Portraits | Pets| Dempsey and Kelsi

Two of my favorite things. Shoes and mr. man

Travel | Santa Cruz

we spent a night in Santa Cruz for my birthday. I shot mostly film (developing) but I processed a few digital images I shot that day/night.











David took this one :)

    Check out those whiskers and lashes!

retro dog

Personal | Saturday Night Art Gallery

I know my posts have been a little pet heavy but I'm in the middle of processing a few big shoots so daily life it is! Plus now that Dempsey is literally by my side, we're doing more pet photography. Thanks little man!

This is Dempsey outside an art gallery show on Saturday night. Hipstamatic? Yup. Art? You be the judge. To me, it's love.

Personal | Happy 6 Months Dempsey!

You are the very first to greet me in the morning. To walk with me as I drink my morning coffee. To lay in the sun and teach me how to relax. Take a nap. Enjoy the weather. Drink water. Simple things. You humor me dressing you up and making up silly songs that rhyme with your name. Once you knew that I was a photographer you decided to love the camera because I love it too. You learn so fast and bring your love to other people's doorsteps, smiles to their faces-- maybe thinking in their head that investing time and commitment to another living creature is a wonderful thing. You make me so proud. We are so lucky for the love and light you have brought to our little growing family.

Happy six months Dempsey!

Business | Storyboards and Stuff

One of the reasons I became a lifestyle portrait photographer is that art is meant to be seen on a wall, in a well crafted album, a modern or whimsical storyboard. Art deserves art. As much as I'm all about sharing online, so much is lost (color and details are just two) and forgotten. When you are taking images of a moment that one wants to remember forever, it needs to be handled with great care and consideration. When I photograph a session, even though you can see the images pop up, that "film" is unprocessed. I go straight home, download my film, back up to three hard drives. Then I do a first edit. Then a blog and final edit. Finally, I can process film in my digital darkroom. Eventually a CD collection is born. This process takes weeks and with good reason as shooting is only a part of what you see when you look at a photographic image. As much as things have changed from film to digital, how fast it takes to produce good imagery hasn't. It's just a different process. What's your color palette? How do you couple images together? Sequencing? The wonderful world of Photoshop is a long and winding road; an image could take 10 minutes to edit or 4 hours. Work is funny like that. A session may only be two hours but between communication, paperwork, agreements, day before prepping, equipment checks there's countless hours prior to the shoot and then processing film to be ready for a client or get blog ready (those photos are processed and saved differently too :); it's starts with hello and ends with a big thank you with so much that happens in between. Business and art; creativity and lots of organization. I love it all so that makes me happy. Speaking of love, I spend an insane amount of time with packaging. It's a bit of an illness but it can't be helped.

I have a huge crush on graphic design so designing storyboards is a favorite for me. While designing a bunch that a client ordered, I couldn't help design one for a recent shoot with Dempsey. Typically I make cute or modern frames and designs but this seemed just right as is. Btw, Dempsey's six month birthday is on August 6th and heck yeah we'll be celebrating. Puppies in party hats--photo booth anyone?

Personal | Los Angeles| Pets (that are people) | Dempsey

The newest and cutest member of the family, our rescue pup Dempsey, has been thriving, growing and burrowing his way into our hearts. How we got him is another blog post for later. Today he had some tummy trouble so we spent the day making things all better. New mom was calling friends and hitting Yelp hard to find an excellent vet. We made him chicken and rice, wrapped him in his favorite blanket, got him a new squeaky toy and gave him whole lot of extra love. I didn't think there could be more but there was when I knew he wasn't feeling so hot.

Mr. Dempsey is resting by my feet so while I'm processing film from recent shoots so I thought it was a perfect time share a few images from our impromptu photo session. When we adopted him, his rescue mom said that he wasn't a fan of the camera. This smart one realized that I loved my camera and so would he. He poses. Not once and not on command but like Tyra would say "Pose. Pose. Pose. Pose" Like that.

Meet our new love. My arms are not long enough to show you how much I love him.

Pets| Emma |Hancock Park

I've been dying to share this slide show from my recent session with Miss Emma C. Emma reminds us to not to judge a dog by its breed or the stereotype attached to it. Instead judge a pet by its owner as she has one special dad who loves her like the sun and moon and back again. This dog is 119 pounds of pure love.

I'll be posting individual images soon as the details and colors look so pretty and online slide shows don't do them justice. Until then, here's miss thing doing her thing as only she knows how: stealing hearts and giving love love love. Take it away, Emma!

Emma C | Miss Independent | Pet Photography | Los Angeles from Marnie Goodfriend on Vimeo.