cities, and Lucca was determined to have the upper hand, should they get attacked. Long story short, they never did get attacked. Lucca calls this a victory, citing that it’s because the wall was so intimidating it kept out intruders. Other cities claim that it’s because there wasn’t anything in Lucca worth taking. Whatever the case may be, Lucca is still 100% in tact, the wall is still standing, and the city is beautiful.

(This next shot is monumental, as it’s the first one I have posted of Mike in the hat he bought here in Lucca. It makes an appearance in every city from here on out.)

Straight away we rented some bikes so that we could take Lucca’s most scenic route:

After, we walked the city streets, keeping with us the handy “Rick Steves Guide to Italy”, which was how we planned most of our trips and sites. It was great, because we would just take the “walking tour” in the book, and Mike could point out the city’s interesting sites and buildings, and the history behind them.

I, for one, was learning some Italian. This was a phrase I’d become familiar with (and if you’re planning on shopping in Italy, you should too):

It means “SALE”!

 After our long day of shopping (heh), we took the book’s advice and sat down to have a light afternoon snack. Now, most places don’t open for dinner until 7:30, but we were given the head’s up from Rick Steves’ book that this place would probably be open, at least for a snack. They were so friendly, and they made us a plate of fruit, cheese and prociutto, along with an afternoon wine.

After snacks, we started heading to the tower in the center of town, stopping along the way for some photos of ourselves. Mike pointed out that the buildings in the town had a lot of blocks sticking out of them, due to the fact that old staircases used to be on the OUTSIDE of the buildings.

We took the above photo for our landlord, Connie, because when we saw the flowerboxes in the windowsills, we knew she would love them. I didn’t do them justice: they were really very large.

After the tower, we retired to our hotel to get dressed and go out for dinner. We stayed at the Palazzo Tucci, which was within the city walls, and it was BEAUTIFUL! Everything about it. I don’t know why I didn’t take any photos, but we did do some video of our room. The owner of the place was so sweet as well, helping us to our room, and letting us know if we needed anything that he was just upstairs from us.

I did not understand, the entire time we were in Italy, what “rocket salad” meant. I’m sure something was lost in translation.

This was our hotel door (with Mike for scale), and the room key to our room. The door was HUGE. The key was awesome.

I didn’t take my camera to dinner. I forgot it, and Mike said we’d just remember this night for ourselves. It was a great dinner. I can’t even remember what I had, but we decided it was one of the best nights we spent in Italy. The restaurant was just across the street from our hotel. We don’t even know the name, but if you stay at the Palazzo Tucci, eat at the place across the street.

Another fun thing we learned: when you ask for the house wine, they aren’t kidding. They mean it is literally THEIR wine. Not from down the road. They actually make it. And it was true all across Italy. Italians are quite proud of their wine. I wasn’t shocked to learn that fact, though.

We had to check out the next morning to head to the Cinque Terre (pronounced “Chink-way Teh-ray”). We said goodbye to our host (who was visibly sad that we couldn’t stay for breakfast!), and headed for the train station. As we were leaving town, Lucca taunted us, looking as magical as it ever did the day before.