Olive wants to be a Star

Being from Hollywood, Olive and her friend, Oscar, decided to try their luck at becoming movie stars. First they went to a fabulous photographer to have their headshots made:





Then they headed on down to the famous Paramount Studios on Melrose Avenue to try their luck!





An uniformed guard stopped them before they could even get in.



They gave him their shiny 8x10 headshots and their most winning smiles....







...but apparently dogs are not allowed on the Paramount Lot.

Labels: hollywood, olive, personal, photography

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Olive Goes to Lassie's Star

Today Olive and her friend, Bear, decided to check out some of the scene on Hollywood Boulevard. They had heard Lassie's paws were in the cement, but all they could find were hands, feet and horsehooves... before too many shots could be taken, they were asked to leave. Well!



Six blocks down or so they found Lassie's star! In the shade!

Labels: hollywood, olive, personal, photography

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Olive Goes to the Hollywood Bowl

This weekend, Olive and her longtime friend, Matilda, decided to make another page for the "Olive Goes to Hollywood" book with a visit to the famous Hollywood Bowl.





Unfortunately, the season doesn't really start until June, so no shows were on, and no snacks could be obtained.



Still, it was cool to check out this Hollywood Landmark!

Labels: hollywood, olive, personal, photography

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Happy Birthday Olive!!!

My baby is 10 years old today. I love you, Olive!

I got Olive when she was just four weeks old... it is hard to imagine my life without her...she really does make me so happy!

Labels: olive

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PINK'S goes to the dogs

Olive made a new friend today! Ann Hamilton is in town from San Francisco and she brought her adorable Pug, Bogie, with her.

Olive and Bogie became fast friends and they decided to take a little trip to the Hollywood landmark, PINK'S hotdogs.

















I have actually been wanting to make a book called "Olive Goes to Hollywood" for years now. The book would be about Olive taking her dog friends to various landmarks around Hollywood, and I think I'm going to try to start it now. Those of you who read this blog who know me personally and have dogs that know Olive, be sure to contact me to be in the book!

Labels: hollywood, olive, personal, photography

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love

Olive & Abigail have been hanging out in my office all week while I prepare for the lighting seminar I'm giving with John Mireles on Thursday! They are quite good company.

Labels: olive, personal

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Happy St. Nicholas Day!!!

My mother is Ukrainian, so every 6th of December we celebrate St. Nicholas Day. This is the day we wake up to our stockings filled with goodies! Since I haven't lived with my mother for many many years, instead of waking up to stockings, I now find exciting packages on my doorstep!!

This year was a really BIG box with a cute Hello Kitty stocking that had my name embroidered on the front! There were gifts for me, Olive & Abigail.

Check it out! THANK YOU, MOM! Um, I mean St. Nick!!

Labels: olive, personal

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Kathy Weller Pet Portraits

I believe it was one of my loyal blog followers, Jeanne, who originally told me about the fabulous Pet Portraiture artist, Kathy Weller (and if it wasn't you, Jeanne, then whomever it was, please leave a comment!)

As a gift to myself, I decided to get my pet's portraits painted by Kathy. If you have a pet lover in your life that you'd like to get a very original gift for, this is a really fun idea! Click here to check out her site.

This is the amazing portrait she created of Olive & Abigail! I love that she included some of my favorite things such as my vintage camera collection, Blythe, Pysanky and sunflowers as well as two of Olive's favorite toys and a greenie, her favorite snack.

Labels: olive, personal

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Olive

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Olive portraits

Today I had the great pleasure of spending a few hours with the talented photographer and my friend, Ann Hamilton. Ann is very well known for not only her wedding photography but her dog portraits, so when she offered to shoot us I jumped at the chance! I know I am constantly photographing my dog, but I thought it would be great to not only be in front of the camera with Olive, but to see her through another photographer's eyes. It was a wonderful experience! Olive is being featured on her blog right now - click here to check it out!

How CUTE are these?? THANK YOU, Ann! Ann is also going to shoot with me and Joy on Sunday for part two of this weekend's two-part wedding, so I'm really looking forward to that. Part one is tomorrow, so come back to the blog soon to see images!

Labels: kudos, olive, personal

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my life

I still have to blog about Sunday's wedding, but in the meantime I thought I would post this shot of my baby, Olive. She makes me super happy!

Labels: olive

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Bear Valley

This past week I have been in Bear Valley with my family and some friends. My mother runs the Young Musicians Camp for the Bear Valley Music Festival every August, and she owns a historical Stone House on Lake Alpine where the camp is held. The Stone House was built to hold the explosives that made the dam and created Lake Alpine.

