January, 2010:

I can’t even begin to image how many thousands of photographs I take in one calendar year but I do know how many photographs there are taken OF me during the year. The answer is:  AS FEW AS POSSIBLE.

I admit that I am far more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it, but I thought it might be fun before moving on to 2010, to look at my year–the trials and triumphs–through some of the photographic moments others have caught of me:

January:

On the way back to Vermont from a photo conference in Mystic, CT, friend and fabulous photographer Barrie Fisher and I pulled off the highway and  into a Radio Shack to hear Obama sworn in as President of the United States.

February:

What do you do when traveling to a Vegas photo conference with a pack of fabulous and fun women photographers? Why, take pictures,of course!! What else? Well, you know what ever happens in Vegas, stays there! Rear (left to right): Barrie Fisher, Robin Langsdorf and Alex Kendall.  Front (left to right): Marianne Martin, Me, and Daria Bishop.

March:

Early 2009 was hospital season for me-one knee surgery and and two carpal tunnel surgeries had me ready to go for wedding season. By a strange set of circumstances, Barrie Fisher, Daria Bishop and I all ended up at Fletcher Allen Hospital O.R. on the same day (Barrie broke her wrist and Daria had a small growth removed from her forehead) and we didnt even know it until we all saw one another in the recovery area! Here’s a great shot, thanks to Barrie’s Iphone!

April:

250 people gathered at the Unitarian Universalist church in Burlington in a vigil before the Freedom To Marry Bill went to the Legislature for the vote. I was one of many who spoke that day for Equal Rights and my partner took this photograph:

After the passing of the Marriage Equality Bill, SEVEN DAYS   Newspaper highlighted the issue in their paper and did an article on me (I had been actively covering the legislative process in photos for various publications ). Matt Thorsen shot this for the paper:

May:

Having moved into new studio space with the amazing photographer (and friend!) Jeff Clarke,  I needed a new promo shot to start advertising my dog portraiture. Jeff took this:

Jeff and I threw a great open house at  the studio and about 150 people stopped by to say hello and see our work.As an added bonus, I had a surprise visit from my old friend and photo colleague Jym Wilson, who I worked with through most of the 1990′s at the Burlington Free Press. JY had moved on to be a photo editor at USA Today and I had not seen him in about 10 years!

July:

I love it when someone takes my picture at a wedding and sends it to me and it’s always fun to add that photo to the end of a wedding blog posting. Here are 4 of my favorites from the summer season:

August:

This is the month that my family disappears for 12 days (missing only one wedding weekend!)  to our cabin in the lake district of Northeren Ontario for some well needed R&R. Here’s a shot of my son and I paddling along our little lake with one of the pooches as a stow-away:

September:

The annual Firetruck Pull to raise money for OUTRIGHT Vermont included a team of CVU high school football players, including our sons and their friends, and Gillian and I leading the pack:

October:

Jeff Clarke and I are photographed by Daria Bishop at the 2-day workshop by Photoshop guru Kevin Kubota in Sugarbush–

November:

Over Thanksgiving, my family celebrated my dad’s 80th birthday and to honor the occassion, I felt a new portrait was in order. This pictures included my dad and his wife, the families of his three children, his brother and wife and the families of their 3 children! Awesome! (This was one of those great self-timer shots where I ran into the frame at the last second):

I end with one of my favorite photos of the year, though technically, it was shot on January 1st, 2010 by my brother while I was photographing his family at my studio. He picked up my camera and grabbed this photo of me and Greta. I adore it… a great way to start the New Year!

OK, so I know that we are already four days into 2010, but I just cant move on until I say goodbye to some of my favorite photos of 2009 and the stories behind the pictures:

Jesse and Lynne were married at Mountain Meadows Lodge in Killington and Alice the Potbellied pig and her friends mixed well with guests and were even invited by the bridal couple to attend the coctail hour! I couldnt stop laughing as Alice  made her way from guest to guest, wagging her tail and looking for food droppings!

