Sunday, December 26, 2010

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Swiping

Recently, I saw an image of mine being used on a local Boston business blog and their facebook page. I was never contacted regarding usage so I emailed the owner-editor asking them to remove my copyrighted image or call me to discuss usage fees. 
   
The business owner was surprised I didn't want my photograph on her site. She said "People are typically happy to have their images on my site." I did want it on her site, I just wanted to be paid properly for it or at the very least, asked. She also said "Did you see I credited you properly at the end of the post?" There was a credit but the credit was nowhere near the image. It was tiny and lost about a page away from the actual photo. And there was no link. So what the business owner thought was "proper" was not.
   
Now this business makes money. There are advertisements all over their blog and facebook page. She does speaking events. So it's interesting to me that she feels it's okay to swipe photographs and use them to help her business grow while not paying the proper usage for the photographs that are helping her business turn a profit.  
   
How do we protect our copyrighted work? Should professional photographers watermark every image? This image was taken from the actual client's site, it was not swiped from mine. So a watermark would not have worked in this case anyway.
   
And more importantly, how do we educate people? This person clearly thought it was acceptable to swipe an image and use it for her business without permission. To be honest, I probably would have let her use my image for free if she had simply asked first. 

Thursday, December 16, 2010

this is just a taste of a new promo [ coming soon ]

 

Love, Otto

Wishing you mischief and joy all year long. Happy Holidays! 
   

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Dirty

If the pesticide "Poncho" is killing honeybees so rapidly, what's it doing to us? What's it doing to my two young growing boys? Thank you to the EPA for protecting them. (Yes, yes, that's sarcasm — you're reading it correctly.)
  
And if you don't know what I'm talking about then start with these 2 articles:
Organic Gardening article  
Fast Company article
  
Photo credit: Tom Theobald   


Thursday, December 9, 2010

Poor Otto (can you even see the dog?)

[  TWO KIDS Series ]  I'm the mother of two boys! How the heck did that happen and when are their real parents coming to get them?!





Wednesday, December 8, 2010

My Salad Bar

It's been dancing around 17 degrees in Boston lately as a low and I'm still growing and eating delicious lettuce and arugula. Crazy! This is the first year I've done this and I wish I'd started a few years ago. It's so easy. At night I cover the lettuce and arugula beds with a floating row cover (vegetable quilt). I put it over wire hoops and hold it down with rocks or hooks.    
  
Just make sure you grow frost-tolerant lettuce like this freckled romaine (click here). The majority of my seeds come from Botanical Interests. And Gardeners.com sells great season-extending products at great prices (follow this link). (I think the bottom shot is Red Sails.)
  
Earlier this year: the Pea-Pea Teepee (snap peas from botanical interests)
  


Thursday, November 18, 2010

TWO BIRDS Fundraiser: the result

It's a sunny day. I'm driving my son to school. We're singing. I'm drumming on the steering wheel. We stop at a red light and over my shoulder I notice a little boy standing at the bus stop with his mother. He's young, probably about four years old. Looking all handsome in his Boston Red Sox jacket. It's a cool jacket. He's not wearing a hat so I notice his beautiful brown hair. I catch him looking up quickly, searching for the bus, before hiding his face again. His hands lost in his pockets. 
    
As I watch this little boy, I see my son. I don't smile even though it's a beautiful picture — problem is, it's 22 degrees out today. It's January 17th and this little boy is dressed for June 17th. His jacket is not a winter coat. His feet are in sneakers, not winter boots. His head is exposed to the snow falling.         
   
On that corner, in that tiny second, my relationship with Cradles to Crayons sprung. 
   
Cradles to Crayons is an amazing kids organization that helps get coats, clothes and more on kids who desperately need them. We recently raised $1580 for C2C with our first annual Two Birds  fundraiser. $1580 ensures 64 kids will make it through a cold New England winter with the proper coats, boots, clothes, books, toys and more. 64! 
  
What's "TWO BIRDS?"
It's simple—parents want a nice picture of their kids for their holiday card and less-fortunate kids need winter coats and clothes. So parents bid on a timeslot for a professional photoshoot with me and their entire bid gets donated directly to C2C. Two birds, one stone. For more information follow this link.
  
The amazing TEAM:
The fundraiser may have started as a small hope, a small idea, but it certainly didn't end that way. The studio was filled with an incredible team of stylists and assistants—all of them donating their time. The day was beyond perfect—we moved seamlessly from one shoot to the next. Nine shoots in six hours — that's 13 kids and 16 parents. Whew! The energy was real and the mood was spirited and playful. Each person I've listed below is deserving of the word "Amazing!"   
   
