Snowpocalypse 2010

I hope everyone is staying warm during this recent wave of snow. We lost power for 30 hours over the weekend, but it's back on now and so far so good. Here's a photo that my husband Andy (also a pro photographer) took on our street of me with our two dogs, Maurice and Frida.

my christmas was a blast...

...how was yours?

(that's my younger cousin William with his new ipod touch)

Family Reunion - Hasselblad Images

I recently attended my annual Antognoli family reunion and decided to skip the digital photography altogether this time around. Armed only with my Hasselblad and a pile of 120 film, I made these and many more images of my relatives. I chose these two images to share for this post because they both share the balloon motif.

These are scans from the actual silver gelatin prints that I made in the darkroom last time around. Normally I just scan the film, but I wanted to know that I could print these for real, rather than adjusting in Photoshop after the fact, so what you see is what resulted from my darkroom time.

In short, I learned that I am rusty with the Hasselblad, and even rustier in printing straight (read: non-Holga or alternative processes) images in the darkroom. But it felt so good to print "normal" single frame photos and I am going to try to do this again in the near future.

The Kiss Monster

I've been shooting a lot of film lately, and am going to be developing a good bit of it this weekend. So, in the meantime, I thought I'd share a photo I took a little while back of Frida, the Kiss Monster. She will lick you to death if you let her, and I liked this image because it was taken just before she struck!

Have a good weekend, and I will be posting with some filmy goodness next week if all goes well.

the furry kids

If you follow my Twitter (@antognoli), you may have noticed the other day that I was freaked out because a neighbor asked us if we let Maurice run around in the woods near our house. We said no, the dogs aren't allowed to run out there. Well, our neighbor replied that he saw something that looked "Just like him" (pointing toward a shaggy Maurice) out in the woods the last few mornings! Could we have a resident bear? I know bears live in the woods, but wouldn't think that there would be enough of them in the DC suburbs for a bear to survive. But... I've been keeping my eyes peeled ever since.

Which brings me to my next point: there will be no more mistaking of Maurice for a bear for a little while, anyway. He got his annual haircut, and you can see the before and after in the photo above. Frida's in there with him because I realized that I didn't have a photo of the two of them together and it was about time we rectified that.

So behold, my fuzzy children, and revel in their cuteness!

A time for rest

This is just a quick post to show off my cute husband and dog, and to wish everyone a wonderful weekend!

The Running Dog

Despite being almost a year old and pretty much full grown, our new dog Frida has a lot of puppy energy left to burn. Since Andy is a runner, he decided to try taking Frida to run with him. The problem: city streets are not the best places for dogs to run. Their feet are prone to all sorts of injury from rough asphalt, glass shards, heat and cold, and who knows what else. So... we ordered her a running harness and sneakers. Yes, our dog has running gear!

Many people ask us what this gear looks like, so I grabbed my trusty Canon PowerShot SD870 point and shoot camera to help illustrate for you.

The first photo below is our test run. Andy walked Frida around the block to get her used to the gear. She seemed a little hesitant and confused, but seemed to do okay with it.



The next photo is after her first 4 mile run. It's a few hours later and she's still sacked out!



For those of you wondering about the intro photo to this post, there is a handle on the harness just in case she needs to be picked up and lifted over anything (think lots of shattered glass, dangerous ditch, etc). She's almost 50 pounds, so it's a good thing Andy keeps fit! But luckily, I doubt we will have to use that feature very much. We just wanted to test it out to make sure it worked.

And for those who are interested in the gear itself, it is made by Ruffwear, and seems to be very decent, quality gear. Gotta protect the puppy digits!



And there you have it: Frida, the running dog!

Frida!

I've been very busy this past week. Business work, art work, and family events have all been a factor as usual, but one big furry wrench was thrown into the plans... and what an adorable wrench she is!

World, meet Frida! She is a mystery as far as her breed, maybe a boxer / shepherd / ??? mix. She is a total wigglebutt, loves to give kisses, and as of today loves to jog with Andy. We adopted her from PAW (Partnership for Animal Welfare), the same rescue organization we adopted Maurice from almost exactly 6 years ago. Rescue dogs are the best, and it's so wonderful to give a home to an abandoned, neglected, or abused dog. Maurice has changed so much since coming to live with us - when he was once timid and unsure, he is now cocky and confident and walks very well on a leash (which for an 80 pound dog, that's important!). We're hoping with a little (or a lot!) of work, patience, and love, Frida will make equal strides with adjusting to life in our family.

She's also a bit camera shy, so I'm hoping to get a wider variety of photos of her very soon!



(Edited to add this Shepard Fairey banner to help support pet adoption!)

My Baby Brother

My younger brother, Jason, recently came to visit me from Western Pennsylvania with the hopes of getting some head shots and general promo shots made. He's a musician, singing and playing a variety of instruments, but chose to bring his guitar along for the shoot because it's a lot more portable than a piano! I don't often blog about head shots / promo shots, but I'm making an exception here because I've been trying to get some nice photos of my brother for years and now I finally have them!

