Today we flew back to Santa Fe, and Edith got to wear her very own backpack.
Heat Wave
We spent the weekend enduring the heat/humidity situation, like everyone else. On Sunday we could take it no longer, and we booked it for our favorite river swimming spot as soon as Edith was up from her nap. At the river, Edith ate watermelon and drank seltzer with our friend Rachael—no one can deny a baby a watery beverage when it’s one million degrees outside, even if it comes in a can—and wore her Canadian bathing suit, and was a fish (not pictured, unfortunately).
I was delighted by the rock sculptures left behind by other river swimmers, and felt like maybe there is art to be had, and art to be found, and art to be lived, here in this valley where we live after all.
A Christening
On Saturday evening, I had the honor of photographing baby Rachel’s Christening. Rachel is one adored baby, and my favorite part was capturing the joy on all of her people’s faces as they delighted in her presence.
Family Shoot [with blueberries]
On Saturday morning, I drove a few towns over to photograph a family reunion in Huntington, MA. The youngest three cousins spent some time during the shoot picking (and EATING) the blueberries that grow out front of the fantastic barn-turned-vacation-home that has been in their family for generations.
Aviva
Out the Car Window
We’ve done a fair amount of driving around northern New Mexico over the course of this two-week trip. What I really mean by that is that my lover has done a fair amount of driving around northern New Mexico, and I’ve done a fair amount of taking pictures out the window, from the passenger seat of the car.
The sky here is so big, it reminds me of the ocean. It’s different every day, and I can’t seem to get enough of it. I suppose I am partial to a stormy sky, and we’ve been rich in stormy skies during this trip, even though there’s been very little rain.
Fourth of July in Madrid, NM
The fourth of July parade in Madrid, NM was exactly our speed. The sun was strong and somewhat inescapable, but the parade was brief, and cooky, and Edith loved it.
More Breakfast, More Style
Postcards from New Mexico
Last Day in Taos
Breakfast Style
Trampoline Brothers
Sebastian, Achaius, and Nykolai (and edith)
Baby Nykolai and Some Views
Cousins out to eat in Taos
This morning we took our nephews Sebastian and Achaius out for brunch at the Taos Diner (HUEVOS AND PAPAS, YES PLEASE), and then we went out for ice cream this afternoon.
It was Edith’s very first cone. She mostly didn’t take her eyes off of it.
Nykolai
We are in New Mexico to meet our newest nephew, my little sister Fiona’s third baby, Nykolai. He is a dreamboat.
Rock collection
When we were at the beach this weekend (we got home late last night), I told the kids that I wanted them to help me collect a collection of “ring around it” rocks. My kids take this kind of thing seriously, bringing me their finds, introducing each one, critiquing it and guessing whether or not I’ll deem it worthy for my stash. They came through with the ring-around-it rocks, big time.
When we’re still at the beach, it’s hard to know what the point of lugging all of these rocks home will be (my wife wonders aloud about this exact question whenever I start stuffing my pockets with stones). I have so many ideas about using these rocks (what you see here is only a small sampling) and making something beautiful out of them with my camera. Each one, alone, is just a rock. When you put them together with each other, art happens.
More from the Cape
Usually I like pictures best when I can make eye contact with at least one subject. I like the connection; I like the thud in my chest that comes when I stare back at someone who’s been captured in a photo. But in both of these pictures from today, no one is looking at me, and I like these photos very much anyway.
The top photo is my son, Zeb, age 12, and my daughter, Edith, age 1. They’d both just woken up after a relatively poor sleep (tents, storms, etc.), and it’s like it’s simply TOO EARLY and TOO MUCH to look at anyone. But even though they won’t meet my eyes, they’re having this moment of connection with each other that’s soft and tender, and I feel let in on it in this photo.
The bottom picture is of my son Leo, age 10, and Liesl, age 11, and it’s one of those photo-before-the-real-photo photos that hits me in all the right places. I love the way Liesl looks at Leo, with such encouragement, even though Leo isn’t looking back at her to see it. You can tell that he feels it. And I love the motion, the balance, the contrast between Leo’s bare feet and Liesl’s red shoes.
Sky study, with storms
This morning we woke up early and drove east until we hit the ocean, and set up tents, and went to the beach where it was too cold and too “sharky” to swim, and where I surprised myself by being more taken with the sky than with the sea. A storm came in slowly, over the course of hours, and the sky was like a watercolor painting, with pinkish-purple dripping down from the clouds in a smudgey blur until it hit the crisp, deep blue horizon, and I couldn’t get enough of the light.
COMING SOON!
The Lex Beach Photography blog will be up and running soon! CHECK BACK.
In the meantime, I’ve been having great fun turning my photos into coloring-in pages using this website.
Do my kids enjoy coloring in pictures of themselves as much as I imagined they might? Well, no. In fact they think the whole idea is creepy. But I still think it’s cool.
