Year in Pictures 2011

Year in Pictures 2010

2010 was a very successful year for us.  It was full of smiles, laughter, love, babies and bellies and wedded bliss.  We can only hope that 2011 will be just as wonderful!  Enjoy the most random sampling of pictures you will ever see. 

Our Christmas card this year!

Take a look below at our Christmas card for 2010.

Merry & Bright Holiday

Get custom holiday cards online at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

Corin’s Story

By Michele

We recently did a maternity shoot for a wonderful family whose story touched us.  We wanted to share.

Corin is expecting twins in late July.  One boy and one girl, Jeremy and Kyra.  Corin and her husband Nate are the proud parents to two other children, Makayla and Gabriel.  Makalya is 2.  Gabriel is their angel watching over them.

Gabriel was born on November 18, 2006 and within minutes was swept away to the NICU.  He was diagnosed with Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH).  Gabriel passed away on January 12, 2007.  He spent his entire life in various NICU’s, which was beyond stressful for Corin and Nate.  Gabriel’s little sister Makayla was born in early 2008 and went through a difficult delivery.  She spent 2 days in the NICU, but thankfully recovered quickly.  She is a healthy, happy and adorable 2 year old who will be a wonderful big sister!

Corin, along with some other moms who had spent a lot of time in the NICU, decided they needed to do something.  They founded Project Sweet Peas.  There are currently 15 Project Sweet Peas Chapters across America and Canada.  All of the people who run these chapters have one thing in common; they know how hard it is to have a child in the NICU.  They assemble and deliver gift bags to local hospitals to help families who need it most.  They have delivered over 400 gift bags.  I am not the only one who thinks this is a wonderful thing they are doing, because they came in first place for the Pepsi Refresh Project last month.  They have been awarded $25,000 to continue delivering care packages.

While editing the photos for this family, tears of sadness would come to my eyes thinking about what they have been through.  Being a mother myself, I can not imagine the pain.  I experienced tears of happiness too, thinking about how special this pregnancy must be for them and about everything they are doing to help others.  Corin, in my eyes, is a pillar of strength and a true example of how the rest of the world should be.  She turned a personal tragedy into hope for others.

I also noticed something strange while editing Corin’s photos.  She was glowing in all of her pictures, but not like a normal pregnant woman.  It was more of a haze, and all I could think was that Gabriel was present for this photo shoot as well.  After some of the pictures were posted to facebook, one of Corin’s friends commented on the photo below, noting that she could feel Gabriel’s hands right there on her belly with the family.  Perfectly said.

If you would like to help Project Sweet Peas, please visit their website.  You can donate gift bag items (see item list), money, purchase from their cafepress store  (all profits go directly to funding distribution of gift bags) or even start your own local chapter.  There is also a local project store for Gabriel's Gift.  All profit from the Gabriel's Gift Store goes directly to funding distribution of gift bags for Corin's local project.

Todd Philip Photography is looking forward to organizing some sort of charity event with Gabriel’s Gift of Project Sweet Peas in the future.

How the Magazine came to be.

I was at the beach with my family taking photos of my daughter, Ella, chasing bubbles, strangers, and squirrels. One funny squirrel let me get far too close for comfort: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/photo.php?pid=12203140&id=258549210724. I could even see my big bald head in the squirrel's eye. I think he was snarling. Quite possibly with one more step I would have been mutilated. But I digress.

My cell phone rings, the number is out of state, and I fight the urge to ignore it. Since starting a photography business, I answer the phone significantly more than I have in the past. A woman explains that she found my advertisement on Craigslist, is from a poker magazine in Las Vegas, and she wants to know if I am able to photograph someone in New Haven.

I tried as hard as I can to figure out the scam angle and couldn't. I patiently (read: impatiently) waited until I was able to get to a wifi hotspot to google all of the names and titles I just heard. Did I say I was suspicious?

I was asked my fee. I gave a price slightly higher than my 'senior portrait' fee, knowing it was extremely under-priced for this sort of work.  But honestly, I would have done it for free for the experience and publicity, so I figured better safe than sorry.  They counter-offered me slightly higher and of course I accepted the assignment. Then, all sorts of waiting happened. First, I had to wait for the magazine to contact the player, then I waited for the magazine contact to get a hold of me, then I waited until I spoke with the player, then I waited for Saturday morning, the time we agreed to shoot.

The magazine gave me a list of suggested shots. One of those was to be 'in front of a Yale building, crossed arms.' I knew which building it would be (Sterling Library, almost iconic).  We did this shot first, assuming this would be the cover shot.  I was concerned about the sun and its effects, because it was high in the sky and blaring down even at 9:00AM.

We set up the first shot and, as expected, the sun was challenging us.

Luckily, I had my trusty 'flash on a stick.'

That's me on the left, Vanessa in the middle, and my flash on the right. I triggered my flash with the Cactus V4 radio trigger (http://www.gadgetinfinity.com/product.php?productid=17204), because there was no way to trigger it in the bright sun with anything else.

The final result eliminated the shadows on the right side of her face (viewer's left side) and gave me a photo worthy of publication.

  

Here is the photo as it appears in the magazine.  (sorry for dullness due to scanning).

Another photo that presented some difficulty was one of cards falling around Vanessa. As hard as we tried with two decks of cards and two trusty assistants, we were unable to capture a good image of cards falling.

      

Luckily, through the magic of cut and paste, I was able to provide the magazine with a proper photo of falling cards.

I've become a big fan of using the flash off-camera. From using it to fill in shadows, as in the photo in front of Sterling Library, to using it as a primary source of indoor light.

Here is a shot from inside the cafeteria without flash.  Yes, this beautiful place is the Yale Law Buildings cafeteria.  It was quite an experience to set up and shoot this photo with so many people buzzing around to get their morning coffee.

Then with the flash on a stick behind me and to my right, I got the image that eventually made the cover of the magazine.

So I'm left with a sense of awe and excitement that I was given this opportunity. Card Player magazine reaches nearly 250,000 people every two weeks that it comes out. As I understand it, it is available free at your local casino's poker room and it's available at bookstores and newsstands.  I can only hope this will lead to even greater things.

- Todd Philip Guglielmo

Edgerton Park, New Haven, CT Flowers

I recently went to Edgerton Park, which is a favorite place to photograph families and couples. I had noticed the greenhouses and community gardens, but hadn't made the time to photograph the flowers there until then.

With my tripod and camera I found the office and asked permission to photograph. Ms. Lady said to feel free to move things around, if needed. I only mildly remodeled with this permission.

Because I'm illiterate with flowers, barely able to identify some species of flower, I photographed the little plastic tags planted with the potted flowers. That grew old.

I looked for oddballs and found flowers that grow out of the middle of a flower.

I posted the image to a flickr group called 'What Flower is This?' and was directed towards the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bougainvillea. It turns out an exceptional image would have included all three flowers inside the brachts.

There's always next time.

I became fond of this daffodil days after I photographed it for some reason. I'm a fan of restricted depth of field, so that's one reason.

Here's one I'm still uncertain of. Maybe someone can help.

I'm looking forward to going back and checking in to see how things are coming along at the greenhouses and community gardens at http://edgertonpark.org/.

Thanks for taking a look at the brand new blog thing!

-Todd

Todd Philip Photography