Actually, they just HAD their babies, but newborn photos will come later! This is the first time I’ve ever shot maternity photos, and I LOVED IT. I would love love love to do more of this! People who are having babies, take note! We shot in and around their house, and particularly the nursery. Nicole Read more…
While we’re on the topic of nerds, here’s some more from Geneva. We took a tour of CERN (Best. Birthday present. EVER.), and went to a carnival. You decide which was which… Okay, the last one was a “gimme”. In any case, if you can go to CERN, YOU SHOULD. The tour was fun – Read more…
Your tiny accountant is ready to complete your taxes. He’s disappointed that you didn’t prepare your documents! He ponders how to proceed. There’s no use just sitting on the information he already has. Finally, he leaps to action! Something seems askew. Time to crunch some numbers… Success! You’re getting a refund Lefteris and I are Read more…
We took a day trip from Geneva out to Talloires, a little town in the French Alps on Lake Annecy, near Italy. The water…was just absolutely amazing.
We’re taking a trip down memory lane here. Almost two years ago now (holy crap, how time flies), for my birthday in August, Leslie, Peter, Lefteris, and I took a trip to Geneva to go to CERN, WHICH WAS SUPER AWESOME, and which I’ll do another post about shortly. While we were there, I (as Read more…
It seems like oh so long ago… Just before our paperwork day in London, Lefteris surprised me with an anti-honeymoon long weekend in Venice. By anti-honeymoon, I mean that we went just *before* we were married, and we spent the whole time pretending we were strangers meeting in a strange city. Scandalous. Everything you’ve heard Read more…
Explorer Perry sets out on an important expedition! He is excited about the prospects. But wait! What is that in the distance!? He crawls stealthily into the unknown… …searches high and low… …investigates hitherto unseen shapes and colors… Frankly, it’s exhausting. Time to relax with his monkey sidekick. He feels refreshed. Poses for a formal Read more…
Almost exactly a year ago, Lefteris and I went to my college town of Missoula, Montana for a long weekend. My jazz instructor was retiring and attending his retirement party seemed like a great excuse to introduce Lefteris to the Great American West. This ice cream stand, The Big Dipper, is an old haunt – Read more…
Lefteris has been doing more writing lately, and he needed an updated headshot to go with a recent article. He needed it quickly, and we needed to take a minimum amount of time shooting it – minimum as in “while the baby is napping, and within earshot”. Translation: our back yard and the alleyway between Read more…
While waiting for the subway in Barcelona awhile back, I realized that this… …had almost the exact proportions of a shot I took on the DLR in London a year and a half before: Neat!
We’ve been seeing a lot of this sofa lately. Well, here’s one more session, but this time I did something different with it – added a backdrop, and lit it with an umbrella instead of window light. These are Lefteris’s parents, Perry’s grandparents, and two people for whom I am extremely grateful – for raising Read more…
I think I already published this – but my site was hacked a little while ago (boo hoo) and I think it got deleted. Either that, or I have the dreaded “mommy brain”. Regardless, these people are so good-looking there’s no way I can stop myself from highlighting this shoot. I’ve had a lot of Read more…
…from Perry and his cousin Logan! “…and there were THIIIIIIIS many presents!!” “…it was exhausting…I’m not even sure what happened after I fell asleep.” (This is what being a parent is about…right? Putting a fake moustache on your kid and documenting it for posterity? Sounds right to me…)
…the one, the only, the amazing, the magnificent, Perseus Theodoros Grammatas! Born 10/11/12 (to two math geeks – pretty apropos!), 7 pounds, 2 ounces. We had a difficult delivery ending in an emergency c-section after the doctors realized he was breech, but ultimately any delivery that ends with a healthy baby and mom is a Read more…
Our little explorer is coming! And he or she needs hats – explorer-appropriate hats! What’s more appropriate for a tiny explorer than a tiny knitted pith helmet? Apparently this isn’t something that’s been done before – why, I don’t know. But I had to come up with a pattern that would create the right kind Read more…
