Christmas in Maine

I had a great time visiting family and friends back east over the Christmas week.


Our church had luminarias lighting the walkway on Christmas Eve.


I've always loved the dramatic lighting on the organ loft. That's my mom at the organ and my sister Janna on the bassoon.


Christmas morning we made brunch for everyone; this is the lovely fruit salad Janna created.


Ivan


No household should be without chickens roaming free on the front patio.


Zoe, the shyest kitty, held by the brother


Ruby, a foster dog from the animal shelter I photographed that week


Marggie


Stormy, the oldest cat; named so because he was found after Hurricane Bob of 1991


Solo, the youngest; a foster kitten from the animal shelter

Houlton

I visited my sister in her new hometown of Houlton, Maine right before Christmas. Where is Houlton, you ask? Follow highway 95 all the way north; if you've reached customs you've gone 2 minutes too far. She just started her first job there as a 5 - 12 music teacher, so I followed her around a bit in her schools.


Becca with her 7th and 8th grade chorus


An attentive chorus member


Between school assemblies I wandered downtown to the water.


I was amused by every kid in the front row wearing jeans and sneakers.


An excited audience member at the 4th - 6th grade assembly


The start of the annual teachers' rendition of "Twelve Days of Christmas"; can you be taken as seriously with antlers on your head?

Cyrena's Graduation

A couple weeks ago Neal and I headed to Indiana for his old neighbor's college graduation. We had lots of fun celebrating with everyone.


Neal's dad, Monte


Cyrena's neighbor, Jen


Grandma Bunny


Neal and Monte


The classic "shoot you while you shoot me" shot


The lovely graduate and her sister, Brittny


Grandma Edie


Cyrena with her awesome cat, Buddy, adopted from New Orleans after Katrina


Jen's cat who hid under the Christmas tree for most of our visit

Annie

I did some cat sitting my friend Sarah's wonderful cat, Annie, a little while ago. She's quite the photogenic little critter.


Atop a kitchen shelf, so she gets a perfect view of all the excitement around her.

Animal Welfare Society

I did a bit of volunteer work while visiting my family in Maine over the Christmas week: I headed to a local animal shelter to do portraits of all the animals for their adoption pages on their site. It was so much fun! There were so many animals I wanted to bring home with me. My mom volunteers for this shelter fostering mother cats and their kittens until they're ready to be adopted. If anyone in Maine is looking to adopt an animal, this is a really great shelter!
Animal Welfare Society




This little one I wanted to take home with me. Every time I'd bend down to photograph another cat, she'd walk right in front of my camera, purring as loudly as possible.


I loved the coat on this one; it looked like a stuffed animal.




Ladies and gentlemen, meet Bruno.


This little girl was visiting the cats with her parents.


My mom was my animal wrangler for the day; she was able to calm this dog down quite well.




This one was quite intrigued with my camera.


Along with cats and dogs, the shelter had quite a few small animals, such as this fabulous rabbit.




A cute little hamster yawning.


The rats were also quite adorable.

You can view the entire set here.

The wonderful Jaicks family

I had an amazing time shooting this family of four girls and each of their cats. It was a perfect shoot for me! The four sisters get along so well and were such a blast to work with. Their cats were adorable and very curious about this new person exploring their home.
























This kitty enjoyed hanging on people's shoulders quite a bit.