Moving the Blog

I've decided to start a blog using wordpress! It looks like a cool site and I like the layouts etc so I am switching over. I would love to see you there!
http://lauradienzo.wordpress.com/

Found the Funky Chair

I've been shopping around at Antique Stores, Yard Sales, the Goodwill Store, Craigslist etc.  Looking for a funky chair that I can use as a prop for portraits.  I went to a yard sale a few weeks ago and the guy asked me if I was looking for anything in particular.  I told him I was looking for a funky chair and he actually described it back to me pretty well...he got it!  Most of the time when I am asked if I need help finding what I am looking for (especially in an antique store) I usually tell people no, that I will know it when I see it.  Well yesterday Ray and I were out walking around downtown Atascadero after meeting Patricia Newton, the newest artist at  Envisions Gallery  and I saw "it"!  I saw it, in of all places, the back of a pick-up truck in downtown Atascadero.  I had to run home to get some cash since I wasn't out shopping for a chair at the time, and especially not in the back of pick-ups!
I have big plans for this beauty in the form of gorgeous purple velvet fabric that I happened to pick up at a garage sale a few weeks ago.  More photos to follow!

California Photo Festival!

What a great week!  It was inspirational, instructional,  exhausting, surprisingly wonderful....I think I am running out of adjectives!  I was able to volunteer for the week at the 1st annual California Photo Fest which Light Workshops in Los Osos put on.   In turn for volunteering I was able to attend much of the events, seminars and workshops at the festival with the other photographers attending. 
There were photographers mostly from California that converged upon San Luis Obispo County for the week with their bags of gear, extra large lenses and leggy tripods.  There was even a photographer there from Malaysia and one from Moldova (another volunteer and I had to Google that to find out where that was which is between Romania and the Ukraine).  Others came from Florida, Connecticut and Arizona.
The people from Light Workshops are amazing people and they did an amazing job putting the festival together!  Granted, it was the first annual, and with the first comes a few glitches which they are more than happy to be working on for next year's festival to make it even better.
The instructors were talented photographers and really good at communicating their craft to other enthusiastic photographers eager to learn.
There were early morning sunrise photo shoots every morning at beautiful locations throughout the county such as vineyards and the bluffs above Cayucos.  There were also sunset photo shoots each night at similar locations with some well-attended shoots of horses on the beach.
It was a friendly little community that I saw every day for six and a half days and I actually miss seeing them now.  It's been fun seeing the images that people have posted up on a flickr group formed just for the festival, you can check it out too. 

Beautiful Autumn Evening for a Portrait

What gorgeous evenings we have around here in the fall!  I had the privilege of taking a portrait of a sweet and beautiful family in Templeton the other night.

I was really thankful for my faithful assistant who was my chief bubble-blower, dolly-carrier, baby-distracter and all-around kinda guy!  (Thank you Ray!)

The girls each have the sweetest disposition and I loved it when I asked them if they wanted to do something fun and they all shouted "YES",  just before I told them they were all going to be jumping in the air together!  What fun!

Project Car for sale for the not so faint-hearted mechanic!

  To top the evening off we all went out for yogurt in Atascadero and the youngest had lost a lens out of her glasses.  We spent a little while with a flashlight looking for it on the ground, she got right in there in the search!  Thankfully, the lens was found in the car!

Beetle Triumph

I watched in awe a couple of weeks ago as a large beetle was swimming in my pond, triumphantly make his way out of the water.  I was babysitting a 7 year old boy and I'm not sure who was more fascinated by it!  We watched as the beetle made his way to a lily pad, climbed up on it, swam towards a rock by the water's edge and climbed right up out of the water onto the rock!  The whole drama played out over about 15 minutes!
Here are a few photos of the inspirational climb of my backyard beetle!

Swimming towards lily pad.

Climbs up onto lily pad.

Climbs out of the pond onto rock.

 

Out of the pond!

Straddles between two rocks.

On the road to freedom!

East Coast

Just returned from another trip to the east coast, this time Ray joined me!  What an adventure it is to hang out with a large family!  There are things (and people) that I really miss about living back east...
I love going seeing the green scenery along the highways, the historic architecture and Atlantic Ocean. 

Feeding the swan family in Westhampton Beach, NY

Just a few of the thousand or more photos I took on the trip.

Pebbles in a rusty post along the beach in Greenport, Long Island, NY

Philadelphia Museum of Art

Model Shoot

I did a fun model shoot the other day for my fantastic hair stylist Tami Gardner at Park Avenue Salon in Paso Robles, CA.  Her model is actually a beautiful college professor and not a "model" but she did a wonderful job!  She told me that she learned everything from "America's Next Top Model".  She would make Tyra Banks proud!  Tami is super talented at hair and make-up, a genuine artist!  Here are a few photos of the shoot. 

The first picture is the first time she saw herself in the mirror with more make-up than she is used to wearing.