I made the normal head shots that he needed, and then a few with the guitar, and then I started to have some fun with this rare opportunity. I'm capable of making the more evenly lit portraits, but also like to work with more dramatic lighting a great deal. Both styles have a definite use and benefit, so it's good to be versatile.

Hopefully these images will help book Jay lots of gigs!

(And I call him my "baby brother" jokingly now. He's bigger than I am!)

Carmella + Rocco

Over the holiday I got to meet my second cousin Rocco for the first time, and got to see my little second cousin Carmella again. I remember when Carmella was Rocco's size, and now she's a little girl! They grow up very quickly, so I thought I'd take some photos of them with the Mamiya C220 the day after Christmas.

Carmella wasn't too keen on having her picture taken, and Rocco was asleep most of the time, but I managed to get some nice shots of each of them. I'm glad, because next time I see them they will have grown up even more!











For those that don't know, the Mamiya C220 is a square crop camera, so these are posted as shot, with no cropping in PS.

Rings

I was going through my sheets of negatives from the Mamiya C220 Twin Lens Reflex camera that I recently took and found these two of my father and Andy, respectively. I focused on their rings, because I am fascinated by people's hands. Both were taken on Christmas Eve, and the one of my father was taken during Christmas Eve Bingo, a tradition in our family. My grandmother calls out the numbers and we keep playing until everyone wins! There are some really funny and sometimes freakish stories from Bingo of years' past, and it's always a good time.

Christmas 2008

This year I got to spend Christmas with my family, and a few adorable dog cousins as well! I also got to play with Andy's twin lens reflex camera (a Mamiya C220) for the first time ever. It was a bit tricky as I've only ever used viewfinder cameras (well, other than the Holga and 4x5), so the taking the framing / crop factor into consideration took a bit of getting used to.

These shots are from my first roll of Twin Lens goodness. They portray my grandmother (below), and Andy with Chips, my canine cousin (above). More from this camera soon!

(No, I am not giving up on the Holga... but sometimes it helps to take a different approach for a while to keep things fresh!)

I Voted!

Did you?

Edited to add: I am so proud to be an American right now! President Obama. This is historic! I feel like good things are in store for our country. But we regular citizens are not off the hook yet. It's up to all of us here to make that happen, and to make a difference...

Metamorphosis - Sasquatch to Spider Monkey

Because the weather is getting warmer (until this weekend, it was!), we decided to give Maurice his first major haircut of the year. It's at this time when people start to ask us if we got a new dog, and what happened to that shaggy one we used to walk. Or, rather than speak, they simply gasp with shock and awe that there was actually a dog underneath all that fur. He is indeed the same creature we adopted a little over 5 years ago. Here is a before and after photo, side by side for comparison:



But, because I could have used a dog double, I will back it up with the process:



















See the full slideshow with lots more photos HERE. The first half are taken by me, and the first photo you see me in onward were taken by Andy.

We didn't actually leave that poof on the end of his tail, but we always joke about doing frou frou things with Maurice's fur because once, before we figured out that we did a better job grooming him than the groomers, we took him for a haircut. What we got back was this strange cross between a poodle and a... I don't even know. It was bad, so we just broke out the clippers and did it ourselves. And we've given him all his haircuts ever since.

So, now Maurice is spunky and full of energy, which means he is nagging me a whole lot more than normal. But that's okay, he'll be a lot happier once the hot weather hits... cause I'm sick of all this rain already!

Share: The New Hair

Another new haircut for me! These self portraits were taken against our freshly painted bedroom walls. Our house has been a boring off-white for waaaaaay too long, so we decided to start the process of picking out some colors and getting it painted.

Anyway, I thought I'd get a haircut since the weather's getting warmer and more hair = uncomfortable in the summer. I like my new cut, mostly because it takes next to no effort. I'm all about finding styles that work with my natural hair, rather than trying to fight with it every morning to do go into some other style. I always lose that battle, and it is not pretty!

Easter 2008

I headed back to Pennsylvania for a long weekend to visit my family for Easter. It was snowing there when we arrived, which was a change from our weather in DC. But luckily, it cleared up and was sunny and somewhat warm on Sunday so that we could have the Easter egg hunt in the yard for the kids.

Maurice had a fun time running with all the kids in the yard. He was running for almost an hour non-stop, and it was impossible to get him to rest. He is actually herding the kids, which is kind of funny because no one knows what his plan for order is, only that he feels he needs to be in charge! (Andy actually took this one):



They were playing hide and seek, and being the spoiler that he is, Maurice kept giving away their hiding spots. I know you can't see it, but in the photo below, there is a young cousin behind that shrub. Maurice would stand a couple of feet away and let out a sharp "woof!" and then look back at me, then look at the bush and bark again. Then you'd hear a tiny voice from behind the shrub saying, "SHHHHHHHH! You'll give me away!".



There were a lot of people at my parents' house, but I mostly focused on taking photos of the kids - my first and second cousins. Here are some of those:


















My grandmother, who looks entirely too good for her age!:



And here's one of me with camera in hand that Andy nabbed during the craziness:



Now I'm back in the DC area, but was happy to be able to spend some time with the family!