Ok. I must agree that for those who have to trek out in it, sometimes ice isn’t so nice. But for kids and teachers and photgraphers designing wedding albums at home, it’s kinda kewl.

I went to see Juno the other night and was pretty much blown away by actress Ellen Page’s performance here. There’s Oscar talk about this and I can totally see why. The movie itself was A+ material but Page handled the role of Juno in a way few could. There were so many opportunities for that performance to go astray with a lesser actress, but Page kept you right there with Juno the whole time. Loveable, real, everything else. Of course, the rest of the cast here was superb with my hat off to Jennifer Garner for her beautiful performance as well. A definite must see, especially while it’s still at my favorite Roanoke movie theater The Grandin.

Just in case anyone coming by here is an aspiring actor, model, or business person, I don’t have to remind you that you need a really good headshot. A good headshot will help you get noticed and there are some general guidelines to creating a headshot that will get you noticed or keep you from NOT getting noticed.

They’re a lot of fun to do because usually people having them done are doing interesting things with their life. So it’s kind of cool just hanging out and talking shop and pop culture etc etc.

Here’s a couple. I like high key but they don’t really have to be as long as there’s not a lot of distraction.

This little video was so much fun I really had to share it with everyone. It is a compilation of the nearly 400 photos taken at the photo booth I set up during my Christmas open house. I wish all of the guests had taken part in this but it is obvious that the ones who did had a fantastic time! The creativity was hilarious (I did have to edit out a few just to be on the safe side) and it shows how people really love to have fun.

For those of you planning a wedding or mitzvah, a photo booth is a great idea to capture all of your guests in a really fun setting. Amazingly, it takes very little space to set up the background and camera, and it is run by remote control that most guests feel very comfortable using. While this is not a part of my package prices, it is available a la carte. Just give me a shout and we can discuss if you are interested.

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This has been an awesome Christmas with way much good food, parties and friends, family, and a little travel all thrown in for a smashing good time. 2007 has been a fantastic year altogether with lots of personal growth and meeting so many new people. I’ve picked up new friends along the way, had a lot of fun with old friends, met and exceeded my business goals and along with that had some terrific clients who have been fun to work with and so good to me.

As I look towards 2008 I do have a few resolutions. I promise to get back into a more strict gym and fitness routine which has always helped me feel good about my overall health . I love being able to meet the physical demands of my job without having to worry and I truly believe that a well balanced physical fitness lifestyle has been key to my stamina on some of those extra long days. 45+ miles of cycling and three trips a week to the gym to lift is my main goal. I got a little out of whack this past summer. Of course it is more of a challenge in the middle of the wedding season but I AM COMMITTED!

My second and final resolution is to learn to cook better food. I’m not much of a cook and never have really had much interest in it. But I really think this goes hand in hand with my overall fitness goals as I get older. January is vegetarian month where I am swearing off meat. I’m going to beg Patience, my next door neighbor, to help me learn to cook a few interesting (but easy) veggie dishes. She promises she will and seems really supportive of my whole effort. Who knows, maybe this will stick and I can swear off the high price of meat forever.

Anyway, to close out the year I am posting a few pics from here and there. A little Christmas food and decor along with some shots I took at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden while up in NYC for the last part of the holiday. I must say I want to go back to the Garden in spring as they have a beautiful thing going on there. Established in the late 1800s and open since 1910, the grounds of this 52 acre botanical paradise are simply stunning, even in the middle of winter. You really forget you are in the middle of a huge metropolis while you are there. Such a refuge. All of it was fascinating, but in particular the bonsai and Japanese gardens. Some of the bonsai were over 100 years old and I really had fun exploring those little wonderlands.

So here they are and Happy New Year to all my friends, family, past and future clients, and the many special people in my Life!

Peace

Kemper

Ever had bowls of fish for Christmas dinner? Mmmmmm. Party like the Swedes!

And finally, little vintage Brooklyn Christmas Streetscape

This morning I received a really nice comment left by Lauren. Lauren also left an URL with her comment so I immediately had to investigate. You see, there are a lot of people who leave comments on blogs which are truly just SPAM. They leave a link to their web page in hopes of just raising their standings in Google searches. It’s all done by computer robots and very annoying. But I have filters that weed out most of the SPAM. Anyway, whenever someone leaves a comment with a link to their webpage…you have to make sure they’re not spammers trying to sell whatever scam they think up next.

Well, Lauren is certainly not a SPAMMER and I really enjoyed reading her blog which details her adventure for a year to Thailand, specifically Bangkok, as an English teacher. She is 22 years old (Happy Belated Birthday!) so I would guess pretty fresh out of college, and like most 22 year olds she is still very actively exploring her thoughts about meaning in life, our purpose here if there really is one, and the direction she wants to take the rest of her life in.

But, what is great about reading Lauren’s blog is the refreshing youthful idealism and yearning to see the world that comes across one way or another. To break out of one’s conventional life and explore those areas that don’t have the comfort of familiarity is really a hard thing to do for most people. Certainly, traveling half way around the globe and taking a teaching position in a “third world” country is not for the faint of heart. But Lauren has braved doing without many of those things that we spoiled creatures of comfort often take for granted (like potable tap water and toilets that flush with the touch of a lever, and…..oh and yes……family), and landed herself in a new world where a new perspective on life will inevitably manifest during the time she is there.

