Last week Candace and I went over to my friends Carolina & Ryan’s place (with some home made hummus) to check out the baby. Normally babies look “distressed” when they are just one week old, but Kailer looked like a baby model… atleast for the 5 minutes when he was awake. I took some snap shots for fun but I have been contemplating baby/kids and family portraits. Perhaps I should get into that in addition to weddings, as we don’t want my wedding clients to go somewhere else. I may need some volunteer babies to do my tests and build a killer portfolio.

Anyway have a happy Friday everyone.

It’s tough to be 1 week old


Ryan is showing me his “dog back riding” skills. I think I will email this to Animal Cruelty Association ;)

Today, I wanted to write about my grandfather Jean Grossman. It has been about 10 years since he has passed away, he was the only grandfather I had left and the only one I remember. The others passed away while I was to young to remember. Sometimes people ask me how I got into photography, well he is the real reason I got into photography. Jean himself was a very successful photographer in his town where everyone knew him, over 3 generations. He would walk into a restaurant or a store and people would know him from a wedding he shot for them or a portrait. He also hand colored black and white images way back in the 50′s when color photography was very limited.

I remember one day, I was 10 years old (a few years ago) he took me to his studio where I was watching him set up the lights and the backgrounds for a portrait shoot and I fell in love with the whole process, watching him conduct that shoot was an experience I will never forget. Shortly after he showed me how to develop black and white photographs in his darkroom. I was fascinated with the process and how an image developed out of a white sheet of paper. I remember everything… the red light, the bad smell from the chemicals and his finger tips which have turned brown from the fixer. Those experiences have left a strong mark on me and they have with no doubt contributed for me to follow in his steps and become a photographer myself.

Another story I remember was about a Mamiya RB 67 camera which he had purchased in the 70′s for a mountain of money, it was his most treasured object and no one was allowed to get near that camera. I remember when he took that camera out of an old brown leather case and he would take some pictures with it, it was such an exciting looking camera, not the normal point and shoot camera you see everyday. He had that camera for almost 20 years. When I started photography school at the Art Institute in 1995 he decided to give me that camera. I could not believe my ears when I heard that he would let me have it. It is a very big and heavy medium format camera which I still have today. It is probably not worth more than $250, however to me that camera is priceless and the only link I have to him. Every time I see that camera it reminds me of him. I hope one day I will be as great as he was, I think today if he was alive he would be happy with what I am doing. We miss you!

By the way, happy birthday day Dad.

You can tell by these 2 images in his 30′s-40′s that he was a great photographer. Check out the hair light, very old Hollywood like. You don’t see that anymore these days.

Today we went to Las Olas river front to walk for the breast cancer awareness walk. There must have been a few thousand people there. We had our very cool “Save the Boobies” t-shirts, which by the way everyone loved. We actually sold some shirts that we had left which will increase our donation. People really loved them. I have to thank Juan & Joy for the cool t-shirts. He has them for sale on his website if you would like to buy one, and the proceeds also go to the charity. I also wanted to thank everyone that had made a donation.. we’ve raised about $1500 so far.

Hopefully next year we can get more people to join us. Have a nice weekend everyone.

Jeff was selling away, people were lining up for the “Save the boobies” t-shirts. They loved he pink one.

There we are at the start. We did however cheat, we took the short cut.