Merry & Bright

'Tis the season to be merry, bright, and glistening with all of those gorgeous twinkling lights! One of my favorite things about this season is the lights.  I love the way they look and the magical whimsy that they lend to the night.  If I had my way, every inch of the town would be covered in beautiful white lights and draped in pine garlands... and not just in December!  Nearly everyone that knows me knows that I have a (minor?) obsession with holiday lights and I love photographing them and finding ways to incorporate them into my every day life.  Just a touch of Christmas year-round?  But of course!

(Advertisements seem to be making their way into the links in this paragraph... please ignore until I can correct this issue!  The only link I've added is og Genevieve's newborn session in the fourth sentence.)  So of course I jumped at the chance to do some holiday photo shoots.  This is the first of many.  I was thrilled to travel to six-month old Genevieve's house early on a Saturday morning to play with holiday lights, Santa hats, and a red tutu.  Genevieve was the first newborn that I photographed last spring, so this was an especially sweet photo shoot and I loved getting to capture her as she grows.  Looking back through the photos I found a few cute little facial expressions that she had made six months ago, too!

And now, let's let the lights speak for themselves...

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One of my absolute favorites from the shoot?  This black and white one with the lights shining just so and illuminating beautiful Genevieve's wonderstruck expression.  As a photographer, I draw inspiration from so many places.  Lately I've been admiring the gorgeous B&W photos of the talented Kate T. Parker Photography.  After I processed this photo, which just BEGGED to be in B&W, I took one look at it and saw the inspiration connection.  Love it!  Right now it's topping the charts as my current fave, though that is always changing with each new shoot that I go on  ;o)

As we enter the most wonderful time of the year, remember to pause and appreciate the joy and the wonder of the season.  Stop on a street corner and just soak up the twinkling lights for a few extra seconds.  Breathe in the scents of the pine boughs and the peppermint candles at the supermarket, and appreciate the warm and cozy atmosphere in the kitchen.  Come together and create new traditions, celebrate old traditions, and SOAK IT UP.  Suck the marrow out of life.  Enjoy it.

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived...  I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”  ~Thoreau