Its actually been kind of fun to have such limited access to my email and cell phone! It allows me more time to roast marshmallows and eat S'Mores, a near-daily activity. Olive is having so much fun, too, and she swims in the lake every day. The first night here everyone sat under the stars and watched a meteor shower. That was amazing. I have been shooting all week, but here are a few highlights.

The Stone House.



The strangest addition to the Stone House... a giant swanboat.





Swancam...



Joy captured this one of me enjoying my favorite activity here.



The first night everyone learned how to make baked oatmeal for the next morning's breakfast.



Eating our baked oatmeal outside the Stone House!



Because its a music camp, there are instruments everywhere. I even played guitar for the first time in months. I love this shot of Millie trying her hand at the piano. The deer head above her is "Buck," who talks. Yes, you read that right.



Everyone went hiking on Tuesday up to Slick Rock to play in the natural waterslide. And by "hiking" I mean dragging the kids over two miles to get there and back. I also like to call this picture "Why I Don't Have Children."



I LOVE this shot that my brother captured of me and Joy sliding down Slick Rock. Olive joined in on almost EVERY slide! She is such a funny dog!

Labels: olive, personal

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Camera Happy Please

I really LOVE my clients. Earlier this year, Joy and I shot Monica & Martin's beautiful wedding at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco. I'm at my sister's house today and what arrives in the mail but a big thank you package for me, Olive and Abigail! The super thoughtful Monica & Martin have not only sent me a Blythe petite doll (I'm completely obsessed with her) but they found a photographer's outfit for my full-sized Blythe to wear as well. Olive & Abigail got toys and treats!

Monica & Martin - you are so thoughtful. Thank you so much! I love how your Thank You cards turned out. The image you chose to use is one of my favorites from the whole day. When we went to the top of that hill to shoot, I loved that we could see your church down in the background. It just MADE the whole shot!

Check out the loot - You can see Olive back there... she couldn't wait for her rope toy to be photographed before she started chewing on it.



I'm in the Bay Area for a wedding in Sonoma tomorrow, but the first thing I'm going to do when I get home is put Blythe into her new photographer's get up. I think the Engrish costume title makes it perfect.



on to the next yummy...



The BEST part...

Labels: kudos, olive, personal, wedding2007

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My funny pets

I adore my pets. Anywhere I go in my house, within a few minutes they are both there. They like to keep me company when I'm working in the office, and they've both recently adopted new places to hang.

Abigail likes it near the computer.



And Olive has decided she likes to sleep under the extra work station.

Labels: olive, personal

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Happy Birthday, my Olive!!!

Today is Olive's 9th birthday! This is what she looked like when I first got her at FOUR WEEKS OLD!! Back then she had blue eyes and a white chest.




This is one of the most recent shots of her that I took during a lighting test in my backyard. She is so great. I just love having Olive in my life. Who knew she would make my life so much richer and fun?

Labels: olive, personal

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Jules is boring

I think my pets are trying to tell me something.

Labels: olive, personal

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Olive

My dog, Olive, has patiently sat through many lighting tests, new lens tests, new camera tests, etc. She is my constant muse. I am finally compiling all of my favorite shots of her into an album. Below is a shot I took this morning during a lighting test. I think its going to make it into the book!

Don't you just want to squish that face?? Okay, I'm off to a portrait shoot now!

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Pump Cups

No, its not a new kind of bra.... its a cool little tool I learned about when I shot the New Year's Eve wedding with David Jay in Santa Barbara. The Pump Cup will allow me to position my flash on a wall so that I can use my Pocket Wizard to fire it off-camera. It is much smaller and easier to bring to weddings than a lightstand. I can ALSO put another camera on it and either fire it simultaneously with the camera I'm shooting or fire it separately by pressing a button on the Pocket Wizard.

And who do you suppose got to play test subject? I love this shot of Ms. Olive - we did it with the 580EX on the Pump Cup behind her to create some lovely rim lighting, and a gold reflector pointed directly at her to fill in her cute face.



Here's the set up with my Canon 580 EX...I plan to also use this for my Q-flash and 20D. Its gonna be a fun year!!

Labels: olive, photography

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wide angles

Samy's no tax sale was this weekend, and I couldn't help myself... I had to have a new lens!

I love my vintage panoramic camera, but it is very finicky (its nearly as old as I am...come to think of it, I'm kind of finicky too... hmmm) and its becoming harder and harder to incorporate film into my jobs.

Today I bought the 11-18mm from Tamron. Because this lens is specifically made for the 1.6 crop factor, I can now have a super wide angle on either my 30D & 20D! (sorry for the mini-geekout)

Labels: news, olive, photography

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My tiny family

This is the first weekend in ten weeks where I haven't had a job to shoot. Its SO nice to not have to be anywhere except for holiday parties this weekend!!

