Saturday, November 7, 2009

My House



1,300 square feet. Attic storage (walk in), full basement with washer/dryer/sink. 3 bedrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen, 1 bathroom. 1/10th of an acre, with woods behind house. On street parking. Oil heat, natural gas for stove and hot water. House built in 1926, original kitchen cabinets and soapstone sink. Built in bookshelves, beautiful detail work for wood trim and door ways. Hardwood floors throughout.

Dining room with built in book shelves and crown molding.My office upstairs...this room is intended as a bedroom. Low ceilings (hence "bungalow" style). Probably 12x16. The door you see in the corner lead to the attic storage space...you can walk right in. Several people have said that space would make a good second bathroom. It's a good idea. I don't have the $$ to do it, but someone will!Living room, with dogs of course.Kitchen, soapstone sink and original wood/glass cabinets.Bedroom on the first floor. Technically I think it is a "den" because it has no closet, but I use it as my bedroom. It is adjacent to the bathroom, which is a nice setup I think. Kitchen, different view. In addition to the shelving that I have, there is a built in pantry area (in the walkway next to the kitchen) that is huge. They built it over the basement stairs, a good use of what would otherwise simply be dead space. Another view of the living room, looking towards the front door.

The spare bedroom on the second floor.

Garden beds in the back yard. If someone didn't want them, it's easy enough to take the frames apart and spread the dirt for the yard instead... Looking at the house from the street. I don't have a driveway, but there's plenty of space in front of the house and the road is only driven by people who live in the neighborhood. It is a very low traffic area. On the topic of parking, though, it is possible to cut into the front hill to make a parking space or a driveway, I think. I have not gotten any quotes about it, but it seems to me that this is feasible. The second floor landing, hallway looking into the spare bedroom. The door to my office would be to the left of this view.

Back yard again. Woods behind house (I am pretty sure it's unbuildable), nice stone wall, garden beds, flower gardens with perennials, and I also have a great compost pile in the far corner.

My office, looking from my desk towards the second floor landing.

A view from the flat part of the roof, into the woods behind the house. You can just barely see the garden beds in the back yard for reference.


The view from 10 Briarcliff, looking towards Beaconsfield Road.

The second floor "nook" as seen from the very top of the stairs.


My bedroom, the door you see leads into the bathroom.

From the living room area towards the stairs to the second floor.

From the living room towards the dining room and kitchen.







I have changed the backyard some since I shot this, but I loved the way it felt so I included it.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Wedding: Old Sturbridge Village


On Saturday I assisted Corey with a wedding at Old Sturbridge Village. Although I have worked for OSV many times over the years freelance, this was the first wedding for me there. The Meeting House was very dark...I used the 50mm lens the whole time from the balcony: 3200 ISO, 1/50 at 1.4 for many of the shots. Yikes! But, I am pretty happy with them, overall. Always good to have a challenge like this. However, it does make me want to try out the new 5D if only for the ISO range. My preferred shooting is always going to be with available light, and I work well with it. My ability to hand hold is pretty decent...so if I can get a camera that has less grain at a high ISO I will be all set!

















Monday, September 7, 2009

Wedding: Caleb and Miriam

Caleb and Miriam's wedding was like no wedding I have ever seen. When they contacted me a few months ago and asked me to photograph their wedding, I was pleased- I knew Caleb as a student at WSC and liked him a lot. His energy radiated wherever he was and his sense of humor was infectious. Miriam made me feel like I was meeting someone unlike anyone else I knew...very strong, beautiful, kind, and interesting. She and Caleb were great together. Well, the wedding was yesterday at the Higgins Armory, and it was quite an experience. For perspective on this blog entry, I was JUST saying (Thursday night!) that photographers that wrote all the sicky sweet stuff about their couples in a blog were boring (well, maybe my choice of words were a little more colorful than that). That it was just a marketing tool. That I would never do it. And here I am, 5 days later, gushing about a wedding. Any way, the wedding was at Higgins, and I was concerned about the lighting. When I have shot for Higgins in the past, lighting is always a challenge...it goes from hard spotlights on displays to dark cavernous shadowy areas. Nothing in between. As it turned out, I needn't have lost sleep over it, it went just fine, and I used the existing lighting to my advantage. In fact, the best light I had (ever) was from the vending machine in their lobby! Yup. It was like having a huge softbox! Oh, I was in heaven when I realized what I could do with that vending machine. :)
The reception was in the great hall...

Both Caleb and Miriam got henna'ed the night before...





The ceremony was in the small auditorium on the first floor...very well lit. (Cramped, but well lit!) When they got to the "I do" part of the ceremony, Miriam very confidently spoke up with "Hell's yeah!!". I love it.