The big addition to the Moroccan Room before the baby was this dresser/changing table, which I suppose I didn’t exactly make, but I did hack and embellish to a point of unrecognizability. We bought the Tarva at Ikea for the base, and two nice wood planks to make a larger top plus four brackets from Read more…
In the midst of creating the Explorer’s Moroccan-ish Nursery, I found some spare time to whip up a lamp for Lefteris’s office. We bought this lampshade at Ikea with this design in mind; then I just got a standard lamp kit from the hardware store, and constructed this from bamboo I had around the house. Read more…
We’re as ready as we’re gonna get. How do you really prepare for a baby? We have all of the truly necessary stuff, we’ve put everything in order, and we’ve cleared our schedules for the coming weeks. But I can’t think of anything we can do to even begin to prepare ourselves mentally for the Read more…
…is the Greek word for “giant belly”, and that is what I have right now. Many thanks to Emily for the awesome photos! I’m due in less than a month and can hardly wait to meet this not-so-tiny-anymore human robot growing inside my body. How bizarre and wonderful. If this isn’t enough, all the photos Read more…
Emily and I really had such a great time in our Moroccan-room-shoot. I love playing like this, because we both get to be on both sides of the lens – and I think that is an invaluable experience for any photographer who’s remotely interested in shooting people, or particularly posed portraits. We have another “official” Read more…
For years I’ve wanted to go to Morocco. Since (years ago anyway) that seemed unbelievably far away, I started collecting Moroccan stuff and eventually made Moroccan bedrooms for myself in a few different apartments. (Click the images to see more) When we moved into our house here after getting back from London, I thought: Moroccan Read more…
When I started to write this post, the first thing I thought was, I’ll need a link so people can learn more about the pie cutting…and so I can make sure I understand it correctly. After searching and searching (“greek wedding pie-cutting ceremony” and all possible variations) I pretty much gave up on finding an Read more…
Well, we finally did it! As you may already know, Lefteris and I had our civil marriage almost a year ago in London. And while we’ve been very much married this year, we never thought of that as the “wedding” – we’ve been planning THIS wedding in Greece ever since. (What we didn’t plan is Read more…
We are *just* about to leave for Greece for our Big Fat Greek Wedding, but I saw this contest on another blog and I just had to enter. It’s called Capture the Color and it works like this: you put together five photos (with captions) from around the world, one from each color, and you Read more…
My sister-in-law Jenna is pregnant! We took a little trip to Hawaii recently to celebrate our co-pregnancy (and to make Lefteris say, “ARE YOU JOKING ME???” possibly hundreds of times as we drove around Oahu and he marveled at the tropical-ness of it all), and included a weekend in Kauai. I’ve spent a lot of Read more…
It’s been more than a little while since I’ve posted any kind of update whatsoever here, and SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED. A few of my last posts were teases, too – I still haven’t put up my photos from Venice or Geneva (this orchid was from our hotel there), or done any explanations for Round Read more…
I’m really thrilled that not only can you buy Nidhi’s prints, which are often for sale on her website, but also her woodburnings, now on Fab.com! I’m also thrilled that I took the photos of the wood burnings and of Nidhi herself!
Following on the success of the first round of fashion-y photos of my ZAAZ London colleagues, we went for round 2 with the new folks. This time I shot seven people instead of the original 18, which really gave me some time to get it RIGHT. I feel like I learned a lot the first Read more…
Been working on a few new things lately…watercolors, for the first time. All still being developed…
…from my office, no less. This is obviously a major bummer. (Or as Lefteris would say, a major “bomber”.) Luckily I had just done a huge backup of my photos, so while this is an enormous hassle, it could be so much worse. I have of course lost some of my recent source files, but Read more…
Surely I am not suffering from an awful case of pareidolia: these buzzers, all over Venice, REALLY looked like faces. Take a look at the whole portfolio – seriously, it’s WEIRD! And they all have different personalities! “ACK! I didn’t see you there!” “Hey, good-lookin…” “Ooooooooh” Many more in the portfolio!
