June 25-July 2: This a shorter blog this week due to me having to hop in my car and go to Cooperstown, NY for the Fourth of July weekend to shoot a wedding. I’m sure I will be blogging and posting some photos from my trip when I return.
1. Vision Workshops: From time to time I get the incredible opportunity to work with kids of all ages through the Vision Workshops program, a non profit program that started right here in Annapolis, MD. I started working with the program back in the summer of 2006. My first “camp” that I worked was with inner city kids in Washington DC (with Sam Abell as one of the mentors…I am still giddy about getting to work alongside him). I then went on to work a few of the camps offered to kids in the Drug Court Program of Anne Arundel County. Most recently I got to work on a couple of camps that worked with kids from Bates Middle School and Annapolis High School’s ESL program (English as a second language). These programs encourage kids to look beyond their intense everyday lives and capture a feeling or story that they need to tell using writing and photography. It is an awesome experience for me every time I work with a new camp…the kids teach me as much about myself as I teach them about photography. I have had many many moments where I see that light switch turn on in one of the kids and I know that we have made difference.
Another aspect of Vision Workshops are the National Geographic Photo Camps that they have been doing for a few years now. It’s the same concept as the local programs, but these Photo Camps occur all over the globe…mostly in areas of need. Most recently a group went to Crimea to work with kids along the Northern Coast of the Black Sea. Although I did not take part in this camp, I am moved by the photos that these kids took…please take a moment to check them out-click here.
2. Engagement Shoot: I’ve known Laura her whole life. It blew me away when I got a friendly email from her a couple months ago that started out, “I know you probably can’t believe that I’m old enough, but I’m engaged…” She was right…I couldn’t believe that she was old enough. Laura’s family and mine were together a lot when we were kids…we went to the same church, our moms were girl scout leaders together, we went on youth retreats, our dads even went to high school together. Her older sister and my younger sister were best friends growing up, so when our families would get together, Laura and I would hang out. She was like my little sister growing up (6 years younger)…although, we always seemed to get along as if there wasn’t much of an age gap. She now lives in Florida with her fiance Adam (who I had met 15 years ago and didn’t realize who he was until I was informed by my sister) so I have not seen her in years. Thanks to facebook, we’ve been able to keep in touch and keep track of each other. I was so happy when she asked if I would do she and Adam’s engagement photos when they came home for a visit.
We decided to do the shoot in Gettysburg, PA close to where we grew up. Gettysburg is full of beautiful landscapes and a wonderful little downtown area, so I never ran out of ideas during out shoot. The shoot lasted 3 hours…and I could have kept going. I have to give a BIG thumbs up to Adam for being such a trooper…he had spent 5 hours out in the blazing hot sun playing a round of golf earlier in the day and was exhausted and a bit sun burned. The two of them were wonderful subjects…very natural and loving toward each other, I barely had to give them any direction. As a nice little reward to making it through the shoot without one complaint and putting up with the heat and humidity that day, I treated them to a banana split at the cutest little ice cream shop. What a great way to end the day!
3. Flicks on the hill: The American Visionary Arts Museum and Federal Hill in Baltimore put on an amazing event every Thursday in the summer. They show a movie projected onto a large screen on one of the museum buildings. Anyone can come and sit on the hill and watch for FREE! As soon as I found out about this great event, I marked my calendar for the first flick, one that could not be missed, “Singin’ in the Rain”.
I’ve seen “Singin’ in the Rain” several times when I was younger, but have never appreciated it so much as a film until now. I was moved by each musical number and wanted so badly to get up an dance around the hill…I actually pictured everyone sitting around me getting up and breaking into a choreographed dance number…it was such a magical evening. My favorite part of the evening was right after the character Cosmo finished singing “Make Em’ Laugh”, a hysterical number full of so much visual comedy, the crowd watching the film broke into applause as if Donald O’Connor himself had just performed the number on a stage in front of us. It happened again after the title song “Singin’ in the Rain”, and I assumed once again that Gene Kelly was going to step right out of that screen and take a bow. I found this interesting that a movie over 60 years old could grab our 2010 attention spans in such a way that it would move us to applaud a screen. It was a wonderful moment as I sat there with my boyfriend and looked at him with the biggest grin…it’s the simple things in life that really mean something. I can’t wait for the next film!
As Don Lockwood would say, “Dignity. Always, dignity”
4. Have a safe and happy Fourth of July everyone!!
Freckle Photography-Annapolis, Maryland 