How often do you get to photograph a granny being tattooed? Well, the tats were temporary and the event was Amy’s Bat Mitzvah at the Woodstock Inn:

I photographed this dog walker while out in San Francisco last Spring and it is definitely in my top five  faves of the year:

One of the best jobs I had all year was as the photographer  for Lyric Theatre’s “THE FULL MONTY” and while I shot hundreds of pictures, both on and off the stage, this one  is my favorite:

I am a HUGE fan of Indy singer/songwriter Sarah Bareilles and I was able to see her in concert in Boston last February. I couldnt help but bring along a camera:

Phil and Andrea were married in Capitola, California (a gorgeous oceanside town just south of Santa Cruz) at 12:34 pm and 56 seconds on July 8, 2009. If you break that down in numbers, that’s 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9!!! Pretty cool, huh? Well  Phil is an engineer, so it makes sense. Anyway, it was a gorgeous wedding and one of my faves of 2009:

While I am by no means a sports photographer, I spent a lot of time shooting the CVU Football team because both my sons play (James on Varsity and David on JV). This one is a saver (and they went on to win the game, too!):

I do many family portrait sessions but one of the most important of the year was of Carrie and Michael Premsager and their 2 beautiful kids. Carrie was scheduled for a very aggresive cancer surgery in Washington D.C. the following week and she wanted to have some beautiful family pictures to look at during the long recovery period. Carrie’s cancer is called Pseudomyxoma Peritonei and I am happy to report that the surgery was successful and seven months later she is doing great and she is CANCER FREE! .  To learn more about Carrie and her journey for life, please visit: tp://www.caringbridge.org/visit/carriepremsagar/mystory. 

Each summer, my family disappears for two weeks to our cabin on Blackstone Lake outside of Parry Sound, Ontario (about a 12-hr drive!) and each summer I sit perched with my camera trying to grab a shot of the elusive hummingbird that only seems to visit the feeder on the porch when the camera isnt handy! Well, this summer, I won! It only took nine years to get this photo, so it has to rank as one of my faves of the year!

On April 7,  Marriage equality passed when the Vermont Legislature voted to override the Governor’s veto. The final vote? 100-49. In the photo below, VT. Freedom To Marry’s Sherry Corbin, Atty. Beth Robinson, Atty. Susan Murray and Atty. Deb Lashman react as the Vote passed in the House..MARRIAGE EQUALITY– what a wonderful phrase!

 Following this vote, many events took place through the summer celebrating the new law. At an RU12 dinner, I grabbed this photo of Vt. State legislator David Zuckerman having some fun with a cutout display of the Governor (who had vetoed the original Freedom to Marry bill):

I loved this wedding at the Calvin Coolidge Homestead and the couple was lovely:

For a year I worked on a project, making portraits of  20 women who were interviewed  for a book exploring the diversity of Vermont Jewish culture. TO LIFE: A Celebration of Vermont Jewish Women, is now a book and a traveling exhibit, which began in November at the Gallery At The Brick Box on Center Street in downtown Rutland.

I shoot so many portraits, but the following two are my favorites-one environmental and one in the studio:

Next are some of favorite “kids-will-be-kids” moments from the wedding season:

And now some grown up wedding moments that I adore:

These last two weddings are especially important to me. The first is the wedding of a Chris and Helen, a great couple in Oregon, and the mother-of-the-bride is one of my oldest friends. I flew out to shoot what was planned as the perfect beach wedding on the sandy shore of Manzanita, Oregon.  But after a torrential rain storm blew down the tent and all hopes of that kind of celebration, the families banded together to reinvent the wedding at a nearby Methodist church. In the end, it was the perfect wedding. WHY? Because the couple was surrounded by love and support. And nothing else mattered:

The second wedding is a FIRST of its kind: At the stroke of midnight on September 1, 2009, Corey and Claire  were announced “married ” by Atty. Beth Robinson, chair of the Vermont Freedom to Marry Taskforce. It was the  first day that Vermont’s marriage equality law went into effect.  The ceremony took place at the couple’s South Burlington home in front of about twenty close friends and members of the Vermont media. Earlier in the day, we did the wedding portraits:

All in all, it was a truly “PICTURE PERFECT” 2009 and I thank all of my bridal couples and everyone else who I had the priviledge to photograph during the year. Here’s more in 2010!

I hope 2010 is a memorable and wonderful year for us all!