I’m a sucker for shots like this. I always think I’ll layer them with something in Photoshop, and sometimes I do. When I look at them alone critically I tend to think there’s no real point to them, but what can I say…I just like them. Especially when shot with my 100mm/f2.8 macro lens which Read more…
I’ve never been very into Halloween, which is weird since it’s pretty much the craftiest holiday there is. But I saw this project online (I’m not sure where) and I just had to make my own. It took about 20 minutes to make both and I did so before work one day. Quite a lot Read more…
A few weeks back I had the pleasure of shooting the portraits that will run alongside an interview with the world’s leading Gabeologist. Having always considered myself something of an amateur Gabeologist myself, this was a delight. The maestro was in rare form. All of those, with the exception of the wide shot of the Read more…
My friend Ina was kind enough to take these lovely portraits of Lefteris and me in the lavender fields.
Hooray! I got the 1st place prize this year in the “Story” category for this photo from Aaron and Ashley’s wedding: I’m not sure I ever posted about it, but last year I also won in the “Artistic” category for this photo: This kind of thing is really encouraging.
I’m a sucker for a jumping shot. So with a beautiful setting like this…what else could I do? First I got Ina jumping. Then she turned the camera around (Ina is also a great photographer)! These conditions were awesome for this type of thing, and here’s why: Cloudy sky = giant softbox above your head. Read more…
Emily has a new dog. A French Bulldog named Buster, to be exact.
Exactly what it says – I just wish I could attend this party.
This was a few days back, but I don’t want to miss it! Here’s a shot from the lavender fields…alongside here’s Nidhi’s recent sketch! If only there had been an adorable fox couple there in real life. That would have been something.
…just imagine the smell! We spent a day at Mayfield Lavender in Surrey with some friends, and I just posted my portfolio from this outing, so I want to feature a few of my favorite images in the coming days. First up: my favorite shot of Ina. I continue to be on a roll with Read more…
Everyone loves hipster puppies. Gabe sent me a link to this one…maybe because of this photo I took of him one Christmas? Eerie.
…has been surprisingly productive, especially considering all of the stuff that’s been going on! Before I left for SF I started this painting. I needed to draw a grid of dots, so I marked things off with tape. Then the real work began. I had previously printed out pages of random numbers generated in Excel, Read more…
When numbers match their surroundings, I feel happy. 3 is green, 1 is black, and 2 is yellow or gold. The purple door just looks good with it. This was in New Orleans, across the river from most of the city in Algiers Point.
The bottomlessly talented Peter Kappus has launched a new project: Orbitron. Orbitron has one purpose: to show you interesting combinations of colorful concentric circles. Each arrangement is created on the fly and is completely unique. Well, I suppose it’s safe to say that its secondary purpose is to get you to wear interesting combinations of Read more…
We have a constant stream of adorable phrases in our house – partly because English isn’t Lefteris’s first language, partly because translating Greek phrases directly into English is inherently funny, and partly because plenty of Greek customs seem slightly hilarious to me (and since we’re planning our wedding, I’m hearing about a lot of them). Read more…
On Wednesday, the 17th, Lefteris and I got married! We will have a big wedding in Greece next summer, so this was just the legal stuff…but the legal stuff is important! We are both so happy. And now we’re even more excited about the whole wedding celebration. Since we’ve been thinking about this as “Paperwork Read more…
Tomorrow is what we’re calling “Paperwork Day” – our legal marriage! We’re not calling it the wedding because the wedding will be next summer in Greece with all of our friends and family. This is going to be very small – just four of our closest friends in London will be guests at the ceremony Read more…
Our weekend in Venice was super-romantic. I’ll have a lot more to say when I get around to all of the photo editing, but for now here’s a preview of what’s coming up. We took our gondola ride at twilight because I wanted to get some slow shutter shots, and also because it was a Read more…
…that for my birthday last weekend, we went to Geneva solely for the purpose of taking a tour of CERN. I’m very excited to process these photos, but just haven’t had the time yet – so here’s a preview of my full nerdiness! Speaking of nerdiness, and CERN, this is one of my favorite videos Read more…
Working from home has unexpected benefits. Being at home at all has unexpected benefits, actually. In the last month, I’ve been constantly on the go: two weeks in San Francisco divided up at different friends’ places, back to London for three days, four days in Venice, back to London for another three days, four days Read more…
Just before I left for California, London’s “summer” was starting to get me down. By “summer” I mean enless overcast, rainy days. For all of June and July. We had about 2.5 decent days out of those 60ish available days. It got the better of me, and for whatever reason (I wish I could determine Read more…
This one was in San Francisco, close to Golden Gate park. Closed up tight. Thought about switching to a wider lens…but I was really enjoying the geometry.