The producer: Kate Geskos
The assistants: Henry Hung and Meagan Beauchemin
The hair-makeup stylists: Heidi Wells, Coco Grace + Christine Morse
The wardrobe stylists: Christen Mitchell + Tara Peek 
Kid wrangler: Deborah Duffy
The studio space was donated by: Eric Kulin
The lighting equipment was donated by: John Curtis

The RESULT:
We were also lucky to have amazing families to photograph!! Here are my favorites — one pic from each of the nine shoots from the day. 
  

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

BeST purchase... bird feeder

(Yes, I'm blogging about a bird feeder. No, I don't care that you think I'm lame.) 
    
I've bought more than my share of birdfeeders—spent hundreds of dollars.(No really, I have, it's embarrassing.) But this is my favorite and it's the least expensive, $20, go figure. I bought it from the Mass. Audubon shop at Drumlin Farm. My one year old loves it — he sits in his highchair, next to the window and eats alongside titmice, house finches and chickadees. (I fill it with safflower seed.)  
   
Follow this link to a similar bird feeder online.
   

Monday, November 1, 2010

To Infinity and Beyond

My 3 year old son has been missing since Halloween. But I've caught glimpses of this guy  flying around my kitchen. 
   


Friday, October 29, 2010

Dash of Insanity

Not only was I lucky to have my photographs in this beautiful toy catalog, I was lucky to work with this inspiring person, Gisela Voss, Chief Toymaker of B. Toys as well. She wrote a really nice blog post about me—I think she called me a little insane... I love it!!!  
  
Click here to read her post. 


(click here to view an earlier post on the B. Toys photoshoots)




Tuesday, October 19, 2010

TWO BIRDS, ONE STONE Fundraiser

Give a donation. Get a professional shoot. It's that simple. 


Go to http://www.facebook.com/kimlowephoto for more information. 
  
























  
Follow this link to Kim Lowe Photography on facebook. Pick your preferred timeslot and post your bid amount as a comment under that time. It's that simple.  

Monday, October 18, 2010

BeST purchase... lunchbox

Yubo's lunchboxes! You can upload photos and make your own unique faceplates. I bought a bunch for my kids and as gifts! There might be a couple left. Might.  Check them out here.
  

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

TWO BIRDS Fundraiser: pretty please

Okay so we now have some of Boston's top hair-makeup and wardrobe stylists from Ennis coming on board for this fundraiser! Go ahead, read that again, I'll wait.... Yea, I'm pretty excited! 
  
(more info to come next week, stay tuned)

NEW WORK [ coming soon ]


Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Broccoli

Now I understand why so many kids don't like broccoli. They haven't had the real thing. 
  
I grew broccoli in my garden this year. Three adults stood around the kitchen counter last night gobbling it up—it was as if we had never eaten food before. The broccoli tasted like no other vegetable I've ever had. It certainly wasn't broccoli. This stuff was sweet and crisp, did I mention sweet! Please, please grow broccoli in your garden next year. I'm begging you. Call me in March and I'll even grow a couple extra seedlings for you. 
  
Here's the broccoli I grew from High Mowing seeds. But it wasn't broccoli. 


  

Thursday, October 7, 2010

TWO BIRDS Fundraiser: test shoot

The kids were wonderful and the shots are cute but the lighting was too simple, the background too empty...  I think I need to shake things up for the real shoot. 
    

Monday, October 4, 2010

DeCordova Sculpture Park

We visited the DeCordova Museum this past weekend. A volunteer sometimes hangs out making bubbles for the kids. These weren't your regular-sweet-little-delicate bubbles. These were monster bubbles—they were practically knocking kids over—kind of bubbles. They were sculptures themselves.  


He shared his solution and you better believe I'll be making this:
• 1 part Dawn (the original kind, not the ultra stuff)
• 10 parts distilled water (distilled is key)
• .25 parts glycerin (works better than karo syrup)




If you're a professional photographer and your website has more words on it than photos—either change your site or change your career. (I was an art director for 10 years so I'm a Know-it-all, I mean, I feel I can post about this sort of thing. My blood will always be one-part art director.)   
(2¢ post series is me offering up my mostly useless, sometimes helpful photo-ad industry tips. enjoy!)

Friday, October 1, 2010

TWO BIRDS Update: studio space

So the wonderful Eric Kulin has offered up his studio space for the fundraiser, Two Birds. I barely got the question out of my mouth before Eric said "Sure, no problem."  I'm amazed at how open, willing and generous people are. I wish I had started this project years ago—just thought it was going to be a lot harder to pull together. 
  