I really see Lauren and other young people like her, those who take time out of their life to explore the rest of the world a bit, as great ambassadors. They eventually become a bridge between the different cultures they have crossed to, and people on both sides benefit in so many ways. In this country, we desperately need more young people like her and the friends she will meet along the way.

Before I sign off, I really wanted to share a very thought provoking quote that I read on Lauren’s blog. It made me think about a lot of things, including my photography and my business.

“We are not made for the mountains, for sunrises, or for the other beautiful attractions in life- those are simply intended to be moments of inspiration. We are made for the valley and the ordinary things of life, and that is where we have to prove our stamina and strength” – Oswald Chambers

I think what I try to do is capture those moments that inspire us in one way or another. Maybe these captured images relate something beautiful that we have never seen before, or perhaps show it to us in a different way. Or maybe they remind us of a time or place that was a “sunrise” in our life, our personal moment of inspiration. Hopefully, the beautiful things in our life, the people we love, the special times we’ve lived and the wonderful places we have seen, can be an inspiration that sustains us as we live the ordinary.

So Lauren, thanks for stopping by my blog. It was really nice meeting you and maybe our footpaths will cross one day. Actually, reading your blog has made me a little “homesick” for Thailand and the rest of Asia. I wasn’t quite sure whether you had been able to look at my website as it does require high speed internet, something that even the big cities in Asia haven’t quite caught onto yet. So I am going to post some of my favorite shots taken there. See if you recognize any of these places!

Kemper

And finally, regarding the aforementioned toilets that have levers that flush FOR you, this is an example of a fairly luxury public toilet in Bangkok. Why luxury?

It had a lid!

As I predicted several blogs ago, despite the dry weather this summer this fall has been spectacular, not to mention the longest on record I would expect! I mean we have had almost a month of great fall colors and it hasn’t stopped yet. This is November for crying out loud. Thanksgiving is next week!

I really don’t spend much time in Tidewater during the fall, but I was there for Shannon and Kurt’s wedding on the 27th. As I was driving down the Colonial Parkway towards Yorktown, I spotted this splash of color on a bridge as I was crossing a tributary near the Chesapeake Bay. I stopped and captured this panorama of fall color which is not done justice on a little computer screen. Ever since I read James Michener’s Chesapeake I have this very romantic view of the bay’s natural areas. I would be willing to bet that, standing on the edge of this river bank or one like it 400 years ago, things looked just about the same.

Here’s to a very beautiful lack of progress. Save the Bay!

The Hotel Roanoke is of course one of Roanoke’s most beautiful and prominent landmarks with its stately Tudor design and panoramic setting. A trip inside is always such a pleasure for me as I get this overwhelming sense of history and grandeur whenever I walk through the front door. It’s not hard to imagine all of the elegant social history that this beautiful building has hosted in the 125 years it has stood its ground atop the hill.

But don’t think that this most gracious accommodation is old an stuffy, because it’s not. While you can host one of the finest weddings in Roanoke at this fine establishment, it is hip enough for any young crowd. A big fan of aqua blue, I just couldn’t help being a little swept away by the tide at a Bhat Mitzvah I photographed there recently. I believe that the theme was “Under the Sea” and I must say that once the lights went down, everyone was submerged.

Here’s just a few shots of the decor. Fun and fabulous!

It is the end of summer. Ok, so I’m a few days late. Been busy!

But it really is fall, despite the 90 degree temperatures that hit us every few days. I think I’m really ready for some cool weather and fall colors. Everyone seems to think that we’re not going to have much in the way of fall colors due to the lack of rain this summer. But I seem to remember a similar summer about five years ago and the colors that fall were spectacular. I remember driving on the parkway through Floyd and Bent Mountain, and that area had some bodacious looking reds and oranges. I think I’ll trek back there for sure just to see if we have a repeat.

So, today I marked the end of summer with a few shots of the sunflowers I had out back. Of course, they have died out, but who could really blame them. After all, they spent all summer wrenching every bit of water they could out of this uber-parched dustbowl. They did a very good job, because there were lots of seeds in the flower heads. I’m actually surprised that there are still some in there. The Cardinals usually have torn them to shreds by now. There have been a few smaller birds eating on the sunflower buffet, but I haven’t seen a Cardinal there yet. Maybe they still think it’s summer.

I love the texture, color and smell of dried flowers and leaves. I can just lay down in a pile of raked leaves on a sunny fall day and nap my afternoon away. Most of the mountain bike trails will be full of leaves soon, and the smell when you ride through them makes me think of the hot summer days when they were providing much needed shade.

So here is to the end of summer, no more lightening bugs to catch…..

but plenty to see if you just look

It’s a view I think I need to see real soon. Rear View Mirror + Backpack + Mountain Bike + Mountains = AHHHHHHHHHHH