Gabe is pretty much a member of my family at this point. He’s spent numerous holidays with us and even did a reading at Aaron and Ashley’s wedding. He’s also on my mom’s weekly update email…and you know that’s serious. So one of my SF adventures was, of course, a ridiculous photo outing with Gabe. Read more…
My lock portfolio is about to get a massive infusion. I’ve seen some great ones around the world lately…out for a walk in Camden, then in San Francisco, and especially in Venice, where Lefteris and I spent last weekend. For today: locks of San Francisco. Well, the first is from Burlingame, but the rest are Read more…
Nidhi is my very very VERY good friend and is one of my very favorite people. She’s also a rising star of an illustrator – incredibly talented, friendly, smart, funny, and driven. Did I mention talented? Take a look at her website to see what I’m talking about. While I was in SF for a Read more…
When I wasn’t shooting Emily, she was shooting me! I love shooting with Emily – we just trade off. And most of all, we get to trade ideas, try stuff in different ways, and learn. First we experimented with balancing the sun with a single flash. Love the way that looks here. Next, weird poses. Read more…
Emily is one of my very best friends, AND she’s the person who got me started in photography a couple of years ago. We haven’t seen each other since I moved to London, but as soon as we did…it was like we were just doing this yesterday. We drove down Skyline, over to Santa Cruz, Read more…
We stopped to get cold water at this strange little pizza place, which appeared to have a gas station next to it. I say “appeared” because upon closer inspection, the two were one and the same. Note: this is the place where you order your pizza, or buy your gas, depending on your needs.
…and I don’t have any photos to show for it yet. Surely that will change in the next day or so, but I just thought I’d say…it is SO good to be here. It feels like coming up for air after a long time underwater. While I get some current photos ready, I’m going to Read more…
New Orleans is hot and humid – and all of the interiors are blissfully air conditioned. The downside of this is that a cooled lens taken outside quickly fogs up. The upside of that is that it kind of makes for cool photos. This happened to me once before in Hawaii, and I loved the Read more…
The wedding rehearsal was the day before the wedding, so we did some shots at the house. I had something in mind for this: I’ve been saving this photo from Marie Claire for months, waiting for the opportunity to try this pose (or something like it) with a couple. This was my chance! In the Read more…
Two days ago i completed a painting – the first in a long while. I dreamed this up in Greece, the first time I went to Athens. I love how simple this is – I think it’s just a lot “cuter” than any of my other work. And I like thinking that I can convey Read more…
We dashed onto a ferry across the Mississippi in New Orleans, just to see the city skyline from the water. The ferry ride took maybe ten minutes, we spent 30 on the other side of the river, rode back, and that was it.