The location was the biggest piece in the puzzle for me. To be honest, I was beginning to stress—I don't have a studio space of my own and I didn't want to stuff people into the basement of a church or classroom. My thinking is  — people will bid more (donations will be greater) if we shoot in a really nice space and offer up a little star treatment to the parents and kids. Studio space: check. Now I need to harass some stylists! Know any free groomers? 
  
To all my art director and creative director friends, please check out eric's work:
  

  

Thursday, September 23, 2010

What's the big idea?

There's really no big idea behind my new promotional series. It's simple: when I shoot kids, I become them. I try to connect with them on their level because that's where the magic shot exists. So with this promotional series I wanted to say that—just without being so corny or literal.
  
"Dorkus Mallorkus" — the first of three (click on image to enlarge)
  

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Twelve

Do you remember being twelve years old? I've been shooting a lot of tweens lately and having the time of my life! I enjoy this age more now than when I was twelve.   
  
I remember my first perm at twelve (sadly). I remember 'Jack and Diane.' And I remember my first kiss. My "boyfriend" kissed me on the train tracks after walking me home from school. Cute right? No! It was a total mess, just bad smoochery all around. I also remember he told his older brother what a terrible kisser I was. His brother told my brother (they were friends—lucky me) and my brother told me. Really? This is what 14 year old boys discuss over cheetos?! I was devastated. 
  
Somewhere along the road I must have recovered.       
  



Tuesday, September 14, 2010

BeST purchase... Another Cookbook

Flavours by Donna Hay is another favorite cookbook of mine. Made this tomato tart this weekend. Yea, I guess you could say it was tasty—my husband and I ate the entire thing before it even had a chance to reach the dinner table. Oh, poor tart! The only thing I changed up were the tomatoes—I used Garden Peach heirloom tomatoes from my garden, which actually look and feel similar to a peach. They're beautiful! (bottom photo below)
  



A Blog to Follow

Love this! Very cool, very creative! Follow this link to maya-made. 

Monday, September 13, 2010

Candy Store

My vegetable garden is out of control. I'm like a kid in a candy store—every time I go out to pick veggies and herbs, I come back with buckets full. And it's not just quantity, it's quality. Everything is beyond delicious. I've never had this kind of success with vegetables. On the flip side, I've always been successful growing flowers—not this year. But that'll have to be another blog post entirely.
  
If you're interested, the only 3 things I did differently from the past few years:
  
1) laid out a bottom layer of newspaper then a top layer of straw over the entire space after every plant was transplanted in late-spring (this proved to be especially helpful with the heat and little rain this summer) 
2) fertilized one time mid-summer on everything (except the pole beans and carrots) with an all-purpose fertilizer more info here on gardeners.com 
3) used escar-go to keep the slugs and snails from continuing their wild dinner parties in my garden more info here on escar-go
    

BeST purchase... Farmers Market cookbook

"Fresh from the Farmers Market" cookbook/guide is a must-have in my kitchen. I use it regularly—have had it for years! Plus, great photography by Victoria Pearson.  

Zucchini

I think I was in my mid-twenties when I realized there really was zucchini in zucchini bread. Tried a new recipe this weekend, follow this link. 
  


Tuesday, September 7, 2010

The Perfect Imperfect Moment

I'm a mother, a gardener and a photographer. Not always in that order.
  
As a mother, I try to grow a happy child. As a gardener, I try to grow the perfect tomato. As a photographer, I try to get both of those in one photograph. 
  
But sometimes the ideal moment isn't drenched in beautiful late day sunlight or framed in a perfectly trimmed garden with every wilted leaf removed. Sometimes you come around a corner and find the perfect moment sitting in the mess eating freshly picked sungold tomatoes by the handful, even hiding some in pockets to snack on later. 
  
I'm a mother, a gardener and a photographer. In progress.


My three year old son, below, helping in the garden this past weekend. This makes me deliriously happy, can't help it. I know, I know, I'm not being my usual flippy self with this post huh?!  Follow this link to a great article on gardening with kids. 


Click on images to enlarge.  


1/2 Naked

Now how am I supposed to stay focused on my shoot when there's a 1/2 naked soccer team changing their clothes ten feet away?!! Hmm, young guys, all in great shape... "Yes, excuse me please, can you move your 25 year old butt closer? You're not distracting enough. Thank you." 


I did get a cute shot though — I was able to stay focused on the 1/2 naked 3 year old in his new big-boy undies
  


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