I just camne acrosss this hilarious website called AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com and thought some of you may enjoy a little laugh.
Can You Guess Which Is Not a DiasPhoto?
May 22, 2009 |
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The Heart Gallery: Helping Children
May 20, 2009
Last week I donated my photography services to the Massachusetts Adoption Resource Exchange (MARE). Organized by MARE, The Heart Gallery is a striking exhibit of portraits of children in the state’s foster care system in need of adoption. Most of the youth have been waiting at least one year to find a family to call their own, and include school-aged children, sibling groups, children of color, and those with emotional, intellectual, and physical difficulties.
The goal of The Heart Gallery is to raise awareness about adoption from foster care and to find adoptive homes for the more than 500 Massachusetts’ children who wait. The exhibit travels to various venues across the Commonwealth and permanent displays are in all four Jordan’s Furniture stores. We are grateful to Jordan’s for its commitment in helping to find permanent families for children in foster care.
Since the inception of the Heart Gallery in Massachusetts in 2005, 75 percent of the children featured are now with safe, permanent, adoptive families.
To view the 2009 Heart Gallery online click here. (DiasPhotos haven’t been posted yet).
The Heart Gallery will be showing:
June 8 to July 20: South Shore Plaza
250 Granite St.
Braintree, MA 02184
July 20 to September 14: Cape Cod Mall
793 Iyannough Rd.
Hyannis, MA 02601
How YOU can help children in need:
MARE is always looking to bring Heart Gallery portraits to new and exciting locations in an effort to raise awareness of the need for foster and adoptive families. Do you know of a perfect place to feature a waiting child? Maybe in your office building? Or a local church? If so, then contact Kristin Erekson, public relations and fundraising associate, at 617-542-3678 or at kristine@mareinc.org.
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The Secret Proposal
May 18, 2009
Even though it was a an unseasonably warm day in December when I planned to propose, it was still a New England winter day. The crisp air was clear and bright. My accelerated breath shot from my body like a steam engine. I think there is a universal exhilaration that happens when we put ourselves in this situation. Chances are usually pretty great that the proposee will say yes…. but you never really know. So often you hear stories of people who’ve been together for years, all of a sudden start shaking, knees buckle and knuckles whiten over the engagement proposal. I wanted to have several events planned through out the day which had meaning. Just a proposal and maybe dinner, didn’t seem like enough. I planned several events, each representing an aspect of our lives that I wanted to highlight.
The day began with the proposal in front of The Milky Way in Jamaica Plain, where she first walked into my life. She said YES, so we quickly scampered off like preteens at Disney World.
First stop, Exhale Spa in Back Bay, Boston. We attended a yoga class which represented the spiritual connection I’ve felt with my wife-to-be. We meditated on the happiness, the commitment and the entirety of what we we embarking on. The facility was clean, serene and simply amazing.
We then walked to Beacon Hill where we pampered ourselves with a manicure and pedicure. To all the guys reading, I only got the pedicure… that’s more manly right? : ) Anyway, that was to represent the comfort in life that I wish to experience together. Life may not always be massages and manicures, but we strive for the creature comforts that we’ve been blessed enough to enjoy.
We drank coffee, walked and talked about life. We laughed and loved all of the little moments. In retrospect, my vision of the experience was dreamy like a bright photo in soft focus. We then went to the Park Plaza where we celebrated rest! This is where I presented to her these Lily bulbs, seedlings that represented our future family (neither of us new that this part would come to fruition quite so soon) We made plans to plant the bulbs, and care for them as they bloom into beautiful flowers.
Then was the ever so important nourishment. Sorellina’s restaurant was absolutely delicious, refined like a fine wine, an epicure’s delight. We feed each other in so many ways, we were beginning on the right foot. We topped the night off with Sheer Madness a comedic performance at The Charles Playhouse, an appropriate location as we begin to truly play house.
If you couldn’t tell, this is me proposing to my now fiance. It’s been a long engagement because, the birth of our daughter put the wedding planning on hold for a bit. It was kind of ironic how within days of the engagement proposal, I lost my father and conceived our child. Life is a trip! I just came across these photos that were taken by a good photographer friend of mine Ava Hedayatzadeh, and felt the urge to share. The idea came from another friend of mine who wanted me to secretly photograph his proposal. Thus the birth of the secret proposal photo. The hardest question now is… who will photograph our wedding!
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Gluten Free Wedding Cakes
May 15, 2009
Gluten is hot… hot like a polar bears toes. But even though it’s not the sexiest topic, there are a lot of people with dietary restrictions such as gluten free diets, ask the Celiac Foundation. According the their website some 300 million people are allergic to Gluten.
Celiac Disease affects more
people than
Cystic Fibrosis,
Multiple Sclerosis and
Parkinson’s disease, combined! Celiac
affects children as well as
adults, men and women.