The day before their wedding, Ashley and Aaron had their rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. It was early in the day, so in the evening we still had enough daylight to shoot some portraits in our rental house in New Orleans. First I had them sit in a window seat in one of the living rooms Read more…
Apparently, all engagement-related post titles will end with exclamation points! I’m super excited that this is happening. I thought I’d never get married. I’m super independent and have been that way all my life, and I’m really happy on my own. So it’s a tough standard: I wasn’t looking for a husband, or even really Read more…
Grumpy Simon is my favorite! This was all his idea, but the artwork is mine. We spent some time sketching it out on paper, and then I just started drawing on his face. BAM. Grumpy Simon. This makes me want to do a whole series of these! Turns out I kind of like painting people. Read more…
**More about my engagement soon, I promise!** A couple of years ago, I saw the book Masters’ Guide to Wedding Photography: Capturing Unforgettable Moments and Lasting Impressions by Marcus Bell. I really can’t recommend that book enough; it made me think about wedding photography in a whole new way. It also made me subscribe to Read more…
More to come…I am SO HAPPY!!!
It was amazing! The whole family came to New Orleans (Ashley’s home town), from all over the place – Hawaii, all over the US, and the UK (us!) and Sweden. We rented a couple of houses for the week – one for the “parents” and one for the “kids” – and there we 19 of Read more…
We rented a house in New Orleans so that all of the “kids” that were there for the wedding could stay together. My parents got their own place, and who could blame them? There were nineteen of us in the house – NINETEEN! It was huge but we were still tripping over each other – Read more…
We spent Greek Orthodox Easter in Greece – on Lesvos, in Athens, and on Santorini. One day in Santorini, we went for a hike, and found ourselves a secluded church at the end of a peninsula. We set up a whole shoot there…spent a little time on Katie, Leslie, and Peter. These are my favorite Read more…
I insisted this be one of the five looks. I really like shooting men, especially working with regular guys to get very cool, even fashiony shots. Plus, this was a gift for Simon’s girlfriend, and I know every girl wants hot-guy photos of her man. He totally made it happen.
More to come…
We just flew back from New Orleans, and BOY ARE MY ARMS TIRED. But seriously, folks. It was the first time I’ve been back to the US since I moved abroad, but I’ve never actually been to NOLA or spent any time in the South, so it was all new. Most importantly, the whole family Read more…
Who knew Simon had his septum pierced? Not I. But man was that badass. He stood next to a corrugated metal wall, with a dark grey painted wall behind him. I put the Speedlite/umbrella combo, on a stand, pointing at the wall, and he stood in between. That setup gave us a dramatic shadow, but Read more…
Duminda probably wouldn’t say this about himself, but I think he’s mysterious. He’s totally brilliant, and pretty quiet at first…but is also really friendly, interested in all kinds of stuff, and has such a big, easy smile that he’d be impossible not to like. We went through a few ideas of how to shoot him, Read more…
You may have noticed that I shoot a lot of photos of locks. I started doing this in Tibet. It made a lot of sense to me at the time; who’s locking who in…or out? I felt like it was an interesting lens to see the country through. Also, they’re interesting because there are differences Read more…
We found a small playground, I climbed up high, and Simon looked up at me. Poof: childlike and curious.
What a great city! Awesome mix of stuff. Super friendly people. Really easy to get around. Entertaining thunderstorms. And I’ve just posted my portfolio of the trip – follow the link to see more photos. We spent the weekend with our friends Leslie and Peter. I’m going to duplicate this pose when I shoot my Read more…
I shot Sam and Catalina together. Sam, to put it frankly, kicks ass. We call him “Sam the man” and so the concept for his shoot was a bit of a superhero thing. I didn’t want to go all the way to a costume – more like Superman in his office clothes. Location The most Read more…
After seeing the ZAAZ London photos, Simon asked me if I’d help with a gift for his girlfriend: some photos of himself portraying different sides of his personality. He is ADORABLE and super personable and I really looked forward to doing this! In the end we shot five different looks on one Saturday. I liked Read more…
In April, Lefteris and I spent a week and a half in Greece – visiting the village where he spent a lot of his childhood, enjoying Easter (what an experience), and then traveling around a bit, including a couple of nights on Santorini – all with four of our great friends. It was just outstanding. Read more…
Catalina is awesome, but before I started this series I didn’t know exactly *how* awesome. Then I found out she secretly kickboxes! Well, that made the concept easy – of COURSE we had to do hers with her kickboxing gear. Location I wanted this to be outside, at night/twilight. Basically just wanted it to evoke Read more…
A beafeater at the Tower of London, looking like a vintage postcard: A tube station, if it was from the future:
I promised “how I did it” posts, so let’s kick it off! Rob is adorable and is also very into fashion. So, when brainstorming about how to shoot everyone, “fashion magazine” was the obvious pick for him. The only choice was: formal or casual? In the end, we shot both, but my final pick for Read more…
With the blog updates, I’m now able to host some nice photo portfolios right here on this very site, instead of having to link away to make that happen. Thanks, Portfolio Press! Please have a look…I’ll be adding and updating as time allows, and I’d love to hear what you think!
Over the last couple of months, I’ve undertaken a photo project: shooting cinematic or fashion-forward portraits of each of my coworkers. I work at a digital agency in London, where we focus on analytics, web optimization, and search; it may not sound creative but it is surprisingly so. There are 18 of us, and everyone Read more…
This site just got a big makeover. Everyone needs a makeover from time to time. I like to think I just talked my blog out of tall, hairsprayed bangs. Er…I hope it wasn’t that bad. In any case, you can now do things like: Buy prints of some of my paintings and my photos Get Read more…
As an American, going to Madrid on a business trip is the bee’s knees. I’ve never been there before but I do love Spain in general after our trip to Andalucia at Christmas. I love that there’s a dentist living/working upstairs from this candy shop! This was a ceiling light fixture in our hotel…I feel Read more…
Ai Weiwei, as you may have heard, has been detained in China; he’s been missing for nearly a month now. I never posted these photos from a day seeing his “Sunflower Seeds” exhibition in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern but was reminded of them when reading about him earlier today. On this day, Read more…
The Eurostar. Ahh, the Eurostar. One tube stop from home, two hours on a train, and we were in the middle of Paris. I love the Eurostar. When Adam and Jenna came to visit several weeks ago (I’m way behind on posting…) we knew we had to do a side trip to Paris. In one Read more…
A few weeks back I had a great afternoon at Hampstead Heath, walking around with Margaret in the mild weather…
Adam and Jenna came out to visit London and THAT WAS FANTASTIC. I often feel like I’m living on another planet out here and they made me feel that was not the case. Before I get to our fabulous day in Paris, I’ll just say this: I love shooting Jenna. We stayed in a Scottish-themed Read more…
DON’T JINX IT, but, the last few days here have been sooooo nice! Sunny, beautiful, and legitimately warm. FINALLY. I feel like my old self again. I think I’m photon-powered. Friday lunch took place at the pub.
Several weeks ago, my friend Erin suggested a weekend in Haworth, where the Bronte sisters lived. I couldn’t say no to that, although to be quite honest that isn’t my cup of literature-related tea…Lefteris and I have been talking about touring the LHC (which we’re doing in August!) and Erin explained her feeling by saying, Read more…
Today I’m in Madrid for a work meeting. Spain is still lovely, as it was when we were in Andalucia…which makes me remember that I really ought to post the final installment from our Andalucia trip! So without further ado: day 8 was New Year’s Eve! We spent the day doing two things: 1) nothing, Read more…
Shot these at the Science Museum (with the Lensbaby, even), and I think they’re unique enough for me to like and standard enough for me to put into a Powerpoint presentation at work.
I finished two new paintings tonight! They’re smaller than a lot of my work and are similar to Binary (01)…I want to play some more with proportions and see what pops up. Binary (10): Binary (11): A detail: I like them next to each other:
The final leg of our journey took us south from Cordoba, through the mountains and particularly through a town called Ronda, to Estepona on the coast. The drive to Ronda was uneventful, but the town, and its bridge, was out of this world. Seriously, this was the view from the parking lot where we stopped. Read more…