Of course, I can't go long without shooting SOMETHING, so I decided to test the 17 - 50mm lens I bought my mother for Christmas. As per usual, I used Abigail & Olive as my test subjects.

I feel very lucky to have the cutest pets. Try not to be too jealous.

Ms. Abigail





Ms. Olive

Labels: olive, personal

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Olive & other ways to procrastinate

Olive is so proud of her pop art! I have a lot of work to do tonight, so of course I'm spending my time shooting pictures of my cute cute dog.

Labels: olive

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Happy St. Nicholas Day!!!

For those of you who don't know, St. Nicholas Day is typically celebrated in Eastern Europe - its the day that St. Nick leaves gifts in the shoes of the good children. My mother is Ukrainian, and growing up, I always found nice surprises on December 6th. Its such a fun way to kick off the holiday season!! (If you don't get coal, that is...)

This morning Olive woke me with her barking... I was so excited to find that St. Nicholas had left me a nice gift at the front door! I have a sneaking suspicion that St. Nick might live in San Francisco because there is a lot of nice things from Ghiradelli in my basket!

What do you think, MOM??? (I LOVE YOU!)

Labels: olive, personal

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Nick needs a good home!!

My good friend, Tina, has such a big heart. She has rescued several dogs and helped place them into good homes. Today, Olive and I met her at the local dog park to photograph Nick, her latest rescue. If you are looking for a super friendly, fun dog, please call her at 323.573.5172.



There were a few other characters at the park today as well...

Labels: kudos, olive, personal

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Olive the Super Star

I have finally got my own POP ART!! My good friend, Wendy Maybury, took this shot of Olive a few years ago. I have always loved it and finally did something really cool with it. Each image is a 16" x 20" canvas print, so the whole piece is about 34" x 44"

I love it!! It matches the new couches!

Labels: news, olive

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Bedtime with the Browns

I am in the Bay Area for the week of Thanksgiving to not only take a few meetings and do a pregnancy portrait tomorrow, but to spend some time with my family. I love being an auntie, and tonight I documented the Browns while they were winding down from the day and getting ready for bed.

I guess its not SO easy for Millie to wind down when Dad plays "airplane"...



Penelope started kindergarten this year and is learning to read! Here she is showing her skills to Joy...



Jules and Penelope take a silly self-portrait



And Ms. Olive supervises the whole thing from her post in the bed.

Labels: olive, personal

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Can Olive replace Magic?

Old Navy is looking for a new mascot to replace Magic, and with 98,054 other dogs in the running, those judges should be thanking me! I just made their job real easy.

Olive has joined the competition.

Old Navy would be making a pretty smart marketing move to hire Miss O as their next mascot. Look at that face! How can you not love that wrinkly jowl? Doesn't she just make you want to run out and buy performance fleece??

Seriously, whenever we bring Olive to the local cafe, at least 5 people will stop just to pet or talk to her every time. And its like that no matter where we go. People just adore Olive! She is so much more popular than I am, but I'm not jealous!! I love you, Olive!

Labels: olive

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Happy Birthday Olive!!!

I brought Olive home to live with me when she was four weeks old and still had blue eyes and a patch of white fur on her chest. Today Olive is eight years old and still acts like a puppy! She is my best companion and such a total joy to have in my life. I love her and am so thankful that I've been given the gift of her love in return. She is the funniest dog I have ever met and she constantly keeps me laughing and just happy in general. For those of you who have dogs you'll know what I mean when I say there is NOTHING like coming home to someone so genuinely thrilled and excited to see you EVERY SINGLE time you walk in the door. Olive is a sweet dog who loves me and Abigail (our cat) and makes my life 100% better in every way. She is my constant muse and lets me test out every new lens, flash and camera on her! She's such a gorgeous subject!

Happy birthday, Olive! I LOVE YOU!!!

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Happy St. Nicholas Day!!!

Because my mother's family is from Ukraine, when I was a child we would receive our stockings on St. Nicholas Day instead of Christmas Day. St. Nick's is on December 6th, and it really helps kick off the holiday season!!

Even though I haven't lived at home for a long time, my mother faithfully sends me and Olive our stockings every St. Nick's. THANK YOU MOM!! I love you!!

Check out the STASH!! Mom MADE me a gorgeous cloth for my table to really help put some Christmas spirit in the house. Olive stuck her nose in the box and pulled out her ball herself. She seems quite proud of it.

Labels: olive, personal

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True Love

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Lensbaby, baby!

Today I bought myself a new toy that I can't wait to try out at the wedding I'm shooting in Santa Rosa this weekend. Its called a Lensbaby, and although there's definitely a learning curve with the focus and exposure, I love the results! Check out my patient subject, Blythe!



Ms. O is always a willing (if not readily available) subject, and the lensbaby seemed to like her, too.

Labels: news, olive, photography

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