Yet 97% of people with Celiac
Disease go undiagnosed. If you have any other dietary restrictions such as dairy-free, vegan or nut-free, you may want to check out Kristen at Bella Cakes in Marlborough, MA. She has a really cute shop right on Main street. I was there last week photographing her in the kitchen as she worked on a cake. In addition to being really sweet (yes, the chef and the cake) she has a lot of attention to detail. I know some bakers will make you a nut-free cake for example but if there are nuts in the facility, that could be a problem. There are no nuts in this establishment. Having peanut butter and jelly for lunch… nope. Want to munch on some granola… wrong. No nuts. I would definitely recommend Bella Cakes to anyone looking for a wedding cake. I was also interested to find out that she has cake decorating parties for kids as well, I thought that was pretty cute.
Celiac Disease affects more
people than
Cystic Fibrosis,
Multiple Sclerosis and
Parkinson’s disease, combined! Celiac
affects children as well as
adults, men and women.
Yet 97% of people with Celiac
Disease go undiagnosed. If you have any other dietary restrictions such as dairy-free, vegan or nut-free, you may want to check out Kristen at Bella Cakes in Marlborough, MA. She has a really cute shop right on Main street. I was there last week photographing her in the kitchen as she worked on a cake. In addition to being really sweet (yes, the chef and the cake) she has a lot of attention to detail. I know some bakers will make you a nut-free cake for example but if there are nuts in the facility, that could be a problem. There are no nuts in this establishment. Having peanut butter and jelly for lunch… nope. Want to munch on some granola… wrong. No nuts. I would definitely recommend Bella Cakes to anyone looking for a wedding cake. I was also interested to find out that she has cake decorating parties for kids as well, I thought that was pretty cute.
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Our New Portrait Website is Up!
May 13, 2009
We’ve been working on our new portrait website for a little while now and are ecstatic for it to finally be up and running. For those of you who don’t know, we have a Traveling Studio. We come to your home or other suitable, convenient location to take portraits of you, your kids, or families. It’s always amazing to see what can be done at your home. Want to see what the photos look like? Check out our new portrait website here.
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DiasPhoto in D.C.
May 8, 2009
Our recent trip to DC to visit family was excellent. The weather was beautiful and the flowers were fruitful : ) We had been to DC many time but still found ourselves at the tourist spots searching for a good photo. DC is chock full of photo op’s. If your planning a wedding in the D.C., Virginia area, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about regarding photo locations.
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Hello world!
May 4, 2009Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
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GQ2
May 3, 2009
Congratulations to The Quinns! Their little guy is home from the hospital and fulfilling his role as GQ2. We took all of these family portraits and their home with our Traveling Studio. Everyone was very happy and easy to work with. Overall it was a successful photo session. Here are a few of the best ones.
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Mothers and Daughters
May 1, 2009
My heart is a tulip. It bursts with the vibrant colors of love and life. Reds, yellows and purples SRING! My child and her mother (as a child) This may appear as some kind of technical before and after photo but it’s not. These are photos of my beautiful fiance and my glorious daughter, taken at about the same age. The photo on the left was taken an undisclosed number of years ago (I wouldn’t dare post her age, I know at least that much) and a photo of our daughter taken a few days ago. Everyday I learn more about each of them and fall deeper in love with both. After speaking with my mother-in-law, I learned how my fiance’s disposition as a child was so similar to my daughter’s. Bright, cheerful, alert and amazingly happy in the morning. Like Mother… Like Daughter. Thank you to all the mothers and daughters that make the world a softer, loving and accepting place. If you have an old photo that you would like to have re-created. Give us a call and schedule a family portrait session with our Traveling Studio 617.930.4632 or email edson@portraits.diasphoto.com
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Why is Wedding Photography So Expensive?
April 30, 2009
Why is Wedding Photography So Expensive? I mean really… how much does it cost to take a few digital pictures? I understand the sentiment out there but the reality is much different. To have someone photograph your wedding, they really have to be a professional. To be a professional wedding photographer, they need to fully commit themselves to the job. That means a lot of things but what’s most important to the couple getting married is that they can trust their photographer. To build that trust we (photographers) need to do everything we can to be the best we can be. So what about the nitty gritty? What cost’s so much? The obvious costs would be:
- Assistants, at the wedding and in the studio
- Albums
- Prints and products
But there are other costs that if your photographer is aware of, then you know that he/she knows what they’re doing and a true professionals, things like:
- Taxes-professionals are not going to cut you a deal if you pay in cash because we have to pay those taxes regardless of what we charge you. 20% comes off of the top of your wedding payment, that’s big
- Health Insurance-this one is also huge, i.e $1000/month is not uncommon for a family
- Shipping-it really adds up at the end of the year
- Insurance-your photographer should be fully insured for accidents, liability and equipment
- Equipment-woah, these cameras are around $5K each, and you have to have a backup
- Advertising-a full page magazine ad can run over $7K each
- Education-being committed to the craft means continually learning i.e. trade shows, seminars, webinars, books, lectures, professional organizations, fees.
That’s just to name a few. There are even more costs but I’ll spare you the pain of listing them all. In short, if your photographer doesn’t charge close to the average (national average wedding photography cost is $2800) there is a good chance, they will be out of business in